Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eleanor wasn’t surprised when she couldn’t sleep. To say that it had been a tough week was kind of an understatement. It had been a tough... always. She hated motels almost as much as Tahani- although, never before had the word ‘rustic’ been over-pronounced with such a potent combination of disdain and aristocratic horror. Long shadows bore down on her from the damp-mottled ceiling until they felt like the bars of a pine-panelled cage. Under her window, the wooden bench on the walkway outside creaked under a sudden weight. She listened until curiosity and insomnia coaxed her into a jailbreak.

The night air was a cool mask that slid over her face. Michael’s platinum hair stood out in the moonlight. He was snug, in a corner of the bench, his limbs tucked into one side, a daddy long-legs secreted in a dark nook under a sink. Funny that there always seemed to be a space beside him, for her, just so.

He sat very still, watching the leaves in the trees that lined the stream beyond the footpath dance in the breeze, smudges of forest green sliding towards black. She settled in beside him and drank her fill of the air, the night sky, the trees, and Michael’s familiar, solid presence until she felt somehow lighter and more grounded at the same time. She turned to him.

‘Can’t sleep? Wait. Do you sleep? I never asked. I just assumed-’

‘Uhuh. Sometimes. Don't really need it. Sleeping was frowned upon in, you know.’

‘Sure, man, whatever. I’ve seen you all unshaven with the crazy eyes in those memories. I bet you need more sleep than you think.’

She could practically hear his eyes rolling and it made her smirk. ‘What’s keeping you up anyway?’

He sighed. ‘Oh I don’t know. I thought this would be easier. Foolish, really. None of this has been easy.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just... you know.’

Eleanor nodded. ‘Yeah. Teaching like a ton of people how to be good is a ridiculous idea. Probably impossible. And then convincing them to pay it forward? Pfft.’

Michael fanned a hand in agreement. ‘We don’t know how long we have. Tahani’s money will only cover so much. She’s given away a lot already. Janet could organise multiple lottery wins but then that would raise suspicion.’

‘True dat. Gotta get us some Benjamins. You got any ideas?’

‘Not yet. I guess I was just hoping the great Doug Forcett would give us some kind of flash of insight that would magically fix everything. But he gave up drugs. Oh!’ Michael brightened. ‘Maybe we could trick him into-’

Eleanor punched him in the arm. ‘Um, dude. We are not poisoning some old guy who already drinks his own whizz when he’s not being bullied by Canadian Dennis the Menace. Besides, I don’t think any of this is supposed to be quick or easy. That’s probably like the point or something.’

Michael smiled, rubbing his arm, but it was a weary thing. ‘You’re probably right.’ He regarded her in the moonlight. ‘How about you? You okay? You didn’t eat much at dinner. Can’t sleep?’

She shook her head. Michael leaned closer. ‘Is it the thing with Chidi?’

‘Ugh. Drunk Eleanor sucks sometimes. I shouldn’t have said anything and now he refuses to talk about it.’

Michael nodded, the moonlight on his glasses glinting owlishly.

‘Well, you drink and lash out when you’re upset. Like that time you got loaded and filled Arizona Tech marching band’s brass instruments with rancid yoghurt and kombucha because that tuba player didn’t invite you on their booze cruise to Cabo.’

They giggled and Eleanor mumbled something about their practise room smelling like ass all year.

He tapped her knee with a finger, ‘You should definitely rethink that habit- the self-sabotage, crash and burn thing-’

‘Yeah. It made things weird. I mean we’ll always be friends. Chidi is Chidi. He’s probably right. It’s not a good time. He’s a different Chidi. I’m a different Eleanor...blah, blah, blah.’

‘Well Chidi isn’t known for his bravery.’, He lowered his voice, ‘Between you and me, he panic jumped off a moving carousel the first time a girl tried to kiss him. She asked first. He said yes.’ He widened his eyes and shook his head. ‘Anyway, sure he was uninjured but then that llama from the nearby petting zoo broke free and tried to eat his glasses while they were still on his face... and he was in the local paper ‘cause it was Valentine’s Day. Still hates llamas.’ He gave a high laugh. ‘Hates llamas. Imagine. I mean they're so fluffy. Oh man, you should've seen him in reboot 113...’

Michael eyes twinkled and Eleanor smothered laughter with a fist until her eyes watered. They watched the trees together for a while, listened to the shhh of the stream. Yesterday’s rain beaded the grass with opals. It felt so good to just breathe. Finally, she bumped his shoulder.

‘I’m up for the education and jobs plan thing if you are. Unless you have other plans, Mr Big Shot Architect?’

Her eyebrow arched in challenge. Michael grinned. The undercurrent of devious good humour hadn’t quite washed out of his genuine smiles. She thought if Little Red Riding Hood had made best friends with the wolf after the whole Grandma thing, he would probably smile at her like that after- as if he was a little shy about smiling for non-evil reasons. His gaze was warm.

‘A challenge with impossible odds? At this point anything less would be boring.’

She snorted in reply and suppressed a shiver as the breeze picked up.

‘Oh. Here.’ Michael shifted and wriggled out of his jacket, ‘You’re cold.’ A long arm draped his jacket over her and it settled, a toasty weight around her shoulders, smelling like summer rain and the air after thunderstorms.

He cleared his throat. ‘Wouldn’t want you to kick the bucket too soon. You humans are so fragile. The slightest breeze and you’re in bed, leaking fluids, taking weird cocktails of poison in a usually pointless attempt to get better sooner. Also, slightly related but really just out of curiosity: ‘kick the bucket’. What’s that one about? Who kicks a bucket when they die? Is it to do with dying while milking a cow? Is it somehow related to lactose intolerance? I “just can’t” with that one, as they say on the internet.’

He gestured with his hand like a Valley girl with multiple Snapchat accounts while Eleanor tried not to laugh and failed. She pulled his jacket closer around her. Today’s suit was royal blue. The blue ones looked best on him. She shook her head.

‘Man. I “just can’t” with this right now. It’s way too late. I’m gonna try and get some sleep- try being the key word there. Laters.’

She stood to stretch and held a corner of his jacket out to him in case he wanted it back. He’d already crossed a leg and was drumming his fingers on a knee, one rainbow stripe socked foot bobbing to a silent rhythm in its dress shoe. He waved her away. She shrugged and tried to smile at the prospect of eyeballing the ceiling for another hour. ‘G’night then.’

His foot stilled and he gave her an indecipherable look. What he was seeing she couldn’t guess-he’d made numerous pompous declarations about seeing in multiple dimensions in what she’d seen in reclaimed memories. Could he still do that here? Who even knew? He blinked and sat forward.

‘Ah. Yes, goodnight Eleanor.’

She turned to leave.

‘Wait,’ he said.

She turned back.

‘Don’t forget. Even if Chidi can’t... you know,’ he flapped like a drowning man, ‘The fact that you felt what you did, and you told him, made both of you better. So I know it must be- well, whatever. I mean it’s not eternity in the lava scorpion pit, that’s a real nugget-puller. But you-’ He wagged a finger at her, ‘You’re, well, you’re brave. Chidi struggles with things like puppies and muffins. Llamas. One day he might... that is, with time-’

Eleanor held up a hand. ‘Hey, buddy. It’s cool. You don’t have to make me feel better. He did say it wasn’t a good time.’

She chewed a lip, doing her best to leave it there. Her fists balled. ‘The kicker is though, we’re going to the Bad Place. This is literally the only time. Maybe he doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe he’s just too freaked out. Either way he won’t take the chance so it doesn’t matter, does it? I just have to deal.’ She gave a bitter shrug. ‘Maybe love was for other Eleanor and not for this Eleanor. Or maybe, and my money is on this one, maybe all love is is just really strong, bullshit temporary pants feelings and we would’ve realised that eventually anyway.’

She looked away and threw up an arm. ‘Either way? Next. And that’s cool. I’ve done it. It’s not happening again. That’s a hard ‘Whatever, thanks anyway’ from team Shellstrop.’

Michael sagged. ‘Yeah, sorry. I mean, you’re completely wrong, obviously, but what do I know? Still getting the hang of this whole “feelings” thing.’ He made air quotes with fake reverence. ‘Ten seasons of Friends only gets me so far. I even watched Party of Five and,’ He made a face. ‘Dawson’s Creek.’

Eleanor barked a laugh, ‘Ugh. That dude’s crying face.’

They tried to smile at each other. The sheer mileage of their journey, which Eleanor was only beginning to comprehend had been about three hundred years long, crept into her sigh.

There they were, living to fight through another day, still, bizarrely, hilariously, miraculously, (paradoxically?) leaning on each other. All six of them, sure, but there was something about hanging with Michael. Like she could be a trashbag and not feel judged- even though one large, cold ass cup of iced tea said he was not here to indulge her shit. Just as reboot after reboot said she had apparently not put up with his.

So she stood, swamped in his suit jacket, her fingers bunching the cuffs into her palms until the buttons bit, adrift and coasting on spit and vinegar and growing tired of the bitter taste. With Michael looking up at her in his shirtsleeves, sort of anchoring her with his zany warmth and care and strange magnetism, neither of them feeling the cold of the night on Earth.

The stars, unimpeded by light pollution, winked above them like timeless, curious eyes.

Michael looked away for a moment and took a breath, seeming to decide something.

‘So a friend once told me something that made me feel truly valued when they thought I was down. I’ll share it with you, in case it helps. Kinda seems like the right time. Who knows how any of this works? Let’s see. I’ll, uh, I’ll paraphrase...’

His hand came up to his mouth, tapped, and when it came to rest in his lap again he straightened to look into her eyes. Shadows fell away from his face.

‘Eleanor. I promised to help you and I will. However I can. If you want to look at a million rocks like a psychopath, I’ll be there. If you want to lay here and cry in your hoodie, I’m cool with that. Honestly, I don’t know how I can help you with this exactly because I’m, well, I’m not a human... and you’re this very resilient, very... unique human, but I’ll do my best. Eleanor.’, he took a deep breath and scrunched up his face, ‘I’m right here.’

For a moment Eleanor didn’t move. There was only the rising feeling in her chest of a balloon being inflated and Michael watching her with that look on his face, like he had decided to totally guess the answer to a question on Jeopardy and in a second there would be either mockery or prize winning. It was that out of place vulnerability in his big, stupidly bright, bottomless blue green eyes he got when he was trying his best to human correctly while maybe probably feeling things. Things he couldn’t understand no matter how long he’d been flaying carcasses or stuffing people or whatever it was he been doing since the days when people were still just squiggly blobs in pools. Weirdly, she realised, it was a look he got when he was wading into uncharted waters to try to reach her. Because he cared? Apparently.

It was exactly the kind of look that usually triggered her impulse to bruise. Except-

She crouched to wrap her arms around him and breathed him in, touching her lips lightly to his cheek, cool from the night air. He froze under her but after a second managed to rest a hand on her shoulder. When she straightened, his eyes were still huge in the moonlight. She looked at the ground before meeting his eye with a crooked smile. ‘Huh. Dummy. I said that didn’t I?’

He nodded, only just managing to close his mouth, returning her smile. His eyes scooted away from hers and back again. She grinned at him, pretty sure he was blushing. ‘Thanks.'

‘Oh. Mhm. Sure.’

She jabbed a finger at him with a half smile, ‘Rocks, huh?’

He sniffed and smiled broadly. Not a classic for show Architect Michael megawatt smile but something better- the shy wolf one that lit up his eyes. ‘Yeah. Not gonna lie, it was pretty funny.’

She smiled back and rolled her eyes, her hands crammed in the pockets of his suit jacket, holding them up in handfuls since they fell somewhere near her thighs. ‘Night, jerk.’

He replied with an exaggerated hand to his chest, as if she’d wounded him. She turned away with a single ha!, glancing back over her shoulder to see his eyes at her back. They exchanged small waves. She peered at him from her doorway before she closed the door. He had turned back, his profile a marble statue, meditating on the whispering leaves as if he was keeping watch.

Her room was colder than when she left it. The ancient thermostat wheel span with too much give- she was pretty sure it was busted. She did her best not to long for Arizona nights. Even Sydney would be better.

Under the covers, she burrowed into Michael’s jacket, telling herself she was still wearing it because of the cold and not at all because the smell was reassuring. Not because it reminded her that maybe there was no such thing as more worthy versions of herself, just endless mixed bags. That she could travel toward any version of Eleanor Shellstrop for three hundred years and no matter what happened, no matter how off course she wandered, there would be help and support, a way to somewhere she could mess up and try and she would still be reminded that in the sum of all her parts she was good, that she was capable, that she could trust herself. That there would be a space kept just for her. A broad shoulder to rest against, even in the middle of night. Because maybe someone knew she’d be awake.

Under her window the bench creaked again as Michael moved or left for bed. She turned toward the sound and drifted off.

Chapter Text

It’s Tahani who makes the connection that gets the whole School of Life thing off the ground. Tricky thing is, when she gets confirmation of the much sought after meeting, she’s flying business class to India with Jason to convince a tech mogul she met at the ashram to write a cheque with many zeros. So before Janet could say ‘Fun fact: Zuckerberg is already half in the Bad Place because digital soul trafficking is super wrong.’, Chidi was popping Tums at the prospect of meeting with a newly single, thirsty textile baroness in a few hours.

Eleanor fanned him with an obscure monograph on stoicism. Chidi’s voice was reedy with panic.

‘I’m sorry- how much money will she give us if she, and I can’t believe she said this, “likes us”?’

Eleanor winced. ‘Try not to think about the millions, think of it more as... I don’t know, meeting a sparky, older Tahani who’s willing to dig deep into her bottomless well of cash to help us change the world. She just happens to be between toy boys right now. You been working out Cheeds? Those biceps are-’

Chidi’s eyes screamed. Eleanor wrinkled her nose.

‘It’s on you, man. You make it too easy.’

He tugged on the buttoned-up collar of his dress shirt in an effort to breathe.

‘Kidding. You want some water buddy? You don’t have to come if you don’t wanna. Michael and Janet and I could...’

Janet filled a glass of water from a jug and handed it to him. He gulped it in one and held it out for a refill.

‘Thanks Janet.’

‘No problem-o, Chidi.’

Eleanor rounded the couch. ‘Seriously, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Sure, you could totally Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo your way to our cash...’

Chidi made a choking sound and held his glass out to Janet again. She refilled it and he thanked her in a whimper.

Eleanor patted his knee.

‘I mean, I’m sure Pretty Woman still ends happily, gender-swapped with a hot nerdy professor.’

Chidi massaged a temple. ‘How many romantic comedies did you watch this week?,’ he covered his face. ‘How are we even talking about this?’

Eleanor shrugged with a wink. ‘Meh, I’m a jagerbomb’s overflowing kind gal, and I believe in happy endings.’ Eleanor grinned. It looked as if Chidi’s brain was getting ready to crawl out his ear so she punched him lightly on the arm.

‘Kidding. Again. Damn, son.’

Michael chose that moment to swan in to their Toronto living room with several garments hung over his arm.

‘Okay. So Chidi, I’ve done a little research on what the hep cats of the 1970s- that’s when Tabitha Le Luc was in her sexual prime- wore to render you as attractive as possible to her. How do you feel about skin tight crushed velvet bell-bottoms and crocodile print platforms?’

Everyone stopped to look up and Michael paused, taking in Chidi sitting on the couch, his head almost between his knees, Eleanor with her hand on his leg in comfort, frantically making throat cutting gestures to Michael with the other hand, and Janet beside them both with a jug of water, wincing discreetly.

‘Ah. I’ve misread the room again, haven’t I? Are we not seducing her to get the money? Sorry Chidi. My bad. Hashtag ethics fail. I’ll get the Pepto Bismol.’

Eleanor made a yikes face and nodded. Michael inclined his head but lingered at the door.

‘I’ll just, uh, leave these here for you to, you know, ponder.’, he winked as he dumped a few garments on the couch and walked backwards,‘I will say that I think you might want to seriously consider that burgundy turtleneck. Maybe with the gold chain? The colour would really set off your eyes. According to Cosmo you’re what’s called a “Deep Autumn”...’

He clucked madly, clapped his hands together and left, whistling Work up the hallway.

Chidi rubbed his face.

‘Unbelievable. Do you know how unethical it is to-’

Eleanor cut him off, ‘Shake what your Mama gave you to literally make the world a better place? Don’t be such a prude, man. It’s not like this chick wants to get married. Gross. That’s probably the last thing she wants. A little temporary companionship is cool if you’re comfortable with it. She’s a woman with needs just like the rest of us. You’re both honest, consenting adults. God, you’re so ageist.’

‘What? I’m not- at no point did I- wait-’

Eleanor laughed. Janet looked at her with mock disapproval but couldn’t hide a smirk. Chidi groaned. ‘I really just walked right into that one.’

‘Look. If you’re not cool with it don’t come with us. No one’s asking you to be the femme fatale of this joint, Tahani said that since this chick’s husband ran off with that younger art dealer she’s all about light romance. Like a classy escort kind of situation. Would it kill you to hit her up for a candlelit dinner?’

Chidi’s head snapped up-

‘Or lunch? Like a super gentlemanly lunch. In a public place. With witnesses. Pants on, hands on the table, no funny stuff. With Michael and Janet and me like one table away.’

Chidi’s head fell backwards before he looked at her. ‘Fine.’

Eleanor mock fist pumped the air and held up a hand to Janet who promptly high-fived her. Chidi shook his head.

‘But only because this farce would be consensual, not undertaken with dishonesty and would genuinely make the world a better place. You guys suck. You suck so much.’

He poked at the pile of clothes, grabbed one from the pile and balled it into his lap.

‘I’m keeping the turtleneck. It’s a nice colour and wow this is really soft.’ He crossed his arms over it.

‘Sure, man.’ Eleanor patted him on the shoulder, quietly singing Tina Turner’s Private Dancer. Chidi glared at her.

Janet frowned. ‘Eleanor, that song is about an exotic dancer. Perhaps Roxanne by The Police would be more appropriate.’

Eleanor grinned and nodded vigorously. ‘Aw. You always got my back, girl.’

Chidi closed his eyes as he was reminded, through the medium of song, by a gyrating Eleanor and a clapping Janet, that he didn’t have to ‘put on the red light’.

Little did they know that Tabitha Le Luc wouldn’t be even remotely interested in Chidi.

As soon as she laid eyes on Michael, Chidi was off the hook.

*

Tabitha Le Luc’s grounds were extensive. Manicured lawns gave way to fountains and then grand, house-sized wrought iron gates. Inside, ornate shrubbery stretched politely toward the sky in green pompoms and verdant ovals on both sides of a never-ending driveway like a horticultural honor guard. The house was a rambling cream-coloured stone, clad in long bushels of ivy- bypassing creepy and haunted in favour of stately. In spring, Eleanor guessed, the ivy would be the kind that probably shot out little flowers.

Butlers trotted about, breaking formation to lead them down a long marble hallway, their footsteps echoing all the way up to a glass dome skylight. Michael led the way, behind a servant guide, up a tidy back staircase to a parlour full of brocaded furniture in filigreed ivory and duck egg, everything orbited by gilded side tables. The lady of the mansion sat under a long picture window with her back to a view of the lawns. A cocktail glass made a firm landing on a coaster as they entered.

Michael waited for everyone to arrive in one of his usual suits, flanked by a cheery Janet who had purchased a new 60’s stewardess patterned skirt suit for the occasion. Chidi ran a finger along the neck of his burgundy turtleneck and gulped. Michael gave his best showtime smile. Eleanor twitched because her good pants wedgied, but focussed on being a passenger for this particular trip.

‘Mrs Le Luc. Thank you so much for meeting with us.’, Michael began without breaking a sweat.

She looked him up and down. She was a willowy woman in her early sixties, her legs, clad in a white jumpsuit, were lightly crossed. She tugged a gold shawl around her, enough rings on her fingers to make a magpie seize refracting in the autumn light spilling through the window. She smoothed immaculately coiffed hair and her face split with a tight smile. Michael squinted at her eyebrows, cemented in place by botox, before his face switched back to its regularly scheduled programme: smooth, effortlessly charming. She preened.

‘Oh well aren’t you just delicious. Come. Sit by me, Mr Silver Fox.’

Michael hesitated, glancing at Chidi but obliged. The others shuffled closer, choosing seats after Michael. Chidi looked pointedly at a bookshelf full of expensive knick knacks but no books as if willing himself out of his body. Michael introduced all of them thanking her again for etc, etc, etc.

She watched without much interest.

‘What did you say your name was again?’

Michael cleared his throat in an attempt to up the wattage of his smile.

‘Michael Giveswell.’

She hummed as she span a ring around her finger, watching him. He said he assumed she would like to hear the details of their proposals for their international School of Life. She stretched.

‘Not really. I’ve got plenty of money. Actually, I’m earning an obscene amount of money in interest while doing nothing but gazing over the gardens as we speak, mulling over San Tropez or Mauritius this season... still can’t quite decide. I have homes in boths locations.’ she sighed again, ‘So I’ll give you the money, spare me the grizzly details. I’m fond of Tahani, and she says you’re credible. Or, that is to say, I’m happy to support her in whatever folly currently diverting her, the charming creature. However-’ She leaned forward and waited until Michael did the same.

‘I do need a date to my gala next week.’

She shifted back on her chaise lounge and for the first time seemed to consider the four of them.

‘I’m getting a bit of a reputation for toy boys since Howard made off with my best art dealer. Connard.’

Michael’s eyebrows lifted and he tried his best to appear interested. Chidi, who spoke French, squirmed.

‘I hate doing what’s expected but One does like to have company at these things. So you’ll more than do, Mr Silver Fox. So.... tall and yes, I think I wouldn’t mind getting my fingers into that full head of hair.’

She hummed again.

Michael’s mouth opened and closed and he squeaked something about ‘his friend Chidi’. She glanced in Chidi’s direction and watched him quiver and sweat profusely for a moment before turning back to Michael.

‘So, what do you say? I’ll have Jarlaith take your measurements and your address and we shall send you a suit. You’ll attend the gala with me on your arm, smile for the cameras, a scandalous, public kiss or two to stir up the press and that’s it. You have my word that you’ll get that cheque with no further demands on your time. Three million dollars for your foundation. Not bad for an evening’s work.’

Michael took a breath and gave her a toothy smile that stopped short of his eyes.

‘It sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.’

She tittered and gave his knee a pat. ‘That’s the spirit. Howard’s bald so this will should send his golf balls straight into the hazards.’ She barked. ‘I think I like you, Michael. See you in a week.’

Her pearl lacquered talon tapped a brass electronic bell on a side table.

A stiff, sentient suit who looked like he smelled something bad appeared at the entrance to the room. Eleanor eyeballed him.

‘Jarlaith. Take Michael’s measurements and address and have them sent to the tailor for the autumn gala.’ Her eyes slid to Eleanor, Janet and Chidi.

‘See that the others are offered refreshments in the snack parlour while they wait. And an unlimited card for Arriviste.’, she turned back to the others.

‘It’s in town, I trust you will locate the establishment and select appropriate attire. I’ll send invitations.’

She plucked her cocktail glass from a side table and tapped it with a nail at her butler. He bowed in reply. He rang a buzzer by the door.

Everyone looked at each other. Finally, the butler motioned to Michael who rose with an awkward half bow and left the room. They all followed. Eleanor caught his eye but he looked away, his shoes clacking after Tabitha Le Luc’s butler, Jarlaith, all the way up the hall. They were lead away by another butler, who materialised shortly after the buzzer, to a long, plush room full of finger food, a stocked bar and, inexplicably, two chubby straw-coloured terrier puppies.

‘Does she just have random room full of snacks and puppies?’ Eleanor made a beeline for the food.

Chidi collapsed on a couch and blew out a relieved breath.

‘Well, Michael seemed okay with how things went. She’s not so bad, right? A gala. Dull, probably, but harmless.’

Eleanor poked at a vol au vent and hummed, mulling over the look on Michael’s face, how he didn’t meet her eye when she tried to check in with him. Maybe she was imaging it.

A puppy lounged in Janet’s lap. It stretched and yawned until she scratched its belly.

‘Yeah. Maybe. He’s probably okay with it. I mean, it’s not like this chick expects much. He’s a pro. He can go through the motions. Right Janet?’

Janet cooed at the puppy and tickled under its chin. It sneezed and nibbled on her finger.

‘Michael is an immortal being of the infernal realm and therefore has likely never physically experienced any kind of affection- except hugging, with you guys.’

Eleanor stood up. ‘Wait. Are you saying he’s never-’

Janet set the puppy down, despite his objections. ‘I have no access to details about Michael’s personal life preceding his experiment with all of you but it would be reasonable to assume that-’

Michael appeared at the door.

‘Ok you guys, ready to go when you are.’ he gestured at them to grab their stuff and seemed to examine the ceiling.

They gathered their things, Eleanor rushed forward.

‘You hungry buddy? There’s like a ton of free food here.’

He shook his head, his gaze not settling on hers for longer than a second. The corner of his mouth rose and fell. He leaned toward the door. Chidi rose and Eleanor frowned, still cramming a handful of vol au vents into her bag. Janet patted the puppies’ heads.

The car ride home was quiet. Chidi dosed as Janet navigated back to their cheap, student-friendly Toronto crash pad. Eleanor stole glances at Michael who looked pointedly out the window, only speaking when Janet asked him about his suit for the gala they were now going to attend. Eleanor chewed her lip. Janet pulled up at the house and she and Chidi got out. Eleanor threw a hand across Michael, on his seatbelt, and leaned to shout after them, ‘We’re gonna to stroll over to Paolo’s, grab a few pizzas for later. See you guys in an hour a’ight?’

Chidi gave a single thumbs up as he opened the door for Janet. Michael opened his mouth and Eleanor shot him a look. She got out and opened his door, nodding toward the promenade.

‘Let’s go, Prince of Darkness. We're walking and talking.’

He only managed a token protest.

They walked in silence along the waterfront, the sun sending veins of glistening white foam and citrine up the river’s face toward the city. Eleanor watched him stroll alongside her, his jaw set, staring at the grass when he’d usually be waxing lyrical about how he was never quite able to capture the real beauty of water or flowers or grass or the sky in the Fake Good Place. (‘Oh! Cerise. Right. Not enough cerise.’) She stopped him when they got to her favourite spot, where you could see all the way up the river front, straight into town.

‘Okay, man, lay it on me. What’s eating you about this rich lady fake date? It’s the date part isn’t it?’

His head snapped toward her, gearing up to make all sorts of denials, but he deflated. He looked out over the water and sighed.

‘Have you ever... ya know?’ she kept her tone light, as if the question was probably ridiculous.

One shoulder shrugged in reply. Eleanor faced him.

‘Holy shit. I mean. How? No. Why? Donna totally would’ve jumped your bones back in the day. Sure you might have ended up with chlamydia and your credit cards would’ve been maxed out but-’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Look. Relations,’ he seemed to shiver at the thought. ‘Relations for my kind are, well, they’re violent. Limbs are lost. Or,’ he swallowed, ‘Appendages. It’s not... pleasant like it is for you humans. It’s about dominance and power.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Well dominance. That sounds-’

He huffed. ‘Dominance as in maiming. Permanent maiming. Usually it’s a power play to take out competition. My kind don’t have offspring, but one of you can end up with this parasite, this mindless eating machine called a niednagel. After months of using your guts as sustenance, it starts to eat its way out of wherever. Usually your stomach or your head, over years. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.’ he sighed. ‘So after an act that’s more painful than fun, one of you dies a slow, excruciating death.’ He looked around and then lowered his voice, ‘In the drafter’s hall this guy, well his desk was next to mine, he exploded all over my shoes. Lost an aeon's worth of paperwork to the mess. His niednagel was the size of a swamp rat... or a ‘Rodent of Unusual Size’? Anyway, it ate an intern’s arm before they captured it and put it to work with the others near the IHOP- that’s the Interdimensional Hole of Pancakes. Very bad, human eating pancakes.’

Eleanor gave her best yikes face and Michael pointed at her expression in agreement. ‘Exactly. Yikes.’

Eleanor whistled. ‘That doesn’t sound fun.’

Michael rocked forward on his feet. ‘It’s not.’

‘Wait. Ew. So do you make weird demon grubs with your...’ She grimaced and gestured toward his pants.

He laughed. ‘No! No. Once you’re assigned a human body that’s not- no. But then I was, uh, busy working, I had no time off to revise my thoughts on the whole...’

He dithered, letting her fill in the rest.

‘So you’ve never...’

He sighed impatiently. ‘Would you if you were me?’

Eleanor winced. Michael gave her a duh gesture. She watched him. He was attempting to play it cool, but if you knew him, there it was- the twitching instead of his usual vaguely goofy grace, the moodiness... It was as if half of him was stiff and the other half clenched. He turned away, his eyes traced the birds over the water, having their last hurrah before making their way toward settling for the night.

‘So you’ve never even kissed anyone and she expects a kiss in front of like a ton of people. She expects a date.’

Michael nodded, eyes wide.

‘You’re nervous.’

Michael scoffed. ‘Nervous? Eleanor I’m an immortal being capable of seeing in-’

‘A buttload of dimensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah heard that one more than a few times in those memories from before. Ya need new material dude.’

He puffed up. ‘It’s gross! Mashing your food holes together- for fun?’ He sulked.

Eleanor jabbed a finger at him. ‘Really, man? C’mon. You’ve watched our shows. You get that we feel things. Are you really telling me you can’t wrap that big dusty brain of yours around the pants feeling two people get when they wanna scale each other like my friend Dave’s cat scaled its scratching post after too much nip? I mean, you get hugs.’

Michael shifted. ‘Hugs are sanitary.’

Eleanor laughed.

‘Whatever, man. You’re nervous. That’s why you’re being so biz-natchy. I mean you could be ace, which is cool. QUILTBAG, forevah yo. Still, you’re new to this human crap. So the way I see it if- and that’s an important if- you’re cool with it, like comfortable? There’s only one solution here.’

Michael gave a look of mild horror. ‘Eleanor. No. We can’t burn her house down, send her to a remote location with a means to return, only very slowly, have you pose as her, steal her money and escape in helicopters before she gets home. Chidi would be so disappointed. After everything we’ve-’

She cracked up, gripping his arm to stop herself from falling over. ‘Helicopters. What? No. Weirdly elaborate. No, dummy.’ she waved him away. ‘You’re taking one for the team and you need ol’ Eleanor’s help.’

Michael looked sceptical. ‘I don’t think she’d agree for you to be her date. Her loss, of course.’

He gave her a conciliatory nod. Eleanor rolled her eyes.

‘Wow. A lot less amazing to me now that there were so many reboots.’

Michael crossed his arms. ‘Well if you would just get to the point.’

‘Ugh! I’m gonna teach you how to date. Then Imma teach you how to make out, dum dum.’

Eleanor gave jazz hands. ‘You’re welcome.’

Michael gaped at her. ‘With diagrams? Flow charts?’

Eleanor grinned. ‘Nope.’ She puckered and drew circles around at her lips in the air while wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

He blinked as if his brain was short circuiting. It reminded her of Chidi trying to choose between sweater vests in the mornings.

Michael stepped back twice as if she might actually bite him. ‘Eleanor, I’m... You can’t be serious-’

Eleanor stepped closer. ‘C’mon! Team Cockroach, Soul Squad. I’m all in. It’ll even be on the DL so you don’t even have to be embarrassed in front of the others. I got your back, man. We got this. Let’s be a fake thing.’

‘Thing.’ Michael squeaked.

‘Oh! We totally need a temporary couple name. Elichael. No! Meleanor. Ew. Do you have a real last name?’

Michael looked like he’d been punched. Eleanor only seemed to get more enthusiastic.

‘No? Oh would saying it like start the apocalypse or something? Spooky. Nevermind. Leave it to me dude.’

Chapter Text

The way to the pizzeria was tense but Michael eventually agreed into at least giving the whole dating lessons thing a shot- there was so much at stake, really, and what was he scared of anyway? He chose not to think too hard about the kissing because his throat was doing this thing where it started to itch if Eleanor sprinkled the mention of it too liberally over a few consecutive sentences. She was busy insisting that dating would be the same as hanging out but with more touching and closeness while his collar was definitely shrinking-

‘...hugging and sharing food and stuff. Nothing too crazy, promise. Baby steps.’

Gradually, as night settled, the evening equalised. At the pizzeria she chattered about her favourite spicy slice back in Phoenix, this one time she got free pizza on her way home by flashing the nervous guy at the late night pizza place her boobs. She said she wouldn’t tell him how she got mozzarella sticks thrown in free too. One pointed look from him reminded her that he knew exactly how she had gotten free mozzarella sticks. A raspberry sound in response illustrated the precise quantity of fucks she gave about that.

Back at the house, Chidi opened his door long enough to smile and accept two slices of pizza. He was up to the V of his sweater vest in papers for his temp job giving a local seasonal course on Camus’ Obligation to Happiness while Janet was compiling administrative structure plans for their schools in hers and reminded them, politely, for the millionth time, that she didn’t eat unless strictly necessary since it would only clutter her void when she went back on line, but she thanked them for the invite and told Michael she forgot to mention that she liked his shirt. They considered it progress that she sounded mildly irritated at their interruption and exchanged smirks when her door shut gently in their faces.

Michael and Eleanor assembled in front of the TV in their pyjamas, bottles of Orangina on standby. When they first moved in, Eleanor choked on her orange juice over breakfast when he wandered into the kitchen in an old timey white striped sleeping gown and cap- and called him Ebenezer for a week. The next day she marched into his room and emptied a bag of new pyjamas from this ‘awesome new Caldor only twenty minutes away’ out on his desk. By the time he realised what the mound of clothing was he was giving a surprised thank you to a closed door. Hurricane Eleanor had struck again only to spin away.

Even now, on the couch next to him, she was a petite ball of activity, burrowing under thick fluffy blankets while balancing pizza on a paper plate. She paused to high five him over his t-shirt, one of the ones she bought him: dark blue with bright yellow letters proclaiming ‘Ya Basic!’. (She bought him four others too: one with a bear wearing pixelated sunglasses and bowtie that said ‘Like a Bawss’, one with ‘Big Mikey’ on it and another with ‘Architects Do It Better’ and a plain blue one- he wore ‘Ya Basic!’ the most. He bought the grey sweat pants for himself to prove he wasn’t completely helpless at human-ing.)

Eleanor nibbled a slice of pepperoni. ‘Whatchya wanna watch, man?’

Michael hummed. ‘Something funny. It’s been a long day.’

Eleanor agreed through a mouthful of dough and cheese, flicking through Netflix. ‘This one’s solid. That movie doofus from the theatre in Tempe that I hit up for free movie tix over summer of Y2K ‘recced this. It’s black and white but I swear it’s not boring. It’s like a take off old Frankenstein and it’s comedy gold. You’ll feel good after.’

She drew her legs up and curled toward him, mooching until comfortable. ‘If I was having a crappy week, and if I was alone, I used to put this on and...’, she started quietly and then brightened. ‘Whatever. Anyway. So! Dating. We’ll start simple. Lesson number one: Closeness is important on couch dates. I won’t call it cuddling since that’s lame. Just think of it as learning to be physically chill pre-hook up. Ready?’

She tucked her toes under him and he jumped. ‘Oh. This is a... date right now.’ He said the word ‘date’ as if he was trying out his pronunciation skills on a foreign word with multiple syllables. He gestured at the two of them with his pizza slice, peering over his glasses at her.

‘Um, duh. Practised closeness. So you don’t panic punch Rita Rich in the face or anything when she goes in for the kill. Were you not listening before?’

He tried to calculate the magnitude of her wrath if he announced that they were out of donut holes which he should definitely leave to go purchase right now but gave a surprised laugh when her toes wiggled under his leg instead. She winked at him with a grin and pressed play. He grinned back, suddenly not at all uncomfortable.

On the screen, in black and white, a gothic castle sat high on a hill. Violin music started up. A bolt of lighting brought the credits.

She tossed her paper plate with its chewed crust deftly toward the carpet and tucked her arms under the blanket she shared with him. He watched her, sideways. He tried to be objective, sceptical about the whole experience. Experiment. Really that was all this was- a means to ensure he didn’t make a fool of all of them at the gala thing.

Anyway, he knew everything about her, so it was a safe experiment. Three hundred years as the Tom to her Jerry. But then this vantage point couldn’t be less controlled- as friend and confidant. He watched her tuck hair behind her ear five minutes in. He watched her smile at some jokes and guffaw at others. Of course, he found he already knew which jokes would make her laugh hardest so it was strange how he was warmed by just soaking it all in. Eleanor who was tiny but always ran warm. Whose toes were usually cold. How did a human function like that? Warm body, cold toes? Seriously? Ridiculous.

After she finished her pizza she rested her head on his shoulder. As the movie wore on, the slight weight of her settled more heavily into his side. His eyes skirted down at a snore. He stayed as still as possible.

His fingers started to tingle so he eased his arm up until it perched behind her on the back of the couch. In response to the disturbance, she shifted to claim the new space, resting snug against his ribs, her head on his chest, sighing in comfort into her fist, now full of his t-shirt.

His eyes flailed around the room. He was still enjoying the movie but if Shawn appeared in their living room wearing a pink tutu while dancing the Macarena, it wouldn’t have distracted him from Eleanor using him as a forking pillow. Oh he was lucky he had an eternal flame powering this body instead of a physical heart because there’s no way Eleanor would sleep through whatever was going on in his chest.

Side note: pathetic. A human asleep on him (without even a hint of terror, endlessly amusing how times change) and he was the one who was flustered. A miniscule human. No matter how... fond he was of her, it was silly that he would be so- He was only tired, getting tangled in the weeds. Too much change too quickly.

He forced himself to relax and Eleanor sighed in her sleep, stretching her arm around him, squeezing slightly. Michael tried not to hold his breath. In his panic, and no doubt due to some misunderstood and obscure instinct he’d picked up from being around the humans so much, his arm had moved from the back of the couch to curl around her in a weird sleep hug.

Gradually, he matched Eleanor’s breathing and he found he had relaxed. This alien sensation enveloped him as he watched her sleep, burrowed into him.

It was cuddling. He realised he was cuddling Eleanor Shellstrop.

His ex-torturee. Who had a handful of his favourite t-shirt, the most utterly delightful opposite torture he’d ever received. Not that he’d ever received any real ones before the fake Good Place.

Gift. They were called gifts.

The movie was ending, he could tell. It drew him in, but he wondered. Was he more like the doctor or more like the monster? Which was more monstrous? Maybe he would read the real book version again with his change in perspective. (He had been part of the team Shawn assembled to use the book as inspiration to torture the victims of that ill-fated plastic surgery summit in the Bahamas. Lucky for the Bad Place, kraken sharks had no aversion to silicone-infused humans on jet skis.)

Eleanor shifted, practically in his lap. He glanced down and then froze, shocked still by a wave of ferocious certainty that he would level dimensions if it meant a guarantee that she would be okay in the end. That she would make it somewhere safe, out of reach of the Bad Place. That he would obstruct or destroy any being that would do her harm. The knowledge wasn’t a shock- he knew already. But the ferocity of the feeling when there was no imminent threat on the horizon shook him. Why would he be thinking about that now? This feeling that was delicate and nuts and indestructible followed after the protective feeling and before he thought to stop himself, he reached down to brush hair off her face. The feeling stilled, almost in suspense. It didn’t feel strange or new but more like he was only just now seeing...

On TV, the movie credits rolled. He noted the angle of her neck and decided that the human thing to do would be to move his friend to her to her bed. Lifting her was easy, she was as light as an acid-breathing manticore larva. Not disturbing her was trickier. She groaned when he scooped her toward him.

‘Eleanor,’ he whispered, ‘lovely,’ -he’d heard someone call someone else that in a movie before and liked it, deciding to use it on impulse- ‘I’m just bringing you to your bed. No need to wake up. I’ve, uh, I’ve got you.’

Gingerly, he gathered her up in her blanket, trudging into the hall over cracked tiles and up the creaking stairs to her room. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and held on, nuzzling with her nose in a way that made his feet felt clumsy. He stumbled. Her arms tightened and he paused before continuing down the hallway to her room, letting his human eyes adjust to the dim light at the end of the hall. A worn rug that was once red and blue led the way.

Her room was all shadows and earth tones at night but her bed was the biggest in the house, something they’d conceded because, well, where else would Eleanor Shellstrop, unofficial team leader, sleep if Tahani wasn’t there to call dibs?

He eased her into bed and tugged the covers up, leaving the living room blanket on because, well, he figured it was kind of cold tonight anyway. Eleanor hummed and wrapped herself in the blankets. He leaned down and pulled the blankets over her shoulder. Her hand closed around his wrist and she tugged, her face tipped up, eyes still closed. He leaned down, thinking she wanted to whisper something. She reached up lay a hand flat on his cheek, eyes still closed. Her lips took his before he had time to think. He made a surprised sound and then his breath stopped. Her mouth, insistent, pressed into his and he leaned into her kiss, gasping once as he felt the heat of her tasting his lips, so softly it made him light headed. There was the taste of pizza, the saccharine of orange soda and underneath it all, her. So soft and-

She fell back into the covers and rolled over.

He blinked in the dark, light-headed and gulping empty air as the firework at the contact of her lips dissolved in the dark.

In a daze, he heard himself whisper goodnight. Then he found himself in the hallway, staring at her door which he must have just closed. He touched his fingers to his lips, which tingled. Further up the hall he heard Chidi pacing in his room. His stomach fell.

Chidi who Eleanor loved. Who helped her be the best she could be. He looked up the hall in an attempt to process the evening. Chidi paced. Michael rubbed his face and grumbled at himself about his history with experiments, trudging up the hall to stare at his own ceiling until close to dawn, weirdly haunted by the ghost of Eleanor in his arms on the couch, of watching her sleep. By the precise pressure of her lips on his playing on his mind over and over again. The nagging feeling of that none of the impact of it was explained by anything he had experienced before.

Insufficient data, he would have said into the recorder in his old office not too long ago. He frowned at the ceiling at the obvious solution to that problem between tossing and turning. There just never seemed to be a precedent that covered every outcome when it came to human stuff.

But maybe it didn't matter. This silly dating experiment would be over as soon as the gala was over. One week. Nothing more than a little speed bump on the road to doing good and a safe place for Eleanor. And his friends. There was a pang at the thought of what might come after but he shoved it aside. He watched the light change.

Chapter Text

Eleanor woke up really confused so maybe fighting with Chidi was inevitable.

Michael and Janet were out early driving to pick up Jason at the airport (Tahani was spending more time with Kamillah) and she woke way too early. The kitchen in the old house was always freezing. One snarky comment too many had Chidi asking her what her problem was.

Big mistake as she had many problems, many of them with him.

‘You refuse to talk about how we were in love before and it makes no sense!’

‘I said I was sorry. There’s too much going on right now for me to deal with-’

‘Deal with what? Falling in love with a Phoenix bad grrl? I call bullshit, Chidi. You’re embarrassed.’

Chidi sputtered. ‘I’m not. It’s just that with everything happening we should concentrate on the project. Can’t we just talk about this some other t-’

‘When?’

He rounded on her. ‘We’re not all as resilient as you, Eleanor. Not all of us raised ourselves from the age of fourteen and went it alone in the world. You are a very special, very infuriating person who I admire. Who is one of my closest friends. Who-’

She stood up. ‘Who you don’t love. I get it. Dude, blow me off if you wanna blow me off already, don’t make me embarrass myself.’

Chidi squirmed before slumping into his chair. ‘It’s just a complicated time, okay Eleanor? Try to have a little empathy.’

His head snapped up at his own words and he slapped the table. ‘Holy Kant, that’s it! Empathy! We have an empathy problem.’

Eleanor frowned. ‘Dude are you having a breakdown? Did I push it too hard? We share a bathroom now. No chilli peeps. ’

Chidi snorted. ‘No. Would you come in to work with me today? I think I have the perfect project for you.’

Eleanor scrunched her face. She woke up dealing with a super confusing situation of her own. Maybe this would get her out of the house.

She groaned. ‘I’m gonna regret this but sure, why the hell not.’

Chidi yipped. ‘You’ll be really good at this, this thing. Or at least I think you could do some real good.’

He looked at his watch and winced. ‘My ride’s here in thirty minutes. Would you be ready in thirty?’

Eleanor glared at him. Chidi hopped up with a grin on his face and moved to bring his egg cup toward the sink with it’s sad, empty eggshell skull. He paused to look at her and nudged his glasses up with a finger. She avoided his eyes with folded arms.

‘Eleanor. I’m truly sorry that I suck at this, really I am. I hope you know how much your friendship means to me and how highly I regard-’

She held up a hand. ‘Save it. We’ll always be friends, man. Okay?’

She brushed toast crumbs of her pajamas. ‘I’m not letting you off the hook though, nerd. We will talk.’

He nodded at her back, downcast, as she went upstairs to change.

*

It’s not that she was hooked immediately. It took a few hours and a few top tier horror stories from the group of teenagers’ past that would have Dr Phil quivering in anticipation of a good finger wag. Same crap, different teens. Only the geography was different.

One kid, long black bangs practically down to his nose, was living in a hostel at age sixteen because his father left a frozen pizza in the oven during one of his daily benders. The smoke woke the kid up and he tripped over his father, who was snoring face down on the living room floor, to get to the fire. He got a palm full of broken whiskey bottle for his trouble. As he picked glass out of his palm behind a locked bedroom door until five a.m., he swore he was leaving in the morning.

‘It’ll never get better.’, the kid said to the floor with a wobble in his voice. Eleanor hadn’t said a word yet, she was only supposed to observe but at this she looked up sharply.

‘Oh it gets better. It’s tough but you called it, long bangs. You got out in one piece. For me the first step was-’

The room was still and the teenagers sat forward in their seats as she told the kid about life with her parents, about the first night she had her own place. How being alone was scary but at least she didn’t have to worry about her mother waking her up either really affectionate or really angry. That finally she realised that she was the one who got to decide who visited- no more of her dad’s friends’ starving coyote eyes. No more raided piggy banks or presents from her grandmother sold for cute purses or cigarettes when she got home from school.

‘Once you get digs, the key to that place is yours and nobody gets in without your say so. Ditto with your life. You get to decide who gets in on that deal too.’

The kid sniffled as he looked at his battered sneakers and listened, eyes glossy.

‘Actually, look, I go to this pizza place near here. They have a poster up for jobs. You found work yet? I could hook you up with my man Barney. He owns the place and totally owes me one for this time he stiffed us on garlic knots-’

Before Eleanor knew it she was passing on contact details and accepting the world’s most awkward handshake from the slouching, bear-like teenager. He was rocking a hopeful Mona Lisa smile when he left, a bundle of brochures under his arm for library-run outreach courses next year and work experience placements and plans to come in again in a month for group counselling support. She watched the teenagers trickle out and was turning to leave when the college outreach office guy stopped her-

‘Eleanor, what you did back there- have you had training?’

‘Look dude I’m just a volunteer. You gotta give me a heads up if I’m about to scar someone or-’

‘No! No, it was great. I’m trying to tell you that you have good instincts for this.’

Eleanor squinted.

Outreach guy smiled and studied her. ‘Was all that true back there?’ Eleanor raised her eyebrows until he filled in the gaps- ‘Your parents?’

She squirmed on the spot. ‘Oh um. Yeah. Well. Let’s just say we were nothing like that lame Wonder Bread TV family.’

Outreach guy hummed. ‘Sounds like an understatement- well you’re clearly a very resourceful person, Eleanor. Hopefully someone has pointed that out to you before. Also, your insights, hard won as they were, are really valuable in my field. And you connected really, really well.’

Eleanor smiled reluctantly. Genuine compliments unrelated to her hotness were still a thing she was getting used to.

Outreach looked at his watch and cursed. ‘Staff meeting. Look, will you be here next week when the new group come in? I may be speaking out of turn here because I haven’t cleared this with anyone but I’d love to offer you a spot on our assistant counsellor internship programme if you’re interested. It’s volunteer work twice a week for an hour at first. But if you clear like, a summer of training there’s a path to a qualification. Eventually we’d offer pay. Not a lot but a little bit.’

Eleanor’s mouth fell open and Outreach laughed. ‘I’ve ambushed you. I’ll tell you what- I’ll drop some literature by Chidi’s inbox for you and-’ He dipped his head to rummage in the battered brown leather satchel on his shoulder. He plucked a business card from one of its compartments. ‘Here’s my card. I’ll mail you if I get the all clear- if you’re interested?’

Was she interested? She thought of the kid. The tears on his face. The idea of his tripping over his dad. Of him scared at his new hostel where there was fighting in the middle of the night… then the lightening in his shoulders when he was leaving the university grounds. The look on his face when they reminded him that he qualified for a scholarship if he could keep his head down in school, mostly that he wasn’t alone. That he was just a kid and he could do this with help. She did that. She didn’t have to dip too far into her own memories again to feel that if she had only had someone back then, anyone to tell her how things were that maybe…

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. Plato.

'Yes. Yeah I’m interested.’ She grinned and looked at the card. ‘Greg. Thanks, man.’

Greg smiled back. ‘Talk to you soon. Maybe meet you and Chidi for a beer sometime? As long as he promises to leave the moral philosophy in the classroom. I’m lactose intolerant and the last time I ordered a latte with almond milk I thought…’

She laughed. ‘Don’t listen to a damn word that nerd says about almond milk. That’s self-loathing you’re hearing.’

Greg scratched his head as he shook it, smiling. ‘Yeah. Well I’m late. Either way, thanks for showing up. You really helped today. See you soon Eleanor!’

He jogged toward the university’s old brick building where Chidi’s office was on the third floor. She bit her lip. It felt like a puzzle piece was sliding into place. She strolled back to the house with coffee and a box of donuts for the gang. Three hours later, an email hit her inbox with an offer. Eleanor Shellstrop had a path for doing good in the world.

Chapter Text

Michael and Eleanor orbited each other as they always did in the week leading up to Tabby Le Luc’s party. Nobody would notice any difference except perhaps Michael’s eyes tracked Eleanor across the room and he wasn’t as good at hiding it, or they grew light and twinkled when she arrived to breakfast where he had set her favourite jelly next to the bread and toaster before she got up, beside the pot of coffee freshly brewed and hot. Maybe he refilled her glass at dinner exactly before she thought to ask without even looking or put the ketchup on her end of the table because he knew she liked it as an option on almost anything salty.

At the same time, she took to bringing him home candy she liked as a kid: Twinkies, Hohos, Ding Dongs, Nerds, Pez, Blow Pops, and Twizzlers were slapped unceremoniously into his hand with a ‘Wrap your lips around that, Hellboy.’ And once, to really blow his mind, Pop Rocks. Although, Michael was sorely disappointed when the myth about the intestine-dissolving power of Pop Rocks and Pepsi proved untrue. Then there was the increase of her hand lingering on his arm, the hug or two before she left to ‘hang with the kids’, a.k.a. volunteer. At first he found it disconcerting when she did it- it did this thing like too many margaritas- but he grew to feed off the pleasant afterbuzz. It left him feeling warm, cared for, even important. Singled out.

In keeping with the theme of fun stuff Michael hadn’t yet tried, Eleanor lobbied Chidi hard for crazy golf on the weekend. Using a clever mix of guilt tripping and the cashing in of volunteer youth group counselling brownie points, Eleanor ensured Chidi snapped like the brittle boned scholar he was. Jason wanted to go, once Eleanor explained what crazy golf was (i.e. not dredging ponds on fancy golf courses for balls and then cashing them in in their ticket offices), but Janet reminded him they were going to the mall to buy him winter clothes.

(He had asked her only ten minutes previous, over breakfast: ‘Janet you’re like the smartest, prettiest, nicest lady I know. You understand winter. I don’t. Why it gotta be so cold here? In Jacksonville, in summer, we made egg tacos on Pillbois’ trailer roof by the swamp this one time before this crocodile tried to eat me when I fell of into the water but he didn’t, ‘coz Pillboi threw the hot pan at him and I escaped and then I was like oh dip summer is awesome...’)

He gave a sullen ‘Oh yeah. It is cold.’ and Eleanor smiled and winked, whispering ‘Get it girl.’ to Janet who couldn’t actually blush but who did the all-knowing compendium of universal knowledge equivalent. Chidi sighed and agreed that the three of them would play. They bundled up, grabbed hot drinks and were on the road.

 *

Once, on one of his sober days, her Dad took her for a day out. At the end of the day, he tucked her in, ruffled her hair and said, ‘Happy birthday kid. Don’t ever say I didn’t do nothing for you.’

And she hadn’t, but as days with her Dad went, it was the only time he had done anything with her. She could almost smell the decaying plants of the brown, flat lake wafting in over the deep fried sad sack cheer of budget family vacation as it hit her through the busted window of their wheezing car. Kids would hop the fence and trek through the course on their way to the abandoned mall with skateboards tucked under their arms, on the way to skate, smoke and smash stuff.

Behind her eyes, honeyed by the sun, was her dad fishing coins out of his pockets, so many pennies that an adult might be embarrassed. But he wasn’t and she wasn’t. She was nine and her mother’s weekend away with her girlfriends in Cabo had extended into two weeks so her dad was bringing her out. The thing with his loan shark wouldn’t be ‘til later, when they got home. Which wouldn’t be home for long.

She didn’t remember much bout the golf. Her dad may have snapped a cheap club when he missed a shot. There she was, waiting for corndogs at the stand, pogo-ing on one foot, tugging on her dad’s hand. The smell of grease and salt and mystery meat in batter as physical a thing as the tepid oil dribbling down the ridged stick onto her thumb. Her dad nodded at the red plastic squeezy ketchup bottle on the counter and winked at her. She grinned, winked back and slipped it into her pink backpack. She ate it on stale Saltines for dinner, later, after he passed out.

She jerked awake as Chidi pulled into the parking lot.

 *

‘This isn’t real golf.’ Michael said looking around the course at weather beaten novelty windmills and a repurposed wack-a-mole set up.

‘Duh, genius. It’s crazy golf! What did you think it was gonna be?’ She gave him a tah-dah with her hands. He squinted at her.

Chidi chuckled. ‘Ah. Crazy golf.’

Eleanor gave an enthusiastic nod. She handed him a putter and led them both around the first hole (mini conveyor canal system through a garden gnome village), talking them through the game. Michael continued to look at her like she’d lost her last marble until it was his turn. He shunted his ball over a group of gnomes where a floating lily pad deposited his ball neatly into a water spout. He gave a surprised yelp of victory and threw his arms in the air. She couldn’t help a giggle at his delight and conceded a high five.

Chidi hit crisis point on their next hole after thirty minutes of deciding whether to putt toward the water or into a tunnel pipe system. Eleanor calmed him down by promising to meet him back at the house with food after she and Michael grabbed an Uber when the game was over. Chidi admitted defeat and a yearning for the table of contents in one of his books while rummaging for his car keys.

Chidiless, and five holes later she was missing snacks while Michael scratched his head- ‘Ah so the windmill scoops it over there and...oh! So utterly nonsensical yet oddly satisfying.’

He looked at her for shared enthusiasm but she sniffed. ‘Aw it’s not the same without corndogs. I bet you’d dig those. They’re terrible, obviously, but delicious.’

He leaned on his golf club and smiled, looking lighter than he had in days. ‘Can we get some?’

She laughed. ‘I did see a fried crap stand near the entrance. You wanna?’ Michael grinned.

She waggled a corndog out to Michael with glee, already chowing down on hers. He raised an eyebrow as he took it and gave it a sniff. Then he just watched her eat with a half smile.

She paused, mid chew, ‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s just-’ His eyes shifted down at the corndog and then back at her. ‘Sometimes I forget how much fun all of this is.’

She stopped eating. The serious look on his face made her lower her corndog. He waved her away in an attempt at nonchalance. ‘I don’t know. You know, whatever, the hanging out. Anyway. Uh, thanks. For the corndog.’

He gave a small smile. She gulped and did her own waving away. ‘No prob. Dude it’s only a corndog. Really. Try it.’

She gave another nervous laugh. A dopey smile spread across his face. ‘Here goes nothing.’ He sniffed the corndog and grimaced before taking a bite. ‘Ha!’ He clapped his leg with a grin. ‘Wonderful. It’s truly awful. What kind of meat is it? Nobody really knows. Just great.’

He laughed some more and she joined him. She shook her head. He linked his arm through hers and nodded back toward the course.

‘Wanna play more crazed golf before heading back?’

She laughed again and dabbed an eye. ‘Crazy golf. Sure, Mom. I’ll lead the way.’ She squeezed his arm and she swore she felt him preen a little at the squeeze.

They trekked over to the lazy animatronic snapping alligators where she had herself a hilarious front seat to just how much of a giant baby Michael was when he lost. At least funnel cake took care of that. He clapped his hands together as her victory dance died down.

‘Okay, okay, so I’ll have to work at nutty golf. But since it’s only a parody of a real game I don’t see how it matters anyway.’

She snorted. ‘Man, you’re very bossy for an immortal whatever who is such a huge baby about losing.’

Michael sniffed. ‘Anatomically incorrect plastic alligators are hardly worth aspiring to defeat.’

‘Oho! But defeat you they did.’

His jaw tensed. She punched him on the arm. He side-eyed her. ‘You’re such a big baby,’ she chuckled. His side eye turned into a puzzled frown.

He shifted on his feet and smirked, wagging a finger at her. ‘Hmph. I used to be terrifying you know. Terrifying.’

She hid her amusement with a nod behind a hand. He looked like he was trying to divide all the prime numbers at once. His watch beeped. He looked down at it. It was a Skeletor watch she bought him as a joke after he made a comment about humans without skin in a fond tone that would be chilling in ordinary circumstances. ‘We should probably go I guess. We promised the others pizza. You know how Jason gets if he doesn’t eat. He gets bored and things get broken.’

Eleanor looked at the time on her phone. She dithered. She pictured going back home to all the others.

‘Bah, they’re grown ups. Hey, did we pass one of those ball pit places? It’s probably like a fifteen minute walk. We can’t do the kid stuff but I bet they have one of those cushiony gladiator things there. Let’s go! The faster we get there the sooner I. Kick. Your. Ass!’ Eleanor said.

He laughed with delight and fell into step beside her. ‘Will they have more fried crap?’

She laughed. ‘Sure, man. You gotta promise not to make yourself sick though.’

He waved her away. ‘I have an excellent constitution.’

They made their way up the shoulder of a main road toward the lights of Tommy Cheez and he turned to her.

‘Sorry if I was a ‘sore loser’. I didn’t have much practise, uh, with friends and games in what you’d call my youth. But you probably guessed that already. We used to play this game, ‘Where’d You Get Those Peepers?’, you know, like the song? And you’d find these eyeballs all over the place. Stepping on them was the worst. Wreaked havoc with my twice yearly sleeping arrangements, they used to stuff hundreds of them into pillow cases and- ah, I’m rambling. Nevermind.’ He dismissed his point with a hand.

She snorted. ‘Gross, man. You know, sometimes you make zero sense.’

He raised an eyebrow at her. She inclined her head and a sharp breeze swept highway dust at them.

She smirked. ‘But you fly your freak flag. So I dig it.’

He smiled so widely and she had to turn away. ‘Hey, thanks for sharing the your only happy memory of your father with me.’

She turned to him, tense, ambushed and ready to spit and claw like a cornered cat, entrapped into revealing its soft, creamy underbelly.

There was this fury that was her constant companion and protector, always on standby. She geared herself up for it- the fangs of anger, the raising of hackles, the- Michael looked back at her as they walked, earnest, his offbeat brand of absurd charm setting the crookedness of his smirk, and not for the first time in his presence she just felt... neutralised. Safe. Content. At home. Like up until just now the world had been stroking her fur against the grain.

His profile was marble in the daylight, incongruously distinguished looking walking up a main drag about a block from a zany children’s activity centre called Tommy Cheez. So instead of shanking sincerity in the face with a well-placed, devastating verbal jab she gave him a watery smile, a single nod. Her arm tightened in his as they trekked toward neon lights.

 *

‘How is this fun?’ Eleanor laughed hard at a glassesless Michael struggling in polka dot dress socks on a bar above a ball pit, padded battering ram like an oversized Q-tip in hand, trying to advance toward her to knock her down. The sight was so hilarious she almost toppled over. Michael caught her laughter and shuffled closer. They both found it tricky to stay upright but Eleanor was determined to go head-to-head. The place was almost empty so at least their shame wouldn’t be too public.

‘Imma mess you up, son!’ Eleanor shouted.

Michael giggled. One of his demented giggles. The sound of certain doom if ‘doom’ was an oversized, sentient, previously wicked cuddly toy in a button down. And a cocky grin just asking to be removed.

‘Oh I like this already.’ he said, grinning. ‘You don’t stand a chance.’

She shook her ass to stabilise and they inched toward each other. She squinted and chose a point of impact. He looked at her as if she was a particularly cute feisty puppy yapping at his heels.

‘Eleanor, come on, you do know you’re significantly smaller than me so any sort of physical confli-’

Whomp!

Eleanor flew at Michael’s long legs. All he could do was grab her as they soared down into the ball pit. Balls rushed in over her laughter, displaced by their flailing limbs. He tried to right himself like a beetle on its back as she dug her fingers into his shirt and scrambled upwards to pin him. Her face appeared above his, rosy-cheeked and delighted in a sea of multi coloured plastic balls rushing to fill any visible space. She declared herself the winner.

Michael made a face, tried to roll over to stand and when he found he couldn’t and that she was tickling him, he started laughing hysterically. Eleanor laughed harder, going limp on his chest. She caught her breath, pointing at his face and blotting tears from his cheeks with her sleeve. Balls in crayola colours settled around them. Michael gasped for air.

‘I’ve laughed so hard my eyes are leaking!’

She laughed. ‘Pretty great right?’

He nodded, beaming at her. She smiled back. She brushed his cheek again with her sleeve and for a moment they just stared at each other, flushed and happy. Michel tried to sit up and sank deeper.

‘Hold up,’ she said, ‘there’s a knack.’

She rolled and shimmied out, extending a hand. He grabbed a hold and pulled. He cackled as she tumbled back down next to him. Sure it was cartoon sinister, his cackle, Eleanor thought, but it was contagious. They both lay there, laughing for another minute. Then, in a flurry of gangly limbs, Michael managed to get out and wiggled his hand at her. They dusted themselves off and Eleanor sniffed the air.

‘Ever tried churros?’

He shook his head and asked what they were.

‘Kind of a deep fried donut stick rolled in cinnamon sugar. Or you can get it with other stuff. Cheese. Chocolate. Anything.’

He snorted. ‘Sound terrible. Can’t wait.’

He offered her his arm and she looped hers through it. She paid for churros and ordered an Uber. Thirty minutes. Downside of tearin’ it up in the ‘burbs- longer wait times, she figured. When they got to a bench outside near the turn off, she laid out the different churros between them and handed him a napkin and a churro in a paper tray.

He bit into his. ‘Oh I actually like this one.’

‘I know, right?’

‘It comes in chocolate flavour too?’

‘Check.’ She held out another paper tray.

‘Mmmph. This is delicious.’ He shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

‘I smell another one. What is that- cheese flavour?’

She wagged the one she was eating at him.

He bit the end off. ‘Gah. Repulsive. Not in a fun way.’ he dismissed it, ‘How about the first one again?’

Eleanor laughed. ‘You’re going to give yourself a stomach ache, dude.’

His lower lip stuck out. She nibbled a churro while looking on in amusement as he demolished his. Like a Gremlin after midnight. A short burp and sheepish apology came from beside her followed by the sound of a stomach gurgling. Michael patted his stomach and apologised. He looked the opposite of sorry.

She shivered. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her, shushing her protests with a hand as if they were mosquitoes trying to come in for a landing. She scooted closer to him on the bench and leaned against him.

‘Good job on date two. It was pretty epic right?’

He covered a look of surprise with a little smile. She wriggled until he put an arm around her. They watched the sunset painting the windows of the cars rushing by in flaming orange and pink.

Eleanor hummed. ‘I don’t remember sunsets this pink in Arizona. Is that like a thing where sunsets are different colours in different places?’

He shrugged. ‘Could be pollution, that effects sunsets. But I don’t know, could be your memory- real memory isn’t like Janet’s machine. Every time you remember something it changes.’ He looked at her, ‘Literally. With each recollection you get something ever so slightly wrong and your memory is essentially recorded over. That’s the thing about you humans. You tell yourself these stories about who you are based on these ‘defining' memories and sure, the gist of what you remember is probably right, but you’re adding to a myth. Redrawing maps of your past like Chidi erasing text on a blackboard and writing stuff that’s similar but inaccurate over it.’

He blew out a breath. ‘Anyway, sure memories are important but basing your entire life on what’s left on that blackboard is madness. All those copies of copies of copies, all those rewrites, every single time you remember...where’s the room for who you are now? For who you choose be every day?’

Eleanor gazed out at the highway and flicked a pebble off the bench. ‘Huh, deep. So Chidi’s John Locke argument is right but also wrong. ’

Michael pretended he knew what she was talking about with a hum. She drew a line in the dirt with her sneaker. ‘Is your memory like ours?’

Michael sighed. ‘No. I remember everything. Clearly.’

Eleanor turned to him. ‘What’s that like?’

Michael thought for a moment and looked up at the clouds before looking back at her. He wore a sad half smile. ‘Kind of great and kind of terrible all at the same time.’

‘Huh. Same.’

They looked at each other and there was a strange peace. Cars rumbled by. Eleanor reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of water. She took a swig and held it out to him, along with his jacket.

‘Second date’s almost over, man. You know what that means.’

He shrugged back into his jacket and then drank from the proffered bottle of water with a frown.

Eleanor stood up with a wicked smile. ‘First base.’

She slid her hand into his and tugged until he stood too. He gulped.

She stepped into his personal space with purpose and he stepped back, nearly falling back onto the bench.

She crossed her arms. Really?, she said with her eyes. She stepped forward again.

His eyes darted but he held his ground. ‘You want to uh, now?’

She cleared her throat and smiled a little too brightly, nodding. His eye was drawn to the way the V neck of her periwinkle sweater slid over her collarbone to the edge of her shoulder. He did his best to will himself to say something. Anything.

She looked up into his face he watched uncertainty pass across her face like a cloud over the sun. Her usual cocksure smile returned as if it had never faltered. ‘Okay.’ she said.

She got closer until the warmth coming off her body hit him in gentle waves. He caught the faint apple scent of her shampoo. The breeze picked up her hair. Dusk’s glow on her skin made Michael’s throat weirdly tight. Peaches. Why was he thinking of peaches? He fought panic. Once Eleanor got an idea, she was impossible to discourage. He should definitely communicate how terrible an idea this was. He knew, if he said that she would listen. It had gone far enough. He should speak up. Stop this before it got out of hand. Last time she was probably dreaming. This time it was real. Eleanor had a leagues-wide reckless streak, but kissing a demon on purpose was surely a step too far. If she still had any hope of getting into the Good Place-

Her eyes locked on his. Glittering topaz. He knew that look. Classic immovable Eleanor, steam-rolling ahead. Amazing. He floundered. She winked.

‘So first put your arm around me. Loosen up. You have to be able to hold a person. It’s all about chemistry. We covered cuddling.’

Her voice took on this velvety quality as she mentioned cuddling. Blood thrummed in his ears with her so close, looking at him with the kind of intent he’d only read about in her file. Weird things were happening in his stomach.

‘Chemistry?’ he heard himself say, a world away.

Curiosity was stronger than self preservation it seemed. He had an inkling of what was about to happen and the experience was very difficult to process. He had made of point of trying to put it behind him, figuring she would forget about this kiss thing. Then again, maybe he should investigate it. It wasn’t like she wanted to kiss him. Or that she ever would again, after this week. He ignored a twinge. It wasn’t that he had always been curious. This could be a learning opportunity. This human experience. With Eleanor. Eleanor who was looking up at him.

He tried not to watch too closely when she worried her lip with her teeth, although it was happening less than a foot from his face. His fingers twitched.

‘You can’t make up chemistry but let’s see if this works...’ she nudged him with an elbow. ‘Put your hand on my lower back, just above my ass. You have to look at me. Like look at me.’

Michael hesitated but was met with challenge in Eleanor’s steady blue gaze. He placed his hand delicately on her lower back and she stepped in to him until they were flush, lightly, her shoulder to his chest. She looked up.

‘Good.’, she whispered, her face tilted up to his. She swallowed. ‘Hold me tighter.’

He tightened his grip. ‘Eleanor. This is a bad idea.’, His voice barely came out. He was having trouble breathing normally for reasons that were unclear. He watched her eyes intently for any signs of that squirrelly look she got when she was being self destructive. Nothing but deep blue. And green. Shimmery, with depths like the lake on a sunny day in his Fake Good Place.

He breathed deeply. ‘You know what I am. You’re not going to regret this?’, he said in an even smaller voice. She blinked and leaned into him before smiling again. There it was- that pasted-on smile. But underneath that, something else. Something trembly he couldn’t identify. He frowned. The trembly thing pushed the pasted-on look aside, softening her smile. She reached up and fiddled with his shirt collar, and then tilted her face further up toward his.

‘Regret helping a friend out with this teeny tiny thing? Nah.’

She let go of his collar and settled a hand on his chest. Michael’s hand spanned almost all of her back and he tried not to be overwhelmed by the heat of her skin under his palm, separated from his only by the thin fabric of her high-waisted pants. Eleanor usually didn’t wear underwear- a fact that meant nothing when he read it in her file but one that, remembering now, seemed to take on this significance that produced a wobble that only made the stomach feeling more pronounced. What even was that? He was in over his head. Usually there was time to research and run multi-million point plans before embarking on brazen experiments. What if she hated him later like that Pasadena Tony? What if he-

Eleanor had started rubbing his back in circles with one hand, a patient half smile on her face. He must have been visibly freaking out because she looked... not annoyed but fond happy annoyed? He searched her eyes.

‘Apart from the regret you might feel, I just don’t want... I’ve never done this before and I know you don’t remember me beyond a bunch of months ago but in case this is a disaster and you don’t want to speak to me again, you should know that you’re... next to Janet, after all the reboots, after everything, it’s always been you that has been my confidant. My best human friend.’

Eleanor was about to reply but she stopped. Her hand curled around his and squeezed. She looked down before looking back up at him. Her eyes glittered.

‘In a weird way, it’s kind of mutual, man. It’s been intense. You’ve really been there for me- not something I’m used to. Huh, you know that I guess. So let me do this for you. First kiss. That’s kind of an honour.’ She smiled and there was this weird, soft joy in it. ‘I’ll go slow. Promise. Besides- aren’t you curious?’

Her eyes flicked to his mouth. He took a shaky breath. They held each other as if they were about to dance. Later, even though none of it was a conscious decision, he'll pinpoint it as the moment he gave in, allowed his body to soften to hers. He flinched when she brushed his jaw with her fingertips. His hand hovered over her cheek. She smiled and nodded and he let it settle to cup her face, the way he’d seen humans do on TV.

He whispered ‘Okay.’, as he traced her cheekbone with his thumb, hypnotised. She stretched to meet him, her eyes never leaving his. She moved closer and paused to give him time to change his mind. He watched, his eyes searching for a sign that this was wrong. That he shouldn’t- Her hand slid up and cradled the back of his head, fingers slipping into his hair to pull him down. His eyes fluttered at the feeling of her nails grazing his scalp. Oh. That was-

When their lips met, he was startled again by the how soft she was, how warm. For a second they were still and her proximity was a sensory loop that amplified over and over and over and her lips pressed into his and moved gently, the tip of her tongue shot out and her mouth slid, hot and slick, over his top lip and he held her tighter and she sighed and he oh he wanted to make her sigh like that again and she did that thing with her tongue again and then he sighed and and he cradled her and her hair was silk, had he really not touched her hair before? And he could do that thing to her top lip too and she caught his mouth open with hers and her tongue teased his and there was this jolt and it was like he didn’t have a body at all anymore, he was warmth spreading outwards and it was a sense of dissolving toward her- She sucked his lip and he just wanted to bite so he did, playfully, and she made a sound and kissed him harder and he gripped the back of her sweater and she nipped his lip and tightened her grip on his hair enough for him to gasp slightly at the sheer electricity of it and her taste was all he craved and he chased it and chased it and then her tongue against his did this other thing that just-

Eleanor stepped back suddenly and they panted at each other, eyes blown and skin flushed. Eleanor’s mouth was deep pink. Her hair was tousled and he did that. He tousled her hair. He made her mouth pink. His hands twitched for more. They looked at each other until they caught their breath and Eleanor turned away toward the horizon. ‘Um so that’s kissing.’

Michael watched her. Finally, she stole a glance at his face. His hand already missed the curve of her back. Everything except for her seemed blurry. But then- How had he never appreciated the exact slope of her collarbone, the determined line of her jaw?

Oh this might be a disaster.

He smiled a shy toothy smile. ‘Well. Hmph. It’s not gross.’

She smirked, returning his shy smile. ‘A rave review, huh?’

He gave a small chuckle. ‘How did I do? I know you’re very skilled with all this stuff.’

She laughed and whistled. ‘Wow. Way to slut shame, tiger.’ She looked back at the sky. ‘Yeah. You’re a natural. Um, buddy.’

The street lights flickered to life as twilight bled to dusky mauve.

‘So... Wanna try again before the Uber gets here?’

Michael’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Diving head first after fancies and whims, acquiescing to instinct, consequences be damned, was embedded deep in his nature as surely as his love of paperclips.

‘Yes.’

She turned back toward him. This time he reached for her, one hand cupping her cheek while his eyes searched hers, the other pulled her close. He wrapped himself around her. His fingertips stroked her cheek, gently, and he brushed her hair away. He kissed her firm and slow, an ellipsis. He chased pleasure with greed. He teased her lips, featherlight, until she sighed into his open mouth and he kissed her deeply. Everything else faded out, as if the volume had been turned down beyond her. He let it engulf him. His hands in her hair. His fingers tracing her bare shoulder under the lip of her loose sweater. Apples of her shampoo and almond of her moisturiser and her soft skin. His senses were steeped in her, brewing, and he never wanted it to stop. It was like rising, rising, rising. The roar before flight. His body began to react and, as he was about to pull away out of embarrassment, Eleanor grabbed him. She deepened the kiss, her hand finally moving up to trace his jaw. She grabbed him by the shirt and nipped his bottom lip and he made a sound he didn’t know he could make in his human form. She pressed into him, then stepped away. He tried to catch his breath. She looked like she was about to say something, embarrassed, but then her eyes flicked down at him and up again as she stepped away. They twinkled.

‘So that’s one question answered. Congrats on that.’

Michael didn’t think he could blush but his cheeks grew warm as he gave her a wicked grin. Eleanor giggled and gave him a playful shove.

‘Don’t know if I’ve seen that grin on you before but I like it. Bad in a good way. You got game, oh Ancient One.’ She giggled again. She slung her arms around his neck again and leaned up, about to kiss him. She stopped short and blinked. She cleared her throat and stood back, sliding her hand into his instead.

‘Um. What you said earlier... You’re my best friend too, man. My favourite... not demon, because that doesn’t really fit anymore, does it?’, she said quietly. She rested her head on his chest and released a breath. ‘I’ll go with my favourite immortal being dude.’

He wrapped his arms around her, one hand resting in her hair and closed his eyes, trying not to tremble over the assault of new sensory input. ‘I’m the only immortal being you know.’

He could practically hear her roll her eyes.

‘Ugh. Shut up, dumbo. You know what I mean.’

He chuckled and bent to rest his cheek on her head.

She was so small. How terrifying to care for a being as fragile as this. So inconvenient. Did he have a stomach ache? He was sure he wasn’t bleeding and yet there was this funny sensation... Exhilarating and happy but also a little scary, as if he was standing at the top of a scream quarry during a misery quake, liable to fall head first into the essence smelter. Was he just hungry? Or he had eaten too much junk, maybe, after all.

If this was how humans felt after kissing their best friend he didn’t understand how anything got done.

Eleanor began to pull away and he had to stop himself from holding her tighter so she she’d stay. She flashed him a real, rare, wide Eleanor smile and it winded him. But there was no time, she dragged him by the hand back toward the edge of the road and an idling cab, giddy and slightly breathless (he did that!), her hair flicking in a halo around her face, aflame in sodium street light, as she looked at him over her shoulder.

‘Uuuuu-ber!’

He caught the bubble of her mirth and his throat tightened. He grinned like an idiot. Glad to be holding her hand even though he felt unsteady on his feet heading into the darkness of a night in Toronto, Canada, North America, Earth.

Chapter Text

Eleanor was shutting things down in the kitchen to scroll the wilds of the internet in bed when the house laptop trilled. It could only be her favourite sexy giantess.

She flicked the laptop open to Tahani’s long-lashed baby browns.

Tahani gasped. ‘Oh no if I’d known the lighting was this poor I might not have called. This application is a terror. If Janus and Niki hadn’t sold it I guarantee I would’ve ensured this’, she pointed a manicured finger accusingly at the air above her, ‘would never have been allowed to happen.’

Eleanor laughed. ‘Hey doll, miss you too.’

Tahini nodded and sighed. ‘Yes, same here. Although, Kamillah has introduced me to some wonderful people. To be fair, some of them are very unusual. Did you know you that these days one can become famous from social media alone? No professional vetting, no pedigree or talent required just... there was a woman who is famous for dressing in the most garish-’

Eleanor tuned her out with a fond smile while Tahani continued-

‘excessively egalitarian...’

Eleanor allowed the sounds to flow passed her, contemplating snacks before bedtime. But which snack? Hmmm...

‘...Chidi?’

Eleanor sat up at Tahani’s questioning tone and scrambled for a clue but Tahani’s rants were so random and far-reaching they were almost trippy. She didn’t stand a chance.

Tahani rolled her eyes. ‘You weren’t listening.’ She cupped a hand around her mouth and stage whispered, ‘How are you getting on with Chidi? I’ve called you for some ‘girl talk’. I know you can girl talk with Janet but I thought perhaps you could give me the gossip. Have you made any progress with your advances or are you still being,’ She winced. ‘rebuffed?’

Eleanor was about to reply when Michael shuffled in in his pyjamas. He was making a bee line for the kettle when he saw her and smiled. She smiled back. ‘Oh hey. I was just talking to caramel dream over here. Wanna say hi?’

He grinned and came over. ‘Tahani!’

They caught up for a spell and she told them about how Kamillah was going straight from her downtime surfing in Kerala to a forest retreat and then down to a tour date in Rio with glampling later on the outskirts of the Amazon to ‘aline her chakras’ with a goji berry cleanse before recording a new allbum. Quality sister time was going well apart from one spat over edgy couture and work on the School of Life was booming- Kamillah loved the idea and had already built an arts-orientated branch of the programme for young girls.

Eleanor leaned on Michael at the kitchen table as she grew sleepier. Michael patted her, stretched and stood. ‘I’m going to hit the hay, guys. I’m getting a little too used to this sleeping thing now that I don’t have to worry about why my pillowcase is moving or whether or not that puddle of brown lumpy goo in the corner of my designated sleeping closet is alive and hungry.'

Eleanor made a face. ‘So many questions I don’t actually want answers to.’

Michael shrugged happily and waved at Tahani who waved back. Then he looked down at Eleanor and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Night.’

She looked back up at him, covered his hand with hers and smiled. ‘Night.’

As he left she turned back to Tahani’s immaculately sculpted, raised brow.

‘What?’

‘Why were the two of you eye shagging?’

Eleanor scoffed. ‘Eye what?’

Tahani gestured between her and the space Michael had been occupying. ‘Shagging with your eyes. Clearly something is going on. You two have always had a connection but now... well, now there’s more touching. And the eye shagging.’

Eleanor blew a raspberry. ‘Girl you crazy.’

Tahani sniffed. ‘Eleanor, despite my radiant, youthful appearance I am no ingénue. I know that look people get when they’re craving horizontal refreshment.’

Eleanor groaned and started banging her head on the table. ‘Horizontal- no. Tahani-’

‘Really, Eleanor, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. When lightning strikes, it strikes. Everyone has needs. I met this unbelievably limber Kundalini yoga instructor here, Priya. She dabbles in tantra. And while she was showing me how to balance my root chakra, a curtain of glossy black hair hanging around me like the dark velvet drapes that adorn the windows of André 3000’s hillside mansion, her chocolate brown eyes and luscious, frangipani lips mere inches from mine, I was shown, rather tenderly, the very the limits of my capacity for human pleasure.’

Eleanor suppressed a gagging sound. ‘That’s, ugh. Real happy for you babe, really. I-’

‘She stretched me like that Kardashian woman stretches leggings, her firm, lithe body and clever hands-’

‘Nope. No. Okay, enough. Blergh with the overshare.’ Eleanor shook the visual images out of her head.

Tahani only looked surprised. ‘Darling, I didn’t take you for a prude. Really, Americans can be surprisingly uptight. Land of the free my eye.’

Eleanor rolled her eyes. Tahani’s name was called somewhere in the background. She looked over her shoulder and then back at Eleanor.

‘Ah. That’ll be Narinder, our driver. Priya must be here. We’re going to tour some local caves but really I suspect she wants to use me to indulge her closet exhibitionist in a dark corner- a scheme I wholeheartedly support.’ She giggled.

Eleanor gave a surprised come hither whistle and said she was glad Tahani was happy. Tahani blew kisses, told her she’d see her in a couple of days, said goodbye and before she knew it the screen was black. Eleanor stared at her own reflection for a moment before shutting the laptop.

There was nothing to what Tahani was saying. Tahani was just being a little extra Tahani. Right?

*

The day before the gala Michael and Eleanor had a blast at the mall. Eleanor wrangled the hermetically sealed brand new replacement remote they bought from Radio Shack after an hour of milk shakes, convincing Michael he was too big to go on the kid-sized electric mall unicorn, and freshly baked Nutter Butter cookies at the food court. Chidi said he’d call when he got there but Eleanor’s phone died so they’d come home. A note on the counter greeted them:

Hey guys,

Tried calling. Gone to mall to meet J & J for Chinese. Text if you want anything.

Be good.

- Chidi

Eleanor called Michael into the living room, Chidi’s note discarded on the couch. A midnight blue tuxedo wrapped in plastic was draped across an armchair. He came in with a spring in his step and faltered at the sight of the suit. Eleanor looked up.

‘Looks like your suit is here for the gala tomorrow. It’s, uh, really nice.’ She was aiming for upbeat and may have overdone it.

He looked down at it, his expression blank, and nodded. Eleanor continued, ‘Janet’s picking our stuff up from the alterations place on the way home.’

He flashed a bland smile that disappeared as quickly as it showed up. ‘Great.’

Eleanor wasn’t buying but decided not to prod. Instead, she grabbed a couple of beers from the kitchen. She shouted into the living room to ask about food (not that they had more than hot dogs and breakfast stuff). They agreed they weren’t hungry.

They sat on the couch in the living room, reading and sipping beer.

Eleanor flung her book into the cushions and tapped Michael’s knee to get his attention. He was reading over Janet’s notes, scribbling questions and ideas in the margin.

‘Hey man, I was thinking.’

Michael raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure that’s a good idea?’

She flicked his leg. ‘Har har har, smart ass. No. It’s just, you showed me all that stuff I asked you to show me about me and Chidi with Janet’s memory thing but what about, you know...’

Michael waited patiently. She cleared her throat. ‘You and me. Hanging has been awesome. But we’ve got history, dude, and I’m in the dark! I've seen some stuff... when did we become friends? I mean that’s a pretty big leap, right- from torturer versus smokin’ hot torturee to best buds. How did that magic happen?’

Michael shifted uncomfortably, fiddling with the clicker of his pen. He looked at her sideways and huffed a little laugh. ‘It was a leap, sure, but it was gradual. Three hundred years, remember? Uh, well, I could just tell you.’

She smiled and pulled the blanket up, curling closer to him. He leaned closer too, casting aside number three of the ten 2,000 page packets/sleep aids Janet had meticulously drafted.

‘Well I guess it started when you took me to karaoke- you thought you were stalling me, that was hilarious... but we just hung out. I experienced what fun was. Friendship too. Then everything fell apart during that last reboot. You forced me to join you guys for philosophy lessons. It changed me. One time, I had this existential meltdown and you, you pulled me out of it.’

‘I did?’

Michael nodded.

‘Then when all the chips were really down, when my boss, Shawn, came to shut down the neighbourhood and we tricked him-’

‘Yeah, you told us about that.’

‘You guys threw a party and gave me a box full of opposite tortures- I mean gifts. Gifts. - even though I’d lied about knowing how to get to the real Good Place. That was your idea. I asked Tahani that night and she told me. That was you.’

Eleanor hummed. ‘Yeah, one thing you never explained is how you distracted Shawn while we escaped. I’ve distracted security guards with my boobs and it works every time but how do you even distract a demon? Didya show him your junk?’

Michael made a non-commital noise. ‘Oh that. It’s such a boring story really. You don’t want to see that...’

Eleanor sat up. ‘Yeah I do. Show me that memory. I’d like to see that.’

Michael frowned. ‘Really, Eleanor, there’s not much to see. It didn’t happen in the neighborhood, it happened in the Bad Place. You sure you want to see inside the Bad Place?’

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. ‘Now you’re trying to scare me. You’re hiding something.’

She threw off her blanket and whipped her fuzzy socked feet from under his leg. ‘What are you hiding? I’m pressing pause on the final date.’

‘What? Date? Since wh-’ He shook his head and held up his hands. ‘I’m not hiding anything. It’s just-’ he flapped nervously, ‘Look if you want to see that badly I’ll show you. Okay? Itsnobigdeal.’

Eleanor crossed her arms and scowled until he groaned and went to get Janet’s device.

He returned, pulled over a small side table and set it up, scrolling to the right moment at the end of the last reboot.

He sighed. ‘There isn’t even anything interesting here to-’

She snatched the earpieces out of his hands and put them in.

There she was, in what looked like an old, grand train station dressed like a 1950s secretary as the others hopped into this shimmering blue pool of a portal and Michael frantically rifled overcoat lapels for pins. The last coat drops to the floor and above them she hears shouting. She sees the fear on her face but not on Michael’s. He’s calm. He moves closer to her.

‘Hey, I solved the trolley problem.’

She tells him that’s great but this isn’t the time. Watching, her pulse quickens as she realises exactly what he’s about to do.

‘The solution is simple really.’, he looks at her. She swears no one has looked at her exactly that way before. She knows it for a goddamn fact.

‘Sacrifice yourself.’

She barely hears him telling her to take care of the others. That they need her. Boots are pounding toward them. For a moment she thinks he’s going to kiss her but instead he lifts her and tosses her into the portal, just in time for his boss to nab him. She sees her own shocked face dissolve into the blue light.

She removed the earpieces from her ears. Her eyes were damp. Michael’s eyes bored into her. He looked embarrassed, scared, all of that. But there was something else, wasn’t there?

‘Michael. Tell me something.’ She held up a warning finger, ‘No crap. I know Janet rescued you somehow, she told us. But what did you think was going to happen to you when you threw me into the portal?’

He looked away and cleared his throat.

‘Oh. Well. I assumed I was going to be retired.’

‘Retired.’

He nodded and she growled at him. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Just that I’d be, uh, tortured and then my essence would’ve been scooped out with flaming ladles and poured out onto a thousand different suns. Then, you know...’, he made a fart noise with his mouth and gave a thumbs down.

She just stared at him, mouth slightly open. Eventually he looked up. He whipped a handkerchief from him pocket, it had yellow rubber ducks on it, and handed it to her.

‘I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t want you to feel bad or weird or awkward-’

She nodded toward the wrapped suit over the chair. ‘Shut up. Are you still nervous about the gala?’

Michael scowled.

‘Nervous? I am an immortal being capable of-’ She glared at him and he sagged. ‘I mean, that would be ridiculous. In the scheme of things it’s not even-’

‘Have you slow danced before?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Sort of, in the fake Good Place. Usually to torture Tahani. But formally no, not really.’

Eleanor dove for her phone and tapped on the screen for a bit. She turned on the TV and flicked on the sound system, waiting until everything was connected. Soft jazz tinkled over the speakers.

She stood and held out a hand to him as a voice oozing with honey sang-

I can only give you love that lasts forever

And a promise to be near each time you call...

He looked at her in askance and she made grabby hands for his and hauled him up with a smile. She placed his hands around her and lead them into step with the song.

‘Okay so I was hooking up with this badass skater chick, Leigh, before I finished high school. Her folks ran dance classes out of a little studio in their basement and we used to fill in when numbers were low.’ She tugged him closer and made him sway with her to the music. ‘It was mostly older couples trying to get things going again, you know how it is.’

Michael nodded, his fingers threading through hers. She extended her arm and span herself into him, he caught her with a grin and she span away again.

(I can only give you country walks in springtime

And a hand to hold when leaves begin to fall...)

She moved her hand to the back of his neck and chanced a look up into his face. She didn’t know if she was afraid to see the look she saw in the memory of their escape or if she was afraid that she’d see nothing. He was looking down at her with so much perplexed affection it was like staring directly into a light. Her eyes slid away.

‘So. Do you think we’re all different versions of ourselves after knowing us over all the reboots? You still wanted to be friends with this version of me. You followed us back here.’

Michael smirked crookedly and lifted a hand up to twirl her. He frowned as she span. ‘Versions? Eleanor, what are you asking?’

She sighed. ‘I guess with everything you said about memory... how do you still feel the same, that we’re besties, and Chidi doesn’t even want to talk about-’

Michael sighed. ‘Ah. Chidi.’ He edged her closer and put a hand on her back. They swayed for a bit until he leaned back.

‘I guess you could say I have more of a bird’s eye view of things. I was never rebooted. And no matter how many reboots I put you guys through, the differences were so small they were more like ripples over the same pond, more like moods than differences. You were always Eleanor.’ He huffed before meeting her eyes. He spoke quietly, ‘You were always you. Still are.’

Eleanor’s eyes widened and she rested her head on his chest, her arms around his neck, floating to the music. She leaned up to look at him.

‘Then what about you? Why do you think you changed? Was it the moral philosophy? Was it the group, having friends?’

Michael inclined his head non-committally. Eleanor frowned- ‘You went full 2008 hairdresser’s Britney on your life. Why?’

He didn’t speak, he just watched her.

‘For the four of us?’ She bit her lip.

They danced slower and slower.

(Say it’s me that you’ll adore for now and ever more...)

Her eyes wandered to his mouth and back up to his eyes. He looked dazed. Eleanor tore her eyes away for a second.

‘You survived all the dates. So that kiss with the rich lady tomorrow. Do you uh, feel confident now?’ Her voice sounded weird in her own ears.

He looked at her lips.

One of his shoulders shrugged. She gave a light laugh. ‘Well you have the dancing down. It’s not that complicated, right?’

He smiled, his eyes still locked on hers and shook his head. ‘No. It’s not.’ He brushed her hair behind her ear and her breath hitched. He inclined his head toward the speaker. ‘Hey. You hate jazz.’

She lay her head on his chest and chuckled. Her eyes fluttered closed. He was warm but she couldn’t hear a heartbeat in his chest. It only added to her amusement. This was crazy even for her- slow dancing with the ex-demon who used to torture her. Feeling like...

He rubbed her back as they danced. She leaned back to look at him and he was grinning with an eyebrow raised. ‘I forgot for a sec you know everything about me. By the way, you know you have no heartbeat, right? Weirdo.’

He chuckled. She rolled her eyes. ‘My grandmother used to play this song after dinner. She was alive for a little while up until I was-’

‘Five. Right. Erika Shellstrop. Your Dad's mom. She babysat you before she died. She was nice.’

Eleanor nodded. ‘It’s one of a handful of songs like this that gets a pass from me.’

Michael hummed.

The song ended and autoplayed the piano version.

Eleanor sighed, her hands moving from his shoulders to around the back of his neck.

Michael flinched as her fingers scriched his hairline. ‘We should probably get ready for the others to-’

‘Doyouwannapractise again for tomorrow?

Michael blinked. ‘What?’

She cleared her throat. ‘The gala thing tomorrow. Do you want to practise kissing one last time or do you feel okay about it? The, uh, the kiss?’

Michael glanced at her lips again and seemed about to say something but stopped before speaking.

‘I don’t know how to feel about it.’

The music stopped.

Eleanor stopped dancing and laced her fingers with his.

‘Okay.’

She stoop up on her tip toes and reached up.

This kiss was different from the others. Eleanor closed her eyes and breathed him in. Before she called the shots until he played along. There was a newness, a hesitance to his first kiss. The second was greedy, as if he was minutes from throwing her over his shoulder and calling a cab to the nearest flat surface and... who knew? If she was honest, both knocked her on her ass in different ways. They were both so Michael- this weird, endearing mix of vulnerable and confident and bossy and a little wicked but always all in.

He caught her on her tiptoes and his hand plunged into her hair when her lips caught his. He kissed her, deeply, and leaned back to stop, his eyes dark, worried, but she chased him, nipped at his lips until he breathed in and sucked on her bottom lip, one hand stroking her cheek. He held her tight and then kissed her with a single minded intensity that hadn’t been there last time. Her head span. They sighed into each other in tandem and then, too soon, way too soon, he lightened the kiss and set her down, still kissing her in pecks before he stopped, smoothing her hair back. His eyes caught hers for a moment and she was thrown back to the portal, to his face as the blue light swallowed her up. Then she remembered the look on her face, looking back at him. How she looked like maybe she wanted him to kiss her then. And also maybe this whole thing was the most pathetic excuse to kiss someone ever.

Michael took a deep breath and closed his eyes to rest his forehead to hers. His hands that spanned her back and left a stabilising warmth. A gentle peace slid over her. Her fingers closed around his wrist and her thumb rubbed circles into a pulse point that wasn’t there.

When he spoke his voice was uneven.

‘Thank you Eleanor. I’ll never forget this. How... how much you’ve been there for me. Tomorrow will be.. tomorrow will be fine.’

He stepped back and she released him. He looked distant, troubled. She was still floundering at the edge of something, startled at the too-quick loss of him. He cleared his throat and looked out toward their living room window then back at her. His jaw muscle flexed.

‘You know, Chidi is a wonderful person who I have come to care about deeply but, between you and me? Sometimes he really is a fucking idiot.’

He strode over to his jacket, flung over the arm of the chair and shrugged into it.

‘I’m, uh, going to grab some stuff for breakfast at the supermarket.’

He turned around and there was this smile in place. This awful milquetoast Fake Good Place Architect smile.

‘Donut holes and pastries and orange juice okay? I’ll get Pop Tarts for Jason. He ate the whole box yesterday. Marshmallows too.’

Eleanor’s guts twisted but she nodded. He said he’d be back soon and the next thing she knew the front door was closed and she was alone. She flopped on the couch and sat there without moving, watching the stripes the street lights left on the living room wall.

There were two sticky clear empty Twinkie wrappers on the couch next to her. Hers and Michael’s breakfast yesterday. One stuck to her leg, leaving a small line of frosting on her jeans. She touched her lips and thought of how Michael tasted of the beer they shared. Her throat grew tight.

‘Well shit.’ she whispered.

Chapter Text

By the time Eleanor shuffled down to the kitchen in the morning Michael had already been whisked away for final adjustments to his tux for the gala. He would spend the day with Tabby Le Luc for a few staged photo ops to be leaked to the press in the coming months. Then there was the gala.

Eleanor shoved the lever down on the toaster with the joy of a night owl raging against the tyranny of premature exposure to sunlight. The coffee machine's gurgle earned a stony death stare. She was up early to help clean the place for Tahani’s arrival- after shopping on a layover in Paris for a gala dress, their favourite posh giraffe would be home by lunch time. Chidi appeared in the kitchen doorway, sweater vest in place, bag in hand and a wry smile.

‘Ready to make like Cinderella at the ball later?’

She snorted. ‘If by like Cinderella you mean get loaded until I hallucinate talking mice and maybe lose a shoe then yup, I’m ready.’

Chidi made a finger gun. ‘Vintage Shellstrop.’

She stepped away from the counter to face him. ‘Headed to the university for the morning?’

He nodded and seemed to hesitate. ‘I have to go in early actually- I have a conference call with Simone. She has... research questions. It’d be nice to catch up too, she said, which is a level of classiness I don’t deserve after, you know, everything.’

He gave a self-deprecating sniff and pushed up his glasses. Eleanor stared hard at her coffee mug until her toast popped and she rescued it immediately, relishing the excuse not to make eye contact. ‘Sure. Cool, cool.’

He opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. ‘Okay. Well, see you later for the rich people prom.’

He gave a nervous laugh.

She flashed an answering tight smile. He held up a hand and she nodded, smile intact, before looking away. She heard the front door close. She poured her coffee and sat and the table to look out, sighing, over their overgrown, scraggly garden.

Janet was already scowering upstairs but she'd wake Jason when it was time to mop.

*

Tahani was a champion fusser. She slapped at Eleanor’s hands.

‘Darling, you mustn't touch a hair on your head. Do not. I, Tahani, forbid it. And this make up. It was as if Boticelli himself applied it before you rose from an oversized clam shell.’ She gave a flourish over Eleanor’s face and her handiwork. She frowned.

‘Come to think of it, I can’t imagine how that would’ve smelled acceptable, logistically. Really. I mean, One wouldn’t want a shellfish allergy in that particular situation.’, she filled Eleanor’s eyebrows in with a pencil purchased with extreme prejudice from their local drugstore for this very occasion, ‘My good friend, supermodel Gizelle Bunchen, said that when she worked with lobsters Leo had a terrible time-’

Eleanor sighed, and went to lean her chin on a fist. It was smacked away.

‘Dearest, have you not listened to a word I’ve said? You look ex-quisite. From a common eight to Helen of Troy. Do not bespoil my hard work with your fists!’ Eleanor was jabbed under the collarbone with an immaculately manicured finger. Ten minutes of scolding on her eyebrow plucking style had her checking out but the jabbing tipped the scales.

She rolled her eyes. ‘From an eight?! I am a nine point five on a bad day. A’ight, caramel Nurse Ratchet, enough, go make sure Janet is-’

Janet appeared in the living room doorway at the sound of her name, as if they were still in the afterlife. ‘Oh Eleanor. You look eighty-one point five percent more beautiful, applying the mainstream Western beauty metric as judged by an aggregate of tyrannically run fashion magazines designed to make all human women feel like warthogs. Good job.’

Eleanor smiled at Janet, who was giving her a serene thumbs up. The light above Janet set off the satin of the Grace Kelly style gown barely clinging to her shoulders. Her chestnut hair was swept up in a shiny vintage style up do.

‘Janet. You look beautiful.’

‘Thank you Eleanor. I look fifty-five percent more attractive tonight. Not bad, huh?’ she winked.

Eleanor scoffed. ‘Nah girl, your numbers are off, you’re selling yourself short.’

Janet assured her that was impossible but thanked her with a smile.

From the other end of the hallway Jason’s voice whined from the bathroom.

‘Homies, this red thing is way too big to work as a head band. I can’t even see.’

There was a crash as what was probably the small cosmetics shelf above the sink hit the floor.

Tahani winced. Eleanor nodded at Janet. ‘Think someone needs help with their cumberbatch.’

‘Cummerbund.’ Tahani added.

Eleanor scoffed. ‘Duh. That’s what I said.’

Janet called out to Jason and headed down the hall.

Eleanor shoved the butterflies in her stomach aside and checked her teeth for lipstick. The doorbell rang. She and Tahani looked at each other, Tahani slightly aghast at the prospect of being the one to answer the door.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. ‘Remind me again why I love you?’ Tahani shooed her toward the door.

Chidi stood on the doorstep in a tuxedo with slim lapels. He opened his arms. ‘Oh, you look lovely, Eleanor. Great dress. Pink. Nice. Very Grecian. And, as Socrates viewed beauty as coincident with good, he would think you were very good indeed.’

He smiled and motioned at the limo behind him while Eleanor squinted.

‘Limo is here. Like my tux? Picked it up after lectures.’ Chidi gave an exaggerated strut twirl.

‘Nice.’ She muttered. She was totally wrong-footed over the Idris Elba as James Bond thing he had going on. Ugh. That moment when your ex looks fine. Were they even exes? There should totally be Jeremy Bearimy memes to cover this situation. Whatever. Time to change out of her sneaks.

She was going to drink all the champagne.

*

To say that Tabby Le Luc’s place, all decked out for the gala with chains of glowing paper lanterns, ice sculptures, garlands of flowers and reams and reams of lights, was a solid choice for a royal faerie midnight ball would have been an understatement.

Their limo pulled up fashionably late into a maelstrom of social activity as guests buzzed around outside in small groups, meeting and greeting. One of Jarlaith's minions led them up limestone stairs to announce them formally. Few people looked up to give them a once over in the bespoke clamour of tuxedos and lace and silk and satin and velvet. A polished Amazon leaned against the bannister in stillettos and a white tuxedo without a shirt. A tall redhead by an ornate adult sized stone urn wore a gown designed to look like wet iridescent scales with a feather trim. Catalogue male model penguins of all ages bustled around trying to outdo one another with pictures held out on gold or piano black phones and tales of yachts, holiday homes and golf handicaps. The chorus of the glitterati mingled seamlessly with glasses tinkling, the scrape of silver on china, and polite tittering with a condescending edge.

Tahani waded in, breathing deep with the sweep of a shapely arm. ‘Aaaah yes, my people.’

Eleanor whistled as they entered the ballroom. The v-patterned wood floor was so shiny it had to be sealed with some kind of shellac, the floor lit from the three huge sparkling chandeliers above was amber honey. Painted gold curlicues carved in rectangular panels on the walls defined the word ‘embellished’ while recessed murals of flowers and cherubs on the ceiling almost made Eleanor dizzy.

‘This is some Beauty and the Beast Disney shit right here.’, Eleanor muttered, looking around.

They made their way to the bar, and, after securing drinks and appropriate people watching spots, Tahani merged with the crowd to run after an old friend with a ridiculous name- Petunia or Quinoa, something like that. Chidi shook his head fondly.

‘At least she had drinks with us first. I call that progress. I feel loved.’

Eleanor swallowed a grimace. ‘Only now, huh?’

Chidi winced at himself. She raised a flute of champagne to cheers him and drained it. Jason hadn’t made it to the bar- he ran off with Janet as soon as he saw a functioning ice fountain of Perrier gurgling with fresh raspberries and cherries. Janet was his ‘for reals official date’ for the night.

Chidi sighed. ‘I think it’s going to be a long night.’ He grabbed two more flutes of champaign from a passing tray and handed one to Eleanor. She made short work of it.

At the other end of the ballroom, four butlers simultaneously rang little bells and a moment later a cello gently see-sawed through a classical tune she’d heard on TV. Somewhere in the room, where she couldn’t see, she heard an excited whoop from Jason. Chidi and she snorted simultaneously. ‘Jinks.’ She jabbed him with a finger.

When the dust settled on the cello, the string quartet struck up, plucking delicately before settling in to the lush, broad strokes and curly audio loopdiloops of old Europe’s original, analogue dance music.

A tall brunette tapped Chidi on the arm, her other hand extended. Chidi shot a flustered looked at Eleanor, who winked. Tall chick, not hearing an objection, dragged him to the dance floor where they joined the growing crowd of dancing pairs, turning in ordered nearly monochrome clouds edged in uncomfortable footwear.

Hers weren’t too comfortable either. They were high, strappy, and beaded to match her dusky pink Grecian gown. She was only a tiny bit afraid of tripping on its floor length pleated diaphanous skirt. On the upside, the open deep v, dipping wide from her neck to narrow just above a thin band at her waist, laid out quite the stretch of creamy skin and was definitely raising an eyebrow or two. Which was good. She was classy enough to raise her hotness levels to the point where she didn’t feel like a chump in front of all the fancy pants jerks. She itched under one of the two sparkling, beaded silver clasps holding the whole thing together on each shoulder. Tahani went for classic Hollywood with her hair- it lay to the side, loose over her shoulders in a wave of blonde. Simple, but it obscured her view by at least a quarter.

She peered around her hair at an incoming business guy who looked like his idea of excitement was picking out the perfect pair of boat shoes and khakis to wear on his lawns. Gross.

Luckily he noticed her deepening glare at his approach and veered away, pretending to wave at someone across the room. She commandeered a fourth champagne flute, drained it and slammed it down on the bar, miraculously without breaking it. The string quartet struck up a sinewy tune.

From the corner of her eye, across the room, a cap of white hair moved just above almost everyone else’s heads. Couples pirouetted and ebbed past in sync, obscuring her line of sight in time to the music. She straightened and caught a glimpse of Michael’s profile, his familiar broad shoulders. He looked bored and uncomfortable at the edge of the crowd. Then it swallowed him. Dancers moved closer and further away then closer and further away with more joining the floor every second.

Eleanor pushed away from the bar and craned her neck to find him again but the spot where he had been standing was empty. She stretched to her tiptoes and tried not to break an ankle. Not for the first time she cursed her height. A lumbering man in a cravat stomped on her toe. She hissed at him and he sniffed. His date gasped. She was about to go back to the bar, where she would be far away enough to get a better view. Then crowd cleared and there was Michael, standing in the middle of the room in his midnight blue tuxedo, like some kind of classic movie star, all angular handsome lines and tension. Looking for someone.

He spotted her and smiled. It was wide and lopsided even from across the room. Always a little bit wolfish. She couldn’t help but grin back.

She met him halfway. Her hand slid into his and they fell into step.

‘Ha! Man am I glad to see you.’, he said, eyes twinkling.

She laughed. ‘Day going that well, huh?’

He barked a laugh and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Ugh. Please.’

As they danced his gaze settled into something softer and warmer.

‘Eleanor, you know that I, uh, have no subjective opinion on human attractiveness-’

She smacked him on the shoulder. ‘Dude I know. I already scratched bald off my list of future hot looks-’

He let go of her hand for a moment to wave her away. ‘What I’m trying to say is that tonight, you, objectively speaking, are the most... shoot, what’s the word I’m looking for here...’

‘Smoking hot fox?’, she suggested.

He chuckled. ‘No. Smoking hot. Come on. No that’s not- no...’, his good humour became quiet, almost serious. ‘Incandescent. Eleanor, tonight you are incandescent.’

She swallowed and moved closer, not looking up at him. ‘Oh.’

He smiled. ‘As in something that’s radiating its own light.’ He looked down into her eyes. ‘Hm. I’m not being clear.’ He seemed to think. ‘It’s like this whole room is full of just... people. And you... you just do this thing where you light up everywhere with this explosion of personality and chaotic intelligence and humour and yeah, lately kindness too, and you never stop. No matter what. You’re a real force. It’s kind of magical. Just, you know, if I’m honest. Objectively.’

Eleanor huffed in surprise. She fought for a foot hold, tried to avoid looking at him. She couldn’t. Searching blue looked back at her, unblinking. The ocean on her favourite beach in Sydney- unfathomably deep and impossibly wide when you looked out over it from the bluff.

Changeable, sure, but constant, in its own elemental way. She cleared her throat.

‘Explosion huh? I just thought you were trying to say I looked nice.’

He laughed, low, in a way that made her bite a lip. Maybe he had gotten a little too good at holding her close. He just smiled.

‘Well yeah. Yeah I guess I mean that too.’

They looked at each other. Michael lifted his arm to spin her. She span and laughed and folded back into his arms when she came around. She linked her arms around his neck and tried not to think about when he came home last night, said goodnight, went straight to his room and closed the door and then after when she was in bed, how his smell was in her pajamas since he kissed her and... she shook herself. ‘Did, uh, everything go okay today with Tabby What’s-er-name?’

He sighed. ‘Yeah, fine so far, the agreement still stands. It’s fine. No sweat.’

‘I know the big dance is at the end of the night but you danced first earlier, right?’

He leaned back and frowned, nodding.

‘How was it?’ she peeked up at him and he looked away.

‘Different.’, he said to somewhere over her shoulder.

‘Different how?’

He stroked her hand in his with a thumb. His jaw tensed as looked at back her.

‘Oh. She wasn’t y-’ Eleanor’s mouth fell open and he stuttered. ‘I mean... I don’t know. You know I’m bad at this human stuff.’ He avoided her eye.

She searched his eyes, unable to say anything. She blew out a breath and lay her head on his familiar, silent chest. Her hand disappeared in his. All of him was solid, reassuring as they swayed to the music. She closed her eyes. Really this was getting kind of ridic-

‘Mr Giveswell?’, said a stiff voice behind them. Their dancing slowed to a stop. Jarlaith stood behind Michael. Couples danced around them. Eleanor stepped back.

‘Sir. It’s time.’, the butler repeated.

Michael’s cheek twitched. He nodded and the butler left. He turned to her with a sad smile. ‘Guess it’s showtime.’

‘Ha. Those dating lessons had to get put to some use, huh?’, she said, tightly.

He blinked. A strange expression came over his face. ‘Sure.’

He reached for her hand and held it between both of his.

‘To the most incandescent human here, I-’ he stopped and shook his head. He ran a thumb over her knuckles with a breath. He gave a short laugh with a bitter edge and reached down to tuck her hair behind her ear before he stooped to press a delicate kiss to her hand. When he looked up his eyes shimmered. He wore a fake Good Place smile. ‘Take ‘er sleazy.’, he said quietly.

‘Good luck.’ she said, but she couldn’t be sure he heard. By the time she’d spoken he’d already gone. The crowd moved in and she lost sight of him as his tall frame moved away and a hoard of dancers filled in in his wake. She walked back to the bar and watched people dance for a while, just blinking and feeling like she was trapped in a weird dream sequence.

There was a tap on her shoulder. She span to face Janet who slid beside her, a champagne flute in hand and her softest Mona Lisa smile.

Eleanor tried to laugh, annoyed at herself for the golf ball in her throat and the sting in her eyes- this night had been the whole point of the date charade. Most of the emotion she dealing with was probably the agony that was the most gorgeous pair of shoes she had ever owned. That and the super lame stuffed shirt party. Janet looked thoughtful. ‘Michael said earlier that he would meet us at home an hour after the dance. This shouldn’t take long.’ She produced a plate from behind her back.

‘Also, look!’

Eleanor forced a smile. Shrimp.

‘Aw. Shrampies. Nice. Thanks Janet. You’re a pal.’

‘Ride or die.’ Janet held out a fist which Eleanor promptly bumped. She escorted Eleanor to a small seating area where she collapsed into a teal brocaded bucket chair and groaned with relief as she peeled her toes free from their strappy iron maidens. Janet folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward.

‘You should talk to him.’

‘Talk to him?’

Janet nodded.

‘Who? Oh, you mean Michael?’ Eleanor frowned. ‘About what?’

Janet opened her mouth and closed it again. She gave an awkward smile.

‘Oh nothing. Maybe about getting some pizza when we get home. Nevermind. I... I’m going to check in with Jason. I left him watching the peacocks currently roaming the lawns. Hopefully he won’t try to pet one. Peacocks do not appreciate petting.’

Eleanor was left watching her retreat. She spotted Tahani holding court, the lady in the white tuxedo leaning toward her in unspoken invitation with the vape pen version of one of those Audrey Hepburn cigarettes. She wandered over for a front row seat to Tahani being hit on full throttle and yet remaining oblivious to the fact. The lady in question was Zara, an art historian/restorer who was visibly fabulous. Up close she had a dark purple streak in the long hair over her partial buzzcut. If Tahani wasn’t going to make out with her then maybe a little comfort would be-

The music stopped with a flourish and the bells rang again.

*

A space cleared in the middle of the floor. Tabby Le Luc claimed the space in every sense, her step punctuated by the sharp staccato of eye-wateringly high heels on mirror polished wood floor. A white dress cradled her long body. A matching white, elbow length gloved hand took a mike proffered by one of her staff.

‘Friends. Thank you for joining me tonight for the annual Le Luc Gala. How pleased father would have been to see some of the same faces from the same fine familial lines his father welcomed into this very ballroom. The theme tonight will be to give generously. My partner for the evening is the chairman of a burgeoning philanthropic organisation. For what exactly I’m unsure. It is likely education. The organisation is co-chaired by the surviving, very distinguished ladies Al Jamil who you all know and admire- so be assured it will be a tight ship. One of the sisters is in attendance tonight-- darling Tahani, we wish you every success with your charitable venture. Give generously, friends, no tax haven is entirely safe these days but write-offs abound. You will find donation envelopes dans le table by door’, she handed the mike off and clapped. Everyone clambered to comply.

Tabby ushered Michael over and he bowed and nodded in the most dignified way he could. Eleanor sighed in sympathy although she suspected he secretly dug a round of applause directed at him every now and again. Old habits.

Tabby Le Luc put up a hand and the clapping stopped, en pointe. She nodded at Michael and he started forward, awkwardly at first but he stood straight and dignified once he got started. Tabby nodded and low jazz played, in contrast to the classical stuff they’d been listening to all evening. The butlers signalled to the crowd and the ballroom moved.

Chidi tapped Eleanor on the shoulder, his hand outstretched.

‘May I?’

Eleanor blinked and gave a surprised yes.

He led her expertly around the floor, telling her about the progress Simone had made with their study when they talked before lunch. She caught glimpses of Michael, captive in the spotlight with Tabby Le Luc. She couldn’t make out the expression on his face. Tabby was talking and he was nodding.

Chidi was still talking and she shook herself to tune back in.

‘....anyway, I’m really sorry. I know we haven’t had time to hang out and I know you wanted to talk about things and I haven’t dealt with anything very well and...’

She spotted them again and they were facing each other. Tabby Le Luc was almost the same height as Michael. Tabby leaned in and her lips pressed against Michael’s. One of Michael’s hands rested flat on Tabby’s long back and the other cradled the back of her neck. Eleanor swallowed. They made a super attractive, fancy couple. The kind you could picture in a magazine for people who wore pastel colored ‘pullovers’ on their boats and owned stock in stuff. He leaned back and Tabby moved forward to kiss him again. Their eyes were closed. Eleanor craned too far to see and her heel caught as Chidi was trying to spin them, sending them ploughing into an unsuspecting younger couple. Chidi grabbed her before she could fall.

‘Eleanor, are you okay?’

She nodded after massaging her ankle and they made their way to the edge of the crowd. Another song started. Eleanor tried to smile. Chidi wasn’t fooled. He sighed.

‘I’ve been a bad friend, this last month. I-’

She winced. Of course he would blame himself, she’d been giving him a hard time for weeks. And she hadn’t even been listening just then. ‘Nah, Chidi. Look. It's not easy for you, I get it. Sorry I’ve been... None of any of this is normal. Like you said. We’ll talk about stuff when things chill out. Totally. Either way?’ She opened her hands. ‘We’re good. You’re family, man.’ She leaned closer, as if she was letting him in on a secret, ‘I didn’t really have a real one so that means something.’ she met his eye with warmth. ‘Soul Squad forever, baby.’

Chidi smiled with a deep breath. She hugged him and realised that she hadn’t said it just to make him feel better either. Huh.

‘Thanks Eleanor. That means a lot. For what it’s worth I feel the same.’ He took her hands. ‘One last dance before home? I think they’re finishing up.’

‘Sure, man. Now are we talking crap for the rest of the night or are we bustin' a move?’

He laughed and moved her around the floor. There were no showy moves but he was steady, thoughtful. They talked about Janet and Jason and how unexpectedly cute they were (Chidi had seen them kissing near the peacocks in the garden) and how they could see spending more time in Canada, however long they had left. Then Tabby Le Luc and Michael were nowhere to be seen. The song drew to a close. Chidi raised his face to the chandelier, quiet wonder on his face.

‘What a wild adventure, huh? I wonder if I’ll ever get to meet Kant in the afterlife. If by some crazy twist of fate, which I don’t believe in, we don’t end up in the Bad Place again.’

She patted his shoulder. ‘Cheeds, if any of us have a shot my money is on you.’

He smiled, looking genuinely touched. ‘Aw. Thanks Eleanor.’

The music stopped and he took her hand. She spotted Michael, standing at the edge of the room, alone. He caught her eye. She slowed and Chidi turned around. ‘Pizza back at home?’, Chidi asked. She turned back. ‘Sure.’

She looked up again but Michael was gone.

*

Michael waited by the door for the chauffeur. The mansion drained of people in a slow bleed, servants replaced hangers on, reordering the mansion’s universe and canvassing inventory for stolen items. Shrinkage was part and parcel of these events according to Jarlaith. The next few days would be spent accounting for high value items and chasing down missing treasures via discreetly obtained surveillance footage.

Michael surveyed Tabby Le Luc’s land in the dark.

Everything had gone to plan and yet he hadn’t felt this rotten since reboot #327 when Eleanor guessed what was going on and decided to attempt to seduce him by waiting for him on his desk wearing nothing but a bikini made of paperclips and whipped cream. (She started unpinning them one by one while biting a lip and he snapped before he saw a nipple)

He chuckled to himself. Looking back it was pretty funny. Only he wasn’t sure how he’d react to that now. He was all in knots and there didn’t seem to be a source. Everything felt off. As if he’d chewed sawdust and couldn’t get rid of the taste. Even the stars looked sad.

He sighed. At least Eleanor and Chidi had danced. They seemed happy again. Cosy. And that would make her happy. He thought of looking for her earlier that night in the never-ending stream of annoying humans dressed in finery and smelling like a dizzying cocktail of chemicals and hair gel. Then he saw her. Near the bar. Looking unlike anytime he’d seen her in life or after it. There she was, just shining. Under the glittering chandeliers. She saw him (she was looking for him too, he thought, maybe, he hoped) and she smiled and came toward him. The music played and he could barely move for the sight of her. Ridiculous really. He’d seen Eleanor Shellstrop every day for 300 years. Read things in her file that lower tier demons couldn’t even dream up.

He growled at himself, raking a hand through his hair.

‘At first your constant staring at her had me curious, especially after what Jarlaith said. The mooning and sighing at the stars just confirms it.’ Now in bare feet and secure in loungewear that looked like it was straight from Elizabeth Taylor‘s closet, Tabby Le Luc had sidled up to him without his noticing. He was losing his edge.

Michael tugged at his cufflinks.

‘What? What do you mean-’

She tutted. ‘Come now. We’re both too old for nonsense. No pretending beyond the strictly necessary.’ She offered him her arm. ‘One kiss was enough, no encore required, Mr Silver Fox, so relax.’

He took her arm. ‘Ah. Thank you, Ms Le Luc.’

‘Tabby. And thank you for being a gentleman. And for the satisfaction of the irate phone message I received from Howard this morning. He called you a snow-topped buffoon. Told you the hair thing would chap his ass.’ She tittered and Michael couldn’t help a smile. He took her card when she held it out and was pleasantly non-commital about her invitation to use her Capri property to ‘summer’ with his friends. She used summer as a verb, which was new to him. She asked him to look after Tahani, mentioned what ‘awful people’ her parents had been, and left him with a dry kiss on his cheek as Jarlaith pulled the car up to the front of the house.

*

Eleanor curled around her book. She sat on the couch in their living room under a lamp. A stone-like slice of pizza congealed on a side table nearby next to an empty, stolen bottle of champaign and a handful of stale shrimp on one of Tabby Le Luc’s fine plates. Champagne never really had much of an effect on her and tonight was no exception.

She glared at the pages. It was all in the hopes of getting to sleep but she wasn’t in the mood and the clock had just passed 4 am. Ha. Four in the morning. She’d had nights that were just getting started at 4 am. Wild nights involving tour buses and body shots and dancing on bars and why couldn’t she just stop being annoyed at Michael for doing exactly what she had been trying to prep him for all week? Stupid tall Michael being her official stupid best friend and all that stupid crap about him being there for her when no one else was and the stupid, confusing making out-

A key rattled at the door and she froze, pretending to be asleep. The front door opened. The living room floor creaked.

‘Eleanor your book is upside down.’

She opened an eye. He had changed back into a casual version of his usual clothes and was leaned against the door jamb, arms crossed.

She stretched. ‘It must have turned over while I was asleep.’

He raised an eyebrow. She made a face. ‘Whatever man. What do you care what I read?’

He held his hands up and moved to steal the cold pizza slice on the side table. She scowled.

‘Great job on the kiss by the way. You really sold it. Don’t forget to invite us to the wedding.’

His hand stopped before the pizza reached his mouth and his mouth dropped open.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Eleanor shrugged and pulled at her blanket. She crossed her arms.

Michael frowned and then his eyes shifted away and back. ‘You’re mad.’

Eleanor made a face as if she was scandalised at the mere mention.

‘That’s stupid. I don’t care who you make out with. Why would I?’

Michael looked down and threw the plate with the pizza on it back on the table, puffed up.

‘You and Chidi looked on the road to patching things up out there. It wouldn’t surprise me if the two of you started pressing your food holes together again regularly.’

Eleanor’s mouth pursed.

‘Maybe we will. Who knows? Don’t wanna be the only one left without someone to make out with.’

‘Huh. Yeah that would be a real disaster.’

She stood up and her blanket slid to the floor. ‘Oh no you didn’t.’

He scoffed. ‘Why is this pressing food holes thing so important to you humans anyway? It’s stupid and confusing and pointless and clearly doesn’t mean anything to any of you-’

Eleanor’s fist balled and she squared up to Michael. ‘Well you seemed to enjoy it tonight!’ He got closer to her, matching the volume of her voice.

‘I didn’t! It was weird and unsanitary and tasted like a minty ashtray and it wasn’t the sa-’

He took a big breath and started babbling. ‘Not that you know, that means anything. Just. Well. You said I enjoyed it. And you’re wrong, it was gross. And now you’re obviously mad and... Wait. Why are you obviously mad? ’

Eleanor sniffed and shifted.

‘Pfft. I told you I’m not mad. Whatever man. I don’t even care.’

Michael deflated, looking suddenly very tired and for some reason, she thought, oddly vulnerable. Like a sad, injured animal. Recently tamed. He searched her eyes as if trying to figure something out. It was so quiet for a moment she could hear the breeze knock against a loose shingle on the house across the street. In the throes of their argument they’d gravitated closer, two planets on a collision course, orbiting. She bit a lip and he flinched, his eyes tracking it. She sighed, reaching for his arm.

‘Look. Michael I really didn’t mean that, I think-’

Someone cleared their throat. ‘Hate to interrupt the most painful attempt at communication I have ever witnessed but would now be a good time to talk about fate of the human race, your afterlives and the integrity of your universe? Or maybe just argue about kissing more. I’ll wait.’

Michael put an arm out and stepped in front of Eleanor. A short, bald man whose drooping, leathery face set to basset hound levels of perma-glum, peered at them with mild curiosity from the living room doorway.

He was dressed like one of Chidi’s older colleagues (or Eleanor’s old science teacher)- if the colour ‘beige’ was sentient, this man was it.

Michael’s mouth opened and closed without a sound. ‘Do we know you?’

He paused when he glanced at Eleanor who had grabbed the remote as a potential weapon.

A corner of the man’s mouth lifted.

‘No but I know you, Michael. Let’s get a drink and talk, shall we?’ he turned to Eleanor. ‘Eleanor I hope you don’t mind if I borrow Michael for a bit? You have my word I will return him unharmed.’

Eleanor began to object.

‘Thanks.’ he said.

Michael span to Eleanor.

‘Eleanor tell Janet-’ but the man had already raised his arm, and, like Michael had done over 800 times, he snapped his fingers.

Both he and Michael disappeared. Eleanor shouted in surprise and called Michael’s name. All was still.

‘Shit shit shit. Jaaaanet!!’ Eleanor yelled and ran toward the stairs.

Chapter Text

Michael opened his eyes to stars. Through glass in front of him stretched a void blacker than any tar pit in the outer circles of the Bad Place- only it was rendered completely unintimidating by an explosion of the most vibrant shade of every colour imaginable. Swathes of violent pink fringed with purple melted lazily into gossamer clouds of orange ombre, points of light burned, winking, everywhere except for where wisps of everycolour pinwheeled into the dark velvet of space. Pleurigloss, suffice to say, was no longer his favourite.

Hot white light churned and pulsated deep within the cloud, as if ready to burst with life. In the distance what looked like a column of royal blue smoke marbled with turquoise bled outward to colonise the darkness.

Michael’s not-heart soared beyond the glass.

‘I know right? Never gets old. I thought it would, hundreds of aeons ago, but I guess the light show is still a real treat.’

Michael had forgotten the odd, short old man was even still there. He could only blink at him owlishly. For the first time he thought to examine his surroundings beyond the glass wall in front of him.

The vast, dark room had no ceiling that he could see and if there were walls beyond the glass wall facing the stars, he couldn’t make them out. Lanterns the size of buses lit the space dimly. A clean, scentless breeze circulated the air.

The old man watched him with dry amusement kindling in his eyes. ‘Well, Michael, I can see you’re stumped. So I’ll just press on.’ He gave a small flourish of his hand. ‘Welcome to what we call The Edge.’

Michael scrunched his face in confusion.

‘Right. Sorry. The Edge as in The Quadruple E- The Ever Expanding Edge of Existence.’

Michael’s jaw fell open slightly and he went back to gawking at the stars before he found his voice. ‘So that’s the birth of a galaxy out there?’

The old man snorted. ‘A galaxy? Please. No, my friend. That-’

Inside the pink cloud something combusted and sent a plume of solid white light into the inky black of space.

‘-that is the birth of a universe.’

Michael gaped at the old man and watched as the light show in the rainbow clouds of gas fired like poprocks in soda. ‘A universe?’

There was a thunderclap so loud that it reverberated in his spine and the pink cloud expanded as if reaching out to meet the distant blue column of light. Stars spilled out of the cloud as it grew. Multicoloured spinning discs were flung far and wide as they flew past the glass and boom after boom sounded until there was very little empty black space at all.

‘Wow.’ Michael couldn’t hold it in.

The old man stepped closer to Michael to observe.

‘Yeah. That’ll take a while. You’d be amazed how much matter and heart you have to pack into one of those things. We’re trying to get planning in under a few millenia but really, no universe is viable without a certain amount of levity. Team has to enjoy building and design or the whole thing just sort of falls in on itself. Like a bad one of those fancy eggy things.’

He turned to Michael who may or may not have even heard him over his own shock and awe. The old man cleared his throat.

‘You about ready for that drink?’

Michael, still slack-jawed but not sensing any immediate danger, nodded. Then he remembered he was supposed to be outraged and stuck his chin out, ‘And you have to explain why I’m here.’ He moved forward. ‘A soufflé.’

‘What?’

‘The fancy eggy thing you mentioned. That's a soufflé.’

The man gave a half shrug. A golf cart appeared at the snap of his fingers. He hopped in and beeped the horn at Michael who was still standing there.

‘Let’s roll! Manhattans don’t drink themselves. Hope you like yours dry. I only make them dry. You call shotgun!’

Michael hopped into the passenger seat with a grumble before his head snapped back at the sudden acceleration of the cart.

‘Who are you?’ He shouted over the velocity of the cart as it sped along until whatever surrounded it blurred.

The old man laughed.

Michael gripped the dashboard.

They zoomed passed a huge, pale many-armed creature with one white eye. It was snoring, it’s bulbous belly expanding like the universe’s slimiest bellows as it floated over a gnarled bronze throne. The air around it shimmered, reminding Michael of an oil slick. Or Gary from Creative Filleting who had a digestive issue nobody liked to mention.

Michael gave a questioning look.

‘Stanley. Supposedly he weaves when we sleep. None of us actually remember sleeping, ever, but theory is that Stanley inhabits other plains most of the time. Something to do with the fabric of reality. Whatever. Above my pay grade. He’s quiet guy.’

They slow as they pass five glossy creatures with tentacles and lips the colour of raw meat. They’re covered in eyes. Because of course they are.

‘Marge! Harry! Cynthia. Ron. Joe.’

Michael’s ersatz tour guide swerved their golf cart closer and waved. The creatures seemed to be playing craps. Hundreds of dice jiggled in their tentacles, eyes swerving in every direction, but each extended a tentacle as they drove by. He chuckled. ‘Good crew, Team C.’

Michael wasn’t sure he should ask but what the hell. When on the Edge of all Existence...

‘Team C?’

‘Team Chance. If they stop rolling their dice Chaos governs what Fate doesn’t account for. Which is a lot. Gets very messy. Fate is a fond of a little vaycay. Says it keeps her fresh. I say she likes to sleep in and re-read her most romantic weavings while sipping from the sweet rivers of the collective unconscious. Keeps her buzzed, the sentimental lush. She leaves almost everything to Chance. They work hard, pick up the slack.’

Michael did little more than nod. He had never even heard rumours about any of this.

‘Forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but you did just abduct me so I'll ask again: who are you?’

‘The Caretaker. Pleased to meet ya. I keep The Edge running. I keep a lot of things running, you could say. I oversee all directions and all times. All of the time. Think of me as the Superintendent to the apartment block that is Existence. Only Caretaker sounds way better than Super which just makes me sound like an asshole.’

Michael had a headache and a stomach ache. Which was unusual considering he didn’t really have a proper nervous system, officially. No wonder Chidi was such a hot mess. Michael could barely cope. He wondered if Eleanor was worried.

‘Did you just say you govern all times?’

The Caretaker chuckled. ‘Oh. I forgot you think time is either ‘Jeremy Bearimy’ shaped, or linear, for the humans.’

They rounded a corner and barrelled passed an endless wall of plumbing that hissed as it leaked steam. Michael shook his head at The Caretaker, resolving to never use air quotes again unless being intentionally annoying. ‘You're saying it's not.’

The Caretaker regarded him seriously. ‘You think Time has that kind of time? Time is too vast to fully materialise on any one plain. It’s everywhere. Everytime. It exists outside all universes, flowing in each one in concert with its location. Even here where no one has ever really met Time but is aware of actually having met Time at some point.’

They hurtled toward a rose tinted wall slick with slime without slowing and Michael shouted in alarm. The Caretaker inclined his head. ‘Oh. This could feel strange for you.’

They burst through the other side with a sucking noise and a vaguely obscene wet pop. Michael gasped. He was covered in purple goo. Which was in his mouth. Gross and... grape flavour?

Michael glared at the Caretaker who got out of the cart, completely clean and dry. ‘What the Bad Place, man?!’

The Caretaker looked at him. ‘Apologies. I forgot you have a body.’

Michael got out of the cart, removing handfuls of goo as he straightened, rapidly reaching his limit with the many indignities of today. ‘You. Forgot. I had. A body ?!’

The Caretaker made his way to the other side of a bar. Everything in the space was pristine white, sleek and shiny.

‘Hey, it’s been a while since I left HQ in a body to mingle with Existence. Our true forms would make your mind explode, nine dimensioner. I’m very good looking.’ He wiggled his eyebrows and smiled. His teeth looked like George Washington era dentures and the rings under his eyes gave him a weird, recently deceased pallor. He gestured around the room, ‘Better clean you up. You’ve seen the colour scheme here- I don’t want to have to scrub you off my bar. It’s new.’

He snapped his fingers and Michael was in one of his own suits, wearing his most casual tie. Michael grumbled and claimed a bar stool which was at least comfortable. He sighed as he leaned on the bar. ‘If I’m a nine dimensioner then what are you?’

The Caretaker grabbed bottles in quick succession and poured them in varying amounts into a cocktail shaker. ‘I operate in fifty dimensions and realities. Seventy at a pinch. Never pushed the boat out on that one- it’s a need-to-know kind of thing.’

Michael shook his head. A crystal tumbler slid down the smooth white bar and came to a stop in front of him. The liquid in the glass glowed a soft red. He sniffed it. ‘What’s this, distilled excitement with unicorn tear ice and space dust?’

The Caretaker made a face. ‘This is no hipster establishment, Michael. That’s a Manhattan. Astral twist. I can get you the recipe if you like.’

Michael sighed and drank, chewing the ice. ‘It’s no marguerita but it's good. Thanks.’

The Caretaker came to his side of the bar and perched on the stool beside him. He snapped his fingers and the lighting warmed, light jazz started up. The jazz was following him, Michael thought. F his life right now.

‘Better. Ah what a millennium, eh Michael?’

Michael hummed politely in assent, confident a point would be gotten to eventually. The Caretaker rounded the bar and took the stool next to him, his stubby legs dangling.

‘Let me get right to it. We’re worried about universe 1356A and B.’

‘Universe 1356A and B?’

The Caretaker sighed. ‘I thought we established while watching the light show out front that there are other universes, countless numbers of them. This should not be news to you. Your home was 1356B. Eleanor is from 1356A. Try keep up, Michael. Your universe. ’

Michael downed his drink. He wished he had another. This day was only getting more and more confusing and he had so hoped that it was over when he got home after the gala. He muttered 'My bad.', and waved at the Caretaker to continue.

The Caretaker snapped his fingers and their drinks refilled. ‘Let’s just cut a long story short and say that your old boss Shawn, despite having more than a hunch that the points system is way out of whack, is something of a climber. He’s exploited flaws that were unforeseen after a re-org, deliberately throwing 1356A and B’s system into this state that over time will destabilise both primary and secondary universes until... kablammo.’

Michael grimaced. ‘Kablammo?’

The Caretaker mimed a silent explosion with his hands, earnestly. Michael sat bolt upright. ‘How do we stop him?’

The Caretaker swirled the ice in his drink thoughtfully. ‘Ah, so. Herein lies the rub as the man used to say.’

‘What man? Is that Shakespeare? Is he here? Does he have answers?’

The Caretaker rolled his eyes. ‘I have a strategy to ensure everyone's survival but there’s a hitch- the most beautiful and most irritating thing in any universe: Choice, Michael. You beings have choices.’ He gestured toward Michael with his glass. ‘Every moment you make decisions about who you are and it effects the world around you. Those are the laws of Everyverse. Only you can save you from yourselves.’

‘Ok, fine, but are you telling me you refuse to help with... the kablammo problem?’ Michael slid off his stool to stand. ‘What kind of Caretaker reports a problem and refuses to be specific about both the problem and its solution?’

The Caretaker chuckled. ‘In 1356A? Most of them. For a being like me? One who is bound by free will? It’s a sticky one. Look, I want you guys to come out on top in this, your universe is one of my favourites. The platypus, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, haggis, power ballads... all good stuff. So I will tell you this: things are out of balance. Before the system can be repaired or remade that needs to be addressed. You have a vital part to play in that.’

Michael fell back into his stool with a hand on his chest. ‘Me? I’m a disgraced, barely middle management demon. My only friends are human. I’m on the outs with the Judge...’

The Caretaker smiled, which was more than a little unsettling.

‘Judge Gen. She’s tough, to be sure, but fair. I’ve discussed my proposal with her and she understands what’s at stake. So there will be another test. A different one, more continuous assessment based and not in the Bad Place or the Good Place. That’s all I’ll say about that. Incidentally, demon is such a derogatory word. So you worked in the Bad Place. Did you think your birthplace defined you permanently? Your choices of late haven’t been very infernal.’

Michael blinked.

The Caretaker just looked at him. ‘Something your mentor Shawn wanted you to assume, no doubt. Suffice to say there is always a path toward light and always a path to darkness. Choice, remember? I mean, Eleanor Shellstrop. Enough said.’

Michael scratched his head and shifted on his stool. ‘She’s going to be worried. She’ll say she’s not but... Anyway. What can I do?’

The Caretaker leaned across the bar and batted him on the shoulder. ‘Glad you asked, Michael. It’s for you to decide. Well not all but some. Others will have choices to make too.’

He came around and motioned for Michael to sit on one of the room's long white sofas. Michael sank back into the cool fabric and the Caretaker stood in front of him.

The lights dimmed and he pointed upward to a panel sliding back in the ceiling.

It was as if they were in the beating heart of a fledgling universe. Michael watched, hypnotised, as colours tangled and untangled and became new colours he’d never seen. In any dimension.

‘Am I supposed to-’

‘Shush. You don’t always get centre stage. Showboat.’

The lights dimmed again until Michael felt like he was floating in a dark box with only the brilliant tornado of colour for company. Eventually, the room around him fell away and they floated in a storm of colour. It had no temperature, and he was strangely at peace. Maybe it was because he could no longer see the Caretaker but then, when he spoke, it was as if his voice was the air around him.

‘You have a series of choices to make. Your first is this. I am offering you your last chance to go back to your old life. Back to before your experiment. You, through your actions, have earned that choice. You would be reset in exactly the same way you reset the humans and you would be guaranteed a middle management pin for a different project within the same time frame.’

Michael gave a sound of disbelief. ‘What? No way! No deal. What about El- about my friends? They’d be tortured as soon as they arrived.’

‘You wouldn’t care because you wouldn’t know them. They’d just be random names in files, anonymous screams in the tarantula quid tank.’

Michael looked shocked. ‘Not know them? You must not be as sharp as you think you are if you even, for a single moment, thought I would consider that.’

The Caretaker appeared next to him with a smirk, floating under a spotlight. Michael jumped at his sudden proximity. ‘That’s what I thought. But you haven’t heard your only other option.’ The Caretaker fixed him with a solemn stare, all humour vanishing. ‘If you decide you’re going back you have to see this through. There’s only one way off Earth for you.’

Michael frowned. ‘You mean-’

The Caretaker nodded. ‘You’ll have to be there for her.’

‘Her? Who-’

The Caretaker gave him a classic bitch please look.

Michael narrowed his eyes, his jaw tightening. ‘I’m always there for her.’

The Caretaker rolled his eyes at Michael’s challenging look. ‘I’m talking about when it’s her time, Michael. Her death. In about a week.’

The realisation of Eleanor’s impending death hit Michael like a wet punch to the gut- a dithering unease, a feathery dread. ‘So soon?’

The Caretaker arched a brow, wrinkles deepening all the way up to his barely there hairline. ‘So soon? This is her round two. I know the Judge is angry with you for rule breaking but Eleanor passed her last test. And you guys could be the key to fixing this mess.’

Michael met the Caretaker’s eye without really looking at him. Of course she had to die. Again. That was the whole point after how far they’d come. So why all the dread? His throat tightened. ‘I guess I hadn’t really given it much thought. What about the others?’

The Caretaker nodded, side-eyeing Michael. ‘But of course that doesn’t bother you. I mean, it used to not phase you at all, the ending of the short lives of these... ‘cockroaches’ right?’

Michael scoffed. ‘Now hold on a minute. That was before. It’s called a ‘process’, man. They’re my friends now. Don’t be a jerk, I’d give anything to make sure they have the best chance-’

The Caretaker held up a hand. ‘Relax, Michael I’m just busting your proverbial testicles.’ The Caretaker pointed a finger at him, his grin and the light making him look reclaimed from the morgue. ‘You make it way too easy.’

Michael sulked while the Caretaker studied him, the swirling colours casting mesmerising shapes and multi-tonal shadows on his placid hangdog face. For a moment he didn't look human at all but instead a collection of shapes, just another part of the little slice of colour filled void around them. The air hummed. Or was that the Caretaker?

‘You say these people are your friends. And Eleanor? You’ve really gone above and beyond, watching out for her, haven’t you? And she’s done the same for you. You bent more than one rule.’

Michael grew a sudden interest in fixing his tie. ‘Ahem. Well yes. Eleanor is...’ He shifted awkwardly and waved away his own word, ‘unique. She’s different.’

The Caretaker only continued to study him. ‘Is she? At any rate, she is a special being to 1356A/B and so are you, now.’

Michael frowned, deciding to unpack that last comment later. He cleared his throat. ‘She won’t suffer, will she? She didn’t last time so there wouldn’t be any reason to...’

He did his best to sound casual, skills he thought he had perfected as the fake Good Place architect of neighborhood 12358W. Still, Michael knew from the Caretaker’s amused expression that all he was seeing was a twitchy immortal being more anxiety ridden than a four tailed scorpion juggler on hot coals- and he was seeing it in dimensions unfathomable.

‘You really have come a long way, Michael. I told you that she passed her test. You supported her on her journey... you’ve been a really good friend to her, even by celestial standards. Why all the concern?’

Michael huffed. ‘She doesn’t deserve any more pain. Eleanor is-’

‘Unique. Different. Yes, you’ve already said that.’

‘No. I mean yes! But more than that she’s-’

‘Your friend? Yes, yes. But you know how this all works. She’s not in any danger. As a friend you need not be concerned.’

‘Yes but she’s-’ Michael felt a heady rush that stopped him dead in his tracks as another thought occured to him.

There it was, that weird giddy fizz in his chest. That Eleanor Shellstrop feeling. Her lips on his during kissing practise. Her tickling him in a ball pit. Yelling at him in their living room. No other creature in the universe did this to him- infuriating, delightful, painful, utterly impossible and totally fucking intoxicating. Only Eleanor was all of those things. It was possible that she had somehow become even more...vital to him in the last while. If that was possible. He stared into the darkness.

‘Will I ever see her again? After?’, he asked in a quiet voice.

The Caretaker regarded him with the same bemused, arch expression. ‘Hmm. I wonder. Have you ever given any thought to what holds a universe together?’

Michael sighed like a school child being asked to recite times tables he hadn't studied. How he hated being without answers, being unable to call the shots. The Caretaker was not discouraged. ‘I mean, the metaphysical connective tissue, not all the technical mumbo jumbo with the made up labels the three dimensioners obsess over. I’m talking about the whole, to borrow a 1356A parlance, enchilada.’

‘Oh that. No. I suppose not.’ Michael waved a hand as he trailed off.

The Caretaker went on as if he hadn’t said anything- ‘Why do you think the team has to enjoy creating, has to infuse each fluffy, burning cloud of gas, each asteroid with wonder? It's all in service to one thing. The one thing that holds it all together, that each successful universe has to have enough of in order to remain stable.’

He waited for Michael’s answer but all Michael could do was look at him and mutter something bitter under his breath about metaphysics being worse than moral philosophy.

The Caretaker sighed. ‘Ok. Well.’ He tugged at a sleeve to examine his wrist watch which was just a round face and a flurry of green numbers, streaming. The colours around them sped up, faster and faster, edging closer to them and each other.

‘As much I adore pandering to the wilfully dense, Eleanor Shellstrop is about to have the first of three very important choices to make. The first will begin the end of her mortal life. Again. Get ready. Right about...’

The Caretaker’s hand went up and his fingers met in an all too familiar prelude to a snap.

Michael sat up- ‘Wait! I have more questions. When-’

‘Now.’

S N A P !

Chapter Text

They were at the breakfast table just after dawn when Michael reappeared in the kitchen. Jason screamed, covering his mouth with a hand.

‘Oh no. Michael died, yo, and now he’s a ghost!’

Eleanor sprang up and threw her arms around him. She was probably yelling at him but her voice was muffled because her face was buried in his chest. Her muted tirade was punctuated with a punch on the arm.

‘You vanished with that weirdo. Dummy! I didn’t know what to do. You just disappeared. I told Janet and she couldn’t do anything. She said she didn’t think a demon took you, that no one she could think of could just appear like that without a door. Then she started talking about old rumours logged on her system about external management something and I was like “Blah blah blah, where’s Michael?”’ She took a breath. ‘He didn’t do anything shady to you did he? I mean yeah he looked like the world’s most boring, secretly alcoholic biology teacher whose only comfort was guaranteed liver failure but he was polite.’

Michael, who had just been watching her, swept her up in a bone crushing hug. She squeaked and returned it. He put her back down, his eyes glossy, his features tight. He took Eleanor’s hand and led her to the table. He looked at her before looking at the others.

‘Guys, I have some bad news and maybe some good news.’

He motioned for them to all sit.

*

They agreed that at least they knew they had a week. This time they had the chance to tie up loose ends, say goodbyes to loved ones and deal with the messy business of dying.

After Michael told them, they went their separate ways to think about what they wanted to do with the time that they had left. They weren’t promised an entire week, so they all acknowledged they could technically go at any time.

Tahani made plans to fly to Rio to meet her sister. Kamillah had three days off tour and had already reached out. Jason decided that he wanted to show Janet around Jacksonville and for her to meet his friends.

Dinner time hit when Chidi finally decided what he wanted to do. He wanted to travel back to meet up with his best friend from childhood- he had never apologised properly for almost dying in front of him or for being a nightmare best friend all their lives. He also wanted to meet with Simone in person to apologise again for the way their relationship ended and to complete final work on the study since he wouldn’t be around for further questions.

Michael watched Eleanor closely all afternoon. She didn’t speak much and spent most of the day in a corner of the house’s emaciated garden on a plastic lawn chair, just watching the sky. She shook her head distantly when Michael invited her out for a walk to the supermarket.

He brought back food and no one ate lunch. They ordered Thai food after dark and discussed their plans over takeout containers.

On the upside, funding for their school was in order and the right people were installed to run things- they’d all known this day would come, they just weren’t expecting a heads up.

Eleanor pushed her food around her plate and sighed, looking around the table. ‘So Tahani, you’re going to Rio. Jason and Janet you’re going to Florida. Chidi you’re visiting your friend in Philly and then you’re going to Oxford-’

‘Where Simone is now. Correct.’ he nodded. ‘I assume you’re going to go visit Donna right? I mean Diana. Your mom and her new-’

‘Nope. Already said goodbye to them. Don't owe them jack.’

Chidi frowned. ‘Oh. So what are you going to-’

Michael watched Eleanor’s gaze slide away from the table and he piped up. ‘She’s, uh, staying here. With me. We’re... going on a road trip.’ He nodded, as if they’d discussed this and decided together. ‘It’s like a... oh! A bucket list. Yup, I have an Earth bucket list that Eleanor has been kind enough to help me with.’

Eleanor looked at him and gave a side smile. Her eyes glistened. ‘Bucket list? Yup. A bucket list.’

Michael smiled at her. ‘Mmmhm.’

She grinned and then her face fell. ‘Wait. If we’re dying, how are you leaving?’

‘The house?’

‘No dummy, Earth.’

He shrugged. ‘Same as you.’

Eleanor looked surprised. ‘Oh. You and Janet can’t like magic up a door or something?’ She studied him.

He shifted in his chair. ‘What and abandon you?’ he glanced around. ‘All of you? I couldn't do that.’

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re making it sound like you had a choice.’

Michael suddenly became interested in the table top. ‘There was never really any other choice. Not for me.’

He glanced at Janet, who beamed in sad solidarity and gave a single nod. ‘Not for either of us.’

Eleanor looked at Michael hard, without blinking. ‘Yeah Michael and I are about to be our own buddy movie. Road trippin’ ‘til we croak it.’

A slow grin lit up her face and Michael looked up, returning it. The others exchanged looks. Chidi smacked a palm on the table. ‘That settles it then. It’s our last night together on this side of the veil. That means we celebrate the Soul Squad.’

Jason wooped. Tahani clapped. Eleanor smiled at Michael and mouthed ‘thanks’. Michael squeezed her hand and smiled back.

 *

Just as they had before, once upon a time when the chips were down, they drank the house dry and danced together 'til they were ready to drop.

 *

At the end of the night Janet and Jason went to their room (Jason slept in Janet’s but his stuff stayed in the fallout zone that was his room) and Tahani prepared, red eyed, to go to the airport to snag a flight to Rio.

‘I hope I’m not going down in the plane. I would hate that. So scary.’, she had said, deep in her Pimm’s cups.

Janet shook her head. ‘Unlikely. Too many other casualties would only disrupt the timeline. You will likely die in an accident or have a sudden catastrophic internal malfunction that will lead to your demise. Don’t worry.’

She winced. ‘Thanks Janet. Always... so reassuring.’

They agreed they wouldn’t say goodbye to each other but only ‘see you later’. They swore, if it was in any way possible, that they would reunite on the other side.

The last time Eleanor would see Tahani on Earth was the sight of her in a fuchsia-coloured dress, waving through the back window of a cab driving up a street in a slumbering Toronto neighborhood before dawn.

*

There was one bottle of booze left (Golschlager? Man, Jason really was the worst sometimes) and Eleanor was determined to drink it. She stumbled into the living room where Michael lay on the couch on his back, his long limbs stretched out with his top button undone, the back of his hand over his eyes. The blanket only covered three quarters of him, pirhana patterend socks peeking out at the end of the couch. His glasses were beside him on the table. She slowed when she approached the couch and staggered slightly as she drained the last of the bottle and pitched it over her shoulder where it hit the carpet and rolled, clinking against the skirting board.

The birds were stirring and she could just make out the mail box across the street in the mauve light.

!!!All at once, Eleanor was bone weary. She had been wandering in a fog since she got the news. Partly because the whole thing was so surreal but also because she was left smothered in a blanket of loss. What had she built that would miss her or that she would miss? What had she taken a chance on? She'd built nothing but walls up until recently- sustained herself on the empty life calories scrounged in the cycle of parties and convenient disposable jobs and friendships, no ties, no roots, no problem man, no problem because I don't care... Now that that wasn't true anymore and she'd gotten the hang of this living thing, had actually done stuff, engaged, the idea of leaving in a week was a shock. The news of it hurt like the electric jolt of pain at a bikini wax strip being ripped upwards. You knew it was coming but damn. Even then, what was her life beyond this group of friends now about to scatter to the winds again to be closer to things that mattered most to them? All going except for one.

Had caring been a mistake?

Her eyes filled. She had managed to not to cry yet. Ugh, drunkenness was such a mascara thinner. The room started to spin. She kicked off her shoes, almost falling over, and clambered on to the couch to lie down next to Michael. He gave an oof when she crash landed into his side. When he realised what was happening, he raised an arm for her to slip under. Once she was settled he pulled the blanket over both of them. The flood gates opened as soon as her head hit his chest. She burrowed into his side and he turned to face her a little to give her more space. She flung her arm over him and cried into a fistful of his shirt.

Michael’s arm tightened around her. He said nothing. He stroked her hair. He kissed the top of her head.

Then, when she was too light headed to cry anymore, she dropped her lips by her fingertips in the crook of his neck and relaxed, exhausted, onto his silent, warm chest. His arms tightened again. Together they floated off, a battered couch as their life raft.

Chapter Text

Two: Goodbye Canada, Hello Nicholas Cage’s Pre-emptive Grave. (Also fire-breathers and begnets)

New Orleans

The next morning, no amount of coffee could snap Eleanor out of her existential funk. She jabbed at a frosted donut with a finger, not even remotely hungry. Michael had gone out for donuts, before she woke, to feed Jason and Janet before they left for the airport. Which they had in a flurry of hugs and sniffles, a couple of hours ago. Everyone was leaving. Chidi was next.

Chidi appeared in the kitchen doorway and nodded at her. She rose. 'I'll walk you out.'

He dumped his suitcase on the bottom step and adjusted the shoulder strap of his dorky brown leather professor satchel. He gave her a sad smile and spread his arms. She stepped into them, trying to ignore the lump in her throat.

‘I swore I wouldn’t cry, man. This is ridiculous. I don’t do tears and since yesterday...’ she sniffled into his shoulder and breathed him in- crisp soap and the scent equivalent of that feeling of finishing an essay you know is solid. She felt his chuckle as he rubbed her back. He let her go and stood back to look at her.

‘I called the university for you. Said there was a family emergency and you might not be back. Greg said to say thanks. Wants you to get in touch if you're in town again.' He shook his head. 'Eleanor, you know me. I’m stumped in situations like this... so I’ll hand this over to my man Epicurus. You would’ve liked him. He knew how to have a good time.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Epicurius said: “Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” You have made me, a nervous wreck on legs, a happier version of myself. You pushed me to be brave. Your friendship and support has meant the world to me, and I can only hope that I’m lucky enough to continue it, whatever comes after this.’ He gave her hand a squeeze and smiled again. ‘So thanks, man.’

She huffed a laugh and hugged him again, tight. ‘Take care of yourself okay? And easy on the indecision- we don’t have forever left, dude.’ She let him go and wiped her eyes, smoothing down his sweater vest. ‘Sorry we never got to have that conversation. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. This does. Don’t forget to squeeze in some fun, nerd.'

Chidi squeezed her hand and nodded. ‘Yeah. Me too. You and Michael take care of each other. Have fun.’

A taxi beeped on the curb in front of the house. He looked back over his shoulder and back at her. She nodded toward the cab and held out a fist. 'See you on the flip flop.’ He smiled and bumped her fist with his.

She blinked and then there was the thunk of a car door closing behind Chidi.

From the cab he gave a single wave as he was carried away and up the street and then, distantly, he turned away to face his open road.

Eleanor watched until his car disappeared, shivering in her pyjamas at the end of the driveway. She swiped at a tear with a fist before going back into the house, numb but still moving.

Michael trudged downstairs, all the stuff he’d acquired during his short time on Earth packed neatly into a compact suitcase with wheels. He stalled when he saw her. From his bedroom window upstairs, while he was packing, he had seen Eleanor and Chidi's goodbye and experienced a spark of annoyance at Chidi for what he could only assume was a lack of bravery. He bit his lip as they hugged and Chidi left her, obviously sad, on the doorstep.

Eleanor hid behind the laptop that Janet had left them. Hers now, he supposed. She slammed the laptop shut, a tight smile forced on.

‘Hope you have your passport ready Mr “Michael Travails” ‘cause we’re going to N’Orleans.’ Her grin went from tight to toothy.

He smiled almost as tightly. She still hadn’t really looked at him but continued-‘It's crazy that I've never been there before. They know how to party. There should be good food and music and apparently Nic Cage has like this weird tomb there even though he’s not dead? I don’t know.’ She slapped her thigh. ‘So our flight is in... she looked at the clock on the wall. ‘three hours.’ She raised a fist. ‘Let’s do this!’ she slugged from a bottle of Yukon Jack. He thought they’d drunk the house dry but apparently he’d been wrong.

‘Imma go pack ma shit.’ She clambered off the couch. The blanket tangled in her feet and she went down, crooked, on the floor. ‘Ow. I’m okay! Woo! I’m okay.’

Eleanor zigzagged toward the stairs and Michael groaned. Knowing Eleanor and how she ‘processed’ things, this might not be the easiest week. He would make sure they stopped at a fast food place at the airport- he’d become well versed in the principles of ‘soakage’ since reading Eleanor’s file.

*

New Orleans was raucous black magic by dark. As hard as Michael tried he couldn’t distract Eleanor from attempting to drink her body weight in everything 20% proof or above. He got them adjoining rooms in a relaxed but nice place in the French quarter, and they hit the town. They ate begnets from a food truck with powdered sugar (which Eleanor had to clean off him as she laughed) and then they went bar hopping. When prodded, Michael admitted that it would be very difficult to get him drunk to which Eleanor replied ‘Challenge accepted’ with extra strength wickedness in her eye while lining up double the originally intended amount of shots.

He woke the next morning fully clothed with a face full of her elbows. She only groaned and tightened her grip when he tried to move her. Trust Eleanor to be a stealth cuddler. Gingerly, he rolled her over onto her back. Looked like his Ya Basic! t-shirt had been stolen. The room span aggressively when he sat up so he boomeranged back to the safety of the pillow with a whimper. Eleanor rubbed her face, wincing as the light hit her eyes. She rummaged around for her phone and clicked it on to check the time.

She groaned at her screen and threw an arm out blindly to wake him.

‘Michael.’, she hissed. ‘Michael wake up.’

He groaned. ‘M’wake.’

Her head, a halo of ransacked bird’s nest, appeared above him. She waved the phone screen in his face. ‘I think I did something stupid last night.’

He arched a brow at her. ‘So out of character. Was this before Weird Ike’s fire-breathing show featuring open amateur try outs that I had to physically restrain you from joining or that really disturbing basement bar place where the woman could play a harmonica with her-’

‘Ha ha ha, you’ve made your point. Real talk? This could actually be fun.’

Michael groaned again. ‘Well now I’m actively worried.’

Eleanor thumped him in the shoulder and got out of bed. They hadn’t even gotten under the covers. She had used his jacket as a blanket. She tossed her phone on the bed beside him and moved toward the bathroom.

‘Get your stuff packed coz apparently I drunk booked us flights to Kansas today. Guess it has to do with the tour I also booked for the World’s Largest Ball of Twine- apparently also in Kansas.’

Michael sat up on an elbow, with caution.

‘What, twine? Why?’

Eleanor smiled at him from the bathroom doorway.

‘Who the hell knows? Maybe it was after the vodka but before the mezcal, which I don’t even like by the way. Ugh. Wasn’t there a woman at Nic’s grave who was talking about it?’

Michael collapsed backwards. ‘Yeah... The kook we met drinking alone in the middle of the night at a cemetery next to the stupid mini pyramid grave some actor bought but wasn’t actually in. Tina! That was her. She could tie cherry stems with her tongue. What kind of person just carries a jar of those around? She was from-’

‘Kansas. She said the big twine was in Sharknado.’

Michael sighed. Then he laughed with an arm over his eyes. How is this my life now? was heavily implied though unspoken. ‘Guess we’re going to Kansas.’

Eleanor ran over and slapped his knee. ‘That’s the spirit.’

He put a pillow over his face to block out the light over the hum of the shower.

 *

 Three: The World’s Largest Ball of Twine

Kansas

‘So. Yep. There it is.’

Michael strode up the step and stopped beside her. ‘That is a lot of twine.’

Eleanor snorted. ‘It is.’

Michael grinned at her, genuine bemusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. ‘I’ll say it again: Why?’

She leaned against him with a laugh. ‘I have no idea, man. Ya gotta think sometimes people do a thing just because they can.’

Michael considered her and the twine. ‘Maybe they do it to be different. Like... maybe after they die people will remember this one crazy thing they did. I mean, look at it.’

They stepped back in unison to get a better look. The ball of twine looked like an overgrown spun straw hair ball. Michael ran a hand against it. It was taller than him. Eleanor sighed.

‘Yeah. Also some people are just nuts.’

Michael nodded, humming. ‘I don’t know. It has a certain kind of wacky appeal. People leave behind worse things. Debt. Secret families. Hereditary illness. Hideous but pristine couches under those terrible clear plastic seat covers that sort of fuse with your skin in hot weather if you sit on them for awhile-’ Eleanor raised an eyebrow and Michael leaned in, ‘we used to torture people with those- you know, make them wear shorts, turn up the heat, and then ssshkkk again and again.’ She winced. He continued, ‘Point is, I guess I can see why people do stuff like this. It’s like a giant, ugly textile ‘I was here’.’

Eleanor smirked and let her head fall to his arm, looking at the furry ridges and ridges of yellowed twine. They stood together in silence, seeming to hold each other up, the sound of cars passing as people busied themselves on the way to the supermarket, finishing work, picking up kids...

‘Starting to wish I’d left something weird behind.’ Eleanor said.

Michael bit his lip and then he smirked. ‘You might have to settle for helping change the afterlife forever.’

‘Ha! I guess that works.’ Eleanor smiled.

Michael’s stomach rumbled. Once he got used to eating, his skin suit sort of expected it. Also, he enjoyed it so much. Usually. Sauerkraut not so much. It reminded him too much of squanch, the bitter liquid run-off from the tear mills served lukewarm over shredded human hopes.

Eleanor jabbed him. ‘Nearest presentable diner?’

Michael nodded. ‘Burgers?’

She held her hand up for a high five which he gave, gladly, before she took his hand and dragged him toward the car.

Neither of them had the energy for partying that night. Instead they spent the evening eating take out sundaes and watching Nick at Night reruns in a motel under two sets of blankets fashioned into individual sleeping bags in their pyjamas. They had adjoining rooms again. Still, Michael woke up the third day in a row with a face full of Eleanor’s elbows. He felt around for the remote and flicked off the TV. Eleanor's grip tightened as he considered getting out of bed to close the acid trip style curtains, thereby fending off the stripe of encroaching dawn light.

He looked down at the top of Eleanor’s blonde head on his chest and hesitated.

Instead of moving, he could always just give in to drifting off while being stealth cuddled. Unsure, he rested an arm around her, gently. She increased cuddle strength and warmth bloomed in his chest. Must be because he had his favourite t-shirt back. Also this was his first vacation. He was just super relaxed. Probably. Still, he had to admit, he'd never been quite so fond of another being before so who knew? Feelings were weird and confusing and generally sucked. But this... this was...

Sleep found him again and his worries escaped on a sigh.

 *

 Four: The World’s Largest Ball of Stamps

Nebraska

After Nic Cage’s vacant grave and the world’s largest ball of twine, the weird sights became a thing.

‘It’s kind of a let down.’ Eleanor wrinkled her nose while Michael paced its circumference.

‘Yeah it definitely lacks the insane but majestic presence the twine had.’ He reached his starting point, beside Eleanor. ‘Maybe because it’s smaller?’

Eleanor tilted her head and shrugged. Michael shot a glance at her, sideways. She’d been fidgety all day.

Even he was a little thrown at the prospect of facetime with the gang later. It made the whole death thing realer, somehow. It took a couple of days to co-ordinate- Tahani and Kamilah were boating down the Amazon the next day and would be outside any sort of network range. Jason and Janet were visiting Donkey Doug who loved Janet immediately and, when they got engaged in the romantic moments between a monster truck show and a glow stick bubble rave, announced he would wed them himself, being a minister of the Sacred Rainbow Dolphin Church of Jacksonville. Michael chose not to ask. Chidi was in Oxford, meeting with Simone to consult on next steps for the study. He hoped to somehow incorporate their findings into the School of Life initiative if he could convince her to get involved.

Eleanor pulled out her phone and looked at the time again before shoving it back into her pocket. ‘Meh. I’ve seen enough. Let’s beat it.’

He was left trying to catch up to her.

They drove to the liquor store in silence. She got out after asking if he wanted anything. He shook his head. She didn’t take long coming back.

‘Chinese takeout okay?’, she asked as she shoved two bags of clinking bottles into the back seat.

He raised an eyebrow at the sound. ‘Sure.’

She hopped in and drove back to their motel.

‘They’re calling soon so I figured we’d just go back.’ She bit the nails on the hand that wasn't steering the car.

He nodded at her before turning away to watch the scenery go by, his placid reflection and hers, tense at the wheel, floating ominously over endless fields, overlapped.

They drove for almost an hour in silence before Eleanor gave a growl of frustration and pulled the car, hard, into the shoulder. She rounded on him.

‘Michael what am I even doing here?’ she banged on the steering wheel. ‘I literally have no idea. No idea. At all. I’m going to die in a few days and what am I doing?’

Michael turned to her. She stared, unblinking at the road ahead, swallowed by the horizon. He looked from her to the windshield and back again. Being in control of the situation was his game. Millions of points littered his plans since the day he had any sort of official responsibility and even then well before that. No avenue of possibility was left unpondered. No outcome left unexplored. Then came Eleanor. Since, he’d reconciled himself to a little chaos and freefall. Terrifying, sure, but that was the price of being in Eleanor’s life. Or was it the price of being human? He wasn’t entirely certain.

He unclipped his seatbelt with a sigh and tipped her fist with a finger. Her knuckles were pale.

‘Hey. All of this is new to me. Sometimes that’s... scary.’ He said, gently. ‘I wish I could promise you that everything would turn out perfect.’ He bit his lip, searching. ‘But... but well, most people have to do it alone, this very scary thing. We don't. So I’m just really glad, if it has to go this way, and it does eventually for everyone, that you’re here with me. That’s all.’ he twitched a tiny smile at their view. ‘Right up to the end of the road.’

Eleanor turned back to him. Her eyes glistened. She took a deep, shaky breath and let the steering wheel go, bit by bit. She matched his tiny smile and nodded.

‘Yeah. Me too. Til the end of the road.’ Her hand found his and gripped it. He squeezed back and her smile eased.

She looked up toward the sky, rolled down her window to stick an elbow out, sucked in fresh air and swung them out of the shoulder, back on to the road.

They ordered enough food for four. Eleanor flicked chow mien at Michael’s face and was busy trying not to choke as the noodle stuck to his forehead only to be peeled off by gravity, slowly. She caught her breath and pointed at the twin sesame seeds the noodle had left behind in time for his shock to morph into his Grinchiest babies-for-breakfast-are-delicious grin, reserved for the rare moments he was allowed to be wicked.

His hand closed on a carton of garlic fried broccoli and Eleanor sprang up to dodge him, shrieking and cackling.

The laptop rang. Michael fought her squirming with an arm and dropped a handful of broccoli on her head. Eleanor shoved him, laughing, and licked her hand and rubbed it on his cheek with a wet smack. She declared a truce and darted into the bathroom as Michael answered the call, flushed from laughter and slightly breathless.

It was Tahani, who archly informed him he had ‘Some sort of sauce on his face.’, her doe eyes wide as she remarked on their ‘dire living conditions’. She was glamping at the edge of Brazilian jungle. Chidi showed up next, looking relaxed and happy in a button down, calling from Simone’s study.

A close up of Jason’s eye appeared last with his voice so close to the microphone the sound crackled, ‘Babe? Babe I don’t think this thing works. I can’t see anything.’ Janet’s face appeared after a blur and some rummaging.

Everyone was fine and everyone wasn’t fine. The gang laughed as Michael recounted visiting Nic Cage’s fake grave and the amateur fire eaters of New Orleans. Eleanor was quiet for Eleanor. Her earlier fizz was a little flat. She asked questions, laughed at Jason’s story about ordering face melting ghost chilli poppers instead of jalapeño and drinking an entire pitcher of iced tea belonging to the table next to him in his desperation for the burning to stop.

They had to say goodbye.

‘Bye gang. See you on the other side if we’re lucky I guess. You all are the bomb but you know that.’ Eleanor pulled a brave face.

Tahani sniffed demurely. ‘I suppose at least I shall expire while adventuring on a great, famous river. Much as depicted in the film starring my good friends Charlie Hunnam and R-Pats after his vampiring days were over. You know, the film about the world famous explorer who vanished mysteriously without a trace? Created quite the stir.’ she raised her eyebrows suggestively. Her expression turned thoughtful and she sniffed. ‘I shan’t say goodbye but, rather, farewell for now, my very special, much loved friends.’

Janet held up a solemn hand. Jason grinned and waved, saying he’d ‘Check them soon for this awesome dance off he was planning next month. Go Jaguars!’

Chidi waved. Behind him, Simone wandered by in a robe, grabbed a book and ducked out again, apologising.

‘Have fun on the road guys.’, Chidi said to Michael and Eleanor. ‘Stay safe everybody. Hope to see you again but not too soon.’

He laughed nervously, thanked them with an earnest smile, and hung up.

Eleanor sat still, her fists opening and closing. Michael got up.

‘Eleanor? Are you-’

She got up, her back to him.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine. One pep talk a day is enough. Even I’m not that much of a hot mess.’ She grabbed a bag of bottles and turned to face him. Her gaze was fixed elsewhere, as if he was semitransparent. Night had fallen and hard motel street light outside cast sharp Rorschach shadows that fell, heavy, across her shoulder.

‘I’m gonna hop in the shower and watch TV in bed ‘til I konk out.’ she moved away and paused at the adjoining door. ‘Night.’

He searched for something to say. She looked smaller than usual, gripping the frame of the dividing doorway a little too tight.

‘Goodnight.’ He faltered. ‘Let me know if, uh, you need anything.’

I’m here. He tried to say with his eyes.

She nodded, face blank, and closed the door behind her.

Michael stood in the room, alone. He sat on the bed and leaned back when he heard the inane babble of the TV through the paper thin walls in her room.

Tiredness washed over him. He elected to change and get into bed. It was so strange, this new sleeping thing he was doing.

Dreams never found him. For Michael, sleep was floating on a misty sea of tranquil grey for a spell. It was being adrift in a refreshing void- the sky in January on the east coast of North America.

It got darker. He drifted.

A weight in bed woke him. Eleanor was getting comfortable next to him. She’d dragged in the tatty bedspread from her room and a malty scent of cheap, locally brewed beer.

‘So weird that he just hooked up with Simone again.’

Michael rolled over to study her.

She was on top of the covers, burritoed in her blankets. She shuffled over.

‘Not that I care. Just. You know? Stings a little. We never talked. And. We were in love in another reality. Why am I the only one who thought that was a big deal? So the problem was me. Again. Just like with Donna. Just like with my Mom. I know I’m not easy but- Ugh. When did I become this chick? Gross. And I can’t sleep. Thing is, it's so confusing 'cause now I'm not even sure I feel about any of it anymore-’

He lifted an arm in invitation. It had worked before. She scooted in toward him and the rest of her upset babble was muffled in transit. She sighed, still stiff, but as she burrowed into the crook of his arm he felt her relax in increments. It was his turn to sigh.

‘Just give the nerd time. He’ll come around. He always needs time.’

From his chest she had already started to snore softly. ‘He’s an idiot.’, he added.

He huffed a laugh. He was getting good at this ‘cuddling’ thing. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat.

He watched the shadows bob on the ceiling and glanced down at Eleanor, asleep on him.

How was this dying thing fair? How in the name of immaculately designed paperclips everywhere did any of this make sense? The next time he saw the Caretaker he wanted answers. He would file with oversight committees if they existed. Go after the Accounting Department. See who was above the Judge. He would-

Sleep swept him away by the time Eleanor’s arm snaked around him, and for the first time in his endless days, Michael dreamed.

It was a painting he had seen, killing time in Toronto’s art museum while the others were doing work stuff he wasn’t needed for. He wandered the halls of Toronto Modern, hypnotised by abstract swirls of red and orange on canvas- he had seen images in files, footage of Modigliani smearing canvas after canvas, Picasso devouring woman after woman- always with the self-absorbed, self-indulgent artist in mind for torture, never really the art itself.

His long legs carried him through galleries in lengthy strides. Humans applied this coloured paste to canvas and ended up with this? Interesting, he supposed, if you weren’t too big on verisimilitude but really? Meh.

After a while, maybe the second hour of the first time, he noticed some images provoked unusual reactions in him.

One image made him sigh as this bittersweet feeling lodged itself in his chest like a sack of sand unexpectedly caught. It was as if he was sad about something. Only, it was a kind of unctuous, buttery sort of sadness that made him feel... more alive, more like an actual person. Another painting- all rich burgundies and smokey shadows- made him wary, uncomfortable, itchy. It reminded him of failure. Yet another made him think of Eleanor at the bowling alley, hopping on one foot, shooting finger guns at him. Sitting across from him at her table with that wry, softly surprised look on her face-

‘Stick with the program, demon buddy, and you’ll be alright.’

It was a little like sunshine, that one. So was the painting. It reminded him of his fake Good Place: two figures, one male, one female, having a picnic in a meadow full of delicate wildflowers and hardy, ubiquitous daisies, fringed by graceful trees during what looked like a perfect, bright summer day. There was a rambling country house in the distance with happy green shutters. The figures leaned toward each other, close, and you couldn’t make it out, but, to Michael, it seemed they were laughing.

He visited it a few times when he had nothing else to do. Bought a postcard of it at the gift shop and stuck it on the fridge back home. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even realise he was going to visit it until he was half way there. He would sit and stare at the painting while people came and went, passed it by. Not the ones that were bold barrages of colour, but the one of two figures in the meadow, in harmony with the nature around them and with each other. Bathed in sunshine.

 That night, ninety minutes’ drive from the world’s largest ball of stamps and a day and a half away from his own death, he dreamed he rose from the bench to cross the polished museum floor to the painting. The long grass and the flowers bobbed, sleepy, in the breeze. The clouds moved, fat and fluffy, across the bright blue sky and he walked right in. The air was warm. For some reason, as his shoes pressed the grass flat with each step and he looked toward the house, he knew Eleanor was there, waiting for him.

He woke to the smell of apples. Eleanor’s hair fanned across his face.

*

 Five: The World’s Only Corn Palace

South Dakota

They drove on after a rib sticker of a pancake breakfast. Eleanor had lined up a few comedy podcasts and Michael picked one with recorded stories of everyday people collected by the Library of Congress that Eleanor liked to talk trash about. (It totally did not make her cry that one time halfway between Twine and Stamps.)

The Corn Palace was easy to spot from far away- its almost Russian style turrets swirled upwards like giant ice cream cones. They pulled in to the parking lot and couldn’t help but notice it was empty.

‘It’s closed!’ Eleanor sulked.

Michael got out and went up to check for a sign. He shook his head at Eleanor, from a distance, making his way back to the car in long, easy strides. He slid into the passenger seat. ‘Closed for renovation and training.’

‘Training? It’s a freakin' Corn Museum.’ She threw up her hands. ‘Great. What do we do now?’

Michael hummed. Then his face lit up. ‘We explore the local sights and see if we can get any hot tips on where to go next.’

Eleanor blew a raspberry.

‘Sounds like we just hit beer o’clock. Cocktail hour? C’mon, bar flies know where it’s at.’

Michael rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s find somewhere to stay first. Dump our stuff.’

Eleanor nodded, scrolling and tapping into her phone.

‘What about the giant president heads? They’re not too far I think. I saw a sign somewhere back there.’ Michael made a vague sound of recognition. Eleanor smirked. ‘Ooh. I wonder if we could somehow vandalise those.’

Michael raised an eyebrow. ‘I think that would be frowned upon. Although one or more of those guys are in the Bad Place. If I remember correctly we used man-sized lamprey eels to-’

Eleanor cut him off. ‘Ew. That's a hard pass on one of your weird torture porn overshares. Hm. Six hour drive to the dead white dude heads. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Let’s do something fun.’

Michael glanced at his Skeletor watch. ‘It’s one o'clock.’

‘I’ll search fun stuff nearby.’ She jabbed her phone and grinned. ‘How do you feel about line dancing?’

Michael squinted. Eleanor let out a whoop.

‘This is going to be hi-lar-ious. I can feel it. What’s a Weird America Death Tour without a lil’ Achy Breaky Heart? Oh! I bet they’ll have a mechanical bull. Yass!’

Michael gave an answering grumble over the YouTube video on line dancing he loaded onto Eleanor’s phone as the car pulled away from the empty Christmas ornament turrets of the Corn Palace. It looked suspiciously like that dance they used to torture that sunken ship full of Bollshoi ballerinas.

Michael screeched as Eleanor’s face peered down at him. ‘Hold still you big baby! Lemme see if I can get these things in.’

Michael’s eye closed as soon as she got close, watering profusely at the bright bathroom light.

Eleanor sighed. ‘When I suggested soft contacts I didn’t think it would be such a headache. You were the one complaining about the glasses.’

‘I didn’t think it would be so uncomfortable.’ Michael whined. Something cold and slimy dropped on Michael’s eye and he hissed.

‘Got it! See? Wow. Look at those big blue eyes.’ She lingered before standing back and cleared her throat. ‘That wasn’t so bad was it?’

Michael made a face like a wet cat, blinking manically at the light.

Eleanor giggled. ‘You hate it don’t you?’

Michael tried to smile. Everything was blurry.

She giggled again. ‘Alright, Mikey.’

She ran her fingers through his hair and he fought not to arch his back and do something embarrassing like purr. She cupped his face as she tilted him toward the light. Eye drops swooped into his vision.

‘Let’s get them out.’ She leaned close and wiped tears out of the way with her thumbs while he thought about how warm she was. She blew some of the tears dry and he tried not to shiver, able to make out the pink of her lips as they puckered and the green blue of her eyes above him. Her laugh was lighter than the froth on his morning chococino.

‘Yeah. You look more you with the glasses anyway.’ The lenses slid out and his vision cleared. Eleanor straightened. She turned his glasses over in her hands.

‘So funny that you need these.’

‘All part of the skin suit.’ Michael smirked, wiping his eyes.

She packed all the stuff away as he watched her, quietly, from this seat on the lip of the bath tub. She stopped. ‘You ok?’

He smiled and nodded.

‘Cool. I’ll get dressed in my room. You ready to go full cowboy?’

He gave a wide grin. ‘Yeehaw.’ he sniffed. ‘Or was it Hawyee?’

She laughed. ‘Naw, it’s yeehaw, pardner.’ she held out a hand and he took it, pulling himself to his feet. Suddenly the bathroom seemed very small. Michael looked down at her, he felt his face heat up. His thumb ran a circle on the back of her hand. Eleanor leaned toward him.

The bathroom fan kicked in above them. She stepped back. ‘Oh. Sorry.’ She let go of his hand and motioned toward the door. ‘I’m gonna... You cool with your costume?’

He nodded. ‘Do I get to say “There’s a snake in my boot”?’

Eleanor rolled her eyes. ‘Toy Story?’

Michael grinned. ‘Couldn’t get into John Wayne. He’s-’

‘In the Bad Place getting boiled in barbecue campfire beans because he was super racist?’

‘No but good guess. He’s giving foot massages and pedicures to every woman to ever roll her eyes at every chauvinist thing he ever said or did. Fifty times each.’

Eleanor snorted and held a hand up for a high five. ‘Nice. Up top.’

He obliged. She stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, at the edge of his mouth.

‘Later.’

She left him in the bathroom, rubbing the spot where he could still feel her lips.

Six drinks in and the music felt like a tornado of fiddles and guitars. The bar was an L-shaped barn of a room. There was sawdust on the floor and novelty haystacks, license plates on the walls and plastic cactai of varying sizes in corners. Curtains of string lights hung across the ceiling, twinkling with good cheer. Eleanor had faced down the mechanical bull and Michael had collected her from the floor when she finally went flying across the floor in a blaze of glory and set her on her feet.

Line dancing wasn’t difficult and would have been monotonous if not for the crazy faces and in jokes and elbows and shoving between Eleanor and Michael. Everyone was in high humor. Which was why when Michael leaned, tall in rented cowboy boots and hat, against the bar to get drinks while Eleanor was in the bathroom, he wasn’t that phased when a woman slid into the gap between him and the trucker looking guy next to him. She looked up at him with intent.

‘You’re a tall drink of water. Not from here are ya, cowboy?’

He gave a nervous smile and tip of his cowboy hat and turned away, hoping that getting the bartender’s attention would be enough of a social cue for her to go away. The woman, all big hair and denim, batted her eyelashes at him faux seductively and got closer and closer. Somewhere between ‘I’m Marlene’ and something about ‘a warm a bed on lonely nights’, she grabbed his ass.

Michael barely had time to protest when the woman found her hand twisted behind her back. The woman glared at Eleanor who spoke directly into her ear, ‘Touch him again and see what happens, lady.’

Michael puffed up, indignant. Eleanor let her go to step in front of him. She squared up to the woman. ‘You obviously asked and didn’t wait for an answer. Rude.’

She stuck her chin out and got a step closer.

The woman gritted her teeth and glanced at Michael, and then back at her. Her eyes narrowed. Eleanor took Michael’s hand and the woman pursed her lips.

The woman sniffed. ‘No offence meant.’ She stalked off.

Eleanor turned to Michael. ‘I had that under control.’ He grumbled.

Eleanor’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh I get it. You wanted her to use your ass cheek as a stress ball.’

Michael huffed. Eleanor leaned into the bar next to him, her smile turned mischievous as she looked up into his eyes. ‘Maybe I just don’t feel like sharing.’

Michael’s gaze snapped to hers as he scanned her face. A corner of his mouth tugged up. ‘You’re drunk.’

Eleanor let go of his hand and rested it on his arm. ‘Maybe but hey, in vino veritas.’

Michael’s smirk deepened. ‘We’re not drinking wine.’

Eleanor stepped closer to him, her voice lowering. ‘You’re right. We’re not. Night’s not over though.’

She motioned to the bartender, tapped their glasses, held up four fingers and turned back to Michael.

‘Three for you one for me. To keep things fair.’

Michael rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. He blamed it on the drinks and the music. He felt like he was too close to a flame and totally unable and unwilling to reverse course. He leaned down toward her.

‘Eleanor Shellstrop. Are you trying to get me drunk? Why you’re no better than that woman you just beat up for me.’

She leaned close enough for him to smell her soap and grinned. So wicked that it weakened his knees.

‘Surprised? You of all people know exactly how bad I can be.’

Michael laughed, completely lost for words. Eleanor seemed to live to wrong foot him.

The sound of glasses hitting the bar beside them made them jump.

‘Fifteen bucks. Also- get a room.’ the bartender slapped the bar and wheezed.

Eleanor snorted and gave him a twenty. The bartender handed her change. ‘You lovebirds tourists?’

Michael was about to correct him while Eleanor nodded. ‘Arizona.’

The bartender smiled. ‘Nice spot. You guys been up to the ceiling of the world yet?’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Jackson Hole. A few hours from here. Don’t miss it. Views are beautiful. Romantic.’

She smirked. ‘Romantic huh?’

The bartender winked and went to fill another order.

She handed Michael a glass and he chuckled, downing it and then another. She whooped.

‘Next stop ceiling of the world!’ and joined him. He downed his last shot in time for her hand to find his, as it so often did now. She tugged on his arm with her free hand until he stooped so she could whisper, ‘Dance with me.’, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear.

Goosebumps broke out across his arms. His hand was half wrapped in hers. She held it her chest and grinned as she walked them backwards toward the dance floor. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were apple pink. The bar lights crowned her as she bounced to the beat. Incandescent again, he thought, distantly.

They danced.

They were lucky they were only ten minutes up the street. Eleanor snapped the heel on her cowboy boot two songs before the end of the night and convinced Michael to give her a piggy back ‘home’.

‘Don’t you break my heaaaart my achy breaky heaaaart...’

Michael laughed so hard he nearly toppled them in the gutter. Eleanor waved her fist in the air, lassoo-ing something imaginary.

Michael fought to catch his breath. ‘Oh it was so awful it was wonderful. It reminded me of airport Mexican food- so much cheese and unearned confidence. Genius.’

Eleanor slapped his side, her small socked feet pedalling the air. He shuffled until she was steady on his back, her head tucked on his shoulder.

‘I know, I know. Heeyaw, right, Mikey? It’s last orders on Earth! Closing time! Giddyup!’

They cackled and through a light drunken haze he started to pretend gallop. Her grip tightened as she became limp with laughter.

He set her down outside their rooms. She stood under the orange light from the lamppost, an angry pixie at the end of a ball, her makeup a little smudged. He rummaged for their keys. He offered her the key to her room and she batted his hand out of the way.

‘C’mon. We only need one room. Only way I can sleep lately anyway. Just open the door, man.’

He snorted, suddenly unsure. He told himself it was the drinks and the unexpected chill in the air that set his hand unsteady as they opened the door.

She pushed ahead of him and he only had time to close the door before she dragged him by the hand to her bed. She stripped off her shirt and grabbed a t-shirt while he stood awkwardly to one side, averting his eyes. She took off her jeans and whipped up the covers in her underwear, pausing to look up at him.

‘Get in man.’

His eyebrows went up. ‘Uh, Eleanor maybe I should go-’

‘Seriously? It’s almost day six. Take off your pants and get into bed. Sleep time.’

He opened his mouth to protest but she had already settled under the covers, looking at him blearily with something that was a cross between impatience and vulnerability.

He did as she asked, after hopping into pyjama bottoms awkwardly, and edged into bed, delicately pulling the covers up over them as he lay down. She inched closer in the half dark and gave him a clumsy, hard peck on the lips. Then she sighed. ‘Wish I wasn’t so drunk.’ She took his hand and lay down, rolling over while holding it.

He was the big spoon and she was the little. He felt a peck on the side of his thumb as her fingers threaded through his and she gave a small sigh. She wound a leg around one of his and his mouth went dry. Her breathing became as even as the tide.

His eyes were wide in the dark as he held her. Again. Only this time closer. Too close maybe. A hush fell over him. Human friendship was so complicated. So much touching. He knew their friendship wasn't average but what about them or their situation was? He nuzzled the top of her head, just below his chin, experimentally. Hm. Home. His eyes slipped closed. Whatever this was it could be called beautiful.

He dreamed of his painting again. The field of flowers. Sunshine. Of walking toward the house to find her.

Chapter Text

Six: Jackson Hole

Wyoming

Eleanor puffed as they climbed the steps. ‘Remind me again why we’re doing this?’

‘What happened to ‘Woohoo next stop ceiling of the world?’’ Michael said with an annoying amount of pep for someone hangover hiking.

Eleanor gave a derisive snort and then stopped to look around.

The valley stretched below them. The sky was a hard light blue with idyllic puffs of cotton ball clouds, as if the valley just happened to feature floating marshmallows. Mountains capped with snow and green scrub cradled the valley. A crisp wind slapped Eleanor’s cheeks pink. She smiled.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Points to you.’ She turned back to him. Michael’s eyes glittered. He was rosy cheeked, bundled up in a beanie hat, big jacket and scarf. Since he was mostly new to getting his blood pumping, so far having only experienced suburban city life, he was invigorated by the climb. He looked like someone out of a damn L L Bean catalogue, all healthy and rustic, she thought. She linked her arm through his and he smirked down at her as they trudged toward the visitor’s centre where the aerial tram started.

‘Portland after this? I’ve heard its weird in a good way. They have weed. You’ll get a kick out of that. Also ironic facial hair which you know I live to make fun of.’

Michael grinned. ‘Yeah you really socked it to that biker guy with the 1970s handlebar moustache and confederate flag shirt last night. What did you call him? Racist Biker Pornstache?’

She snorted with a shrug. 'Callin' it like I see it.'

The carriage office had a panoramic view of the mountains, which seemed to stretch on forever. Jagged edges eased round cliff faces and gave way to shadows that went on and on below.

Eleanor wandered back to Michael who looked out over the view with his hands in his pockets. The hair stood up on her arms.

‘At least the tickets were cheap.’ she smiled and held them out, trailing off when she caught the distracted look on his face. She stopped dead and searched his eyes.

A whistle announced the arrival of tram cars. The conductor’s voice came, high and tinny and bored from over the speakers, ‘Please keep your hands and possessions inside the carriage at all times. Please stay clear of the doors when the carriage is in motion.’

Eleanor tore her eyes away from Michael and looked toward the single car in the visitors' parking lot.

She put her hand in his. ‘Let’s go.’ He stood his ground, her hand yanked back when he didn’t move. ‘Are you sure?’

She looked up at him. He stared back at her, his blue eyes wide and worried. She took a deep breath over her churning stomach. There was a feeling like sleepwalking, speeding up a steep incline without knowing how far it was to the top. She licked her lips and nodded. Michael gave a shaky smile. ‘Okay.’ he squeezed her hand. ‘Let’s go.’

They gave the conductor their tickets and boarded the tram car. There was no one else in their tram car except for a young mother with brown bangs that hung, long, over her eyes as she wrangled a four year old boy with a small bag of mini cookies. She coaxed him into the tramcar and he squirmed, his little red back pack jostling and spilling kid junk as he squawked.

‘Nonononono!’

He broke free as the conductor was closing the rickety door and slid past him. The conductor shouted in alarm and he tried to open the door. There was a thunk and tram hummed to life. The little boy, turning around and realising that his mother was still on the tram, screamed and rushed toward it. The conductor fell back with an arm full of small panicked child, wrestling the boy away from the edge. The tram creaked to life.

Eleanor let go of Michael’s hand and rushed across the carriage. She joined the woman desperately pulling on the half door. It was locked tight. ‘Step back!’ Eleanor shouted as she kicked the wooden part of the door repeatedly until it splintered apart.

The tram lurched away from the cliff edge. A gap between the car and the platform widened. ‘Jump! Now before it's too far!’ Michael yelled at the woman. She glanced back toward Eleanor in fear and Eleanor motioned vigorously at the dock.

The woman threw herself at the loading dock and landed safely. She folded her crying son in her arms.

The tram rocked away from the hillside. Eleanor collapsed into the hard molded plastic seat with Michael and watched the woman on the platform comforting her son whose little body seemed inconsolable. Only pieces of the little door remained, a dusting of glass left from its old frame. Michael gave a surprised laugh. She looked at him and they high fived in relief and settled in, leaning shoulder to shoulder. Around them the tram gave a steady hum as it trundled along its line.

Below them, mountain ranges stretched, buffeted by swirling cold air. They creaked toward the ravine.

Eleanor blew out a breath and stood, gazing out over their view. She tugged on Michael’s hand.

‘Hey. Check that out.’ He stood, joining her at the glass side of the tram car.

Michael hummed. ‘One thing I hadn’t expected. That it would be so beautiful here. Lots of pain and confusion and Twitter, sure. But it is beautiful. You have to admit.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘Yeah. It has its moments.’

A hawk cut a trail across their patch of sky, shooting passed a snowy peak before disappearing.

They leaned out to trace its progress.

A sound like the mechanical version of a record skipping interrupted their easy peace. There was a low, sick, grinding of gears clogged and looking for purchase, a sound that got higher and higher in pitch until it became a grinding screech. The tram car shuddered as the sound repeated itself.

Ping!

Something came loose and hit the glass. Then there was a slow cracking. Eleanor’s eyes flew toward the roof where a crack grew long, spidery fingers that grasped, inch by inch from the cap of the car toward the frame of the missing door.

A breeze shook the tram and it groaned. Eleanor flew into Michael with a yelp.

She watched as cracks deepened. Where they hadn’t grown deeper they stretched, grasping across their view.

Another ping and the gondola lurched.

Eleanor’s heart pounded in her ears.

Her eyes flew from the cracks to Michael. ‘Why did we come up here? I had this feeling-’ Ping! ‘This is bad, Michael. Really bad.’ Michael looked on, unblinking.

The thick black lifeline of cables carrying them to the other side gave a metallic whinny. The carriage creaked like a submarine out of its depth. Michael edged them back toward the seats, away from the worst cracks. Eleanor’s breaths came in little gasps.

From their seat, they watched, helpless, while longer fissures opened in their glass bubble, snaking downwards to disappear into the covered floor. Eleanor’s eyes traced their progress to the ravine below them. One of the cracks had opened up to let the icy breeze from the outside onto her face.

‘Shit it’s happening. Now? Really? Day six isn’t even over.’

Michael was speaking to her but she couldn’t hear a word. Her eyes darted. The floor was ridged rubber. Solid grey. It helped. But she was cold.

Michael got on the floor and put his hands, big and warm, on either side of her face. He must have taken off his gloves.

‘Eleanor. Eleanor breathe. Look at me. It’s okay. Breathe.’

She looked down at him and focussed on her breathing. Out. In. Out. In. The tram felt like it was getting smaller. Michael’s thumb ran over her cheekbone. He sat beside her.

‘Eleanor. Look at me.’ He leaned closer. ‘Just look at me.’

Eleanor drew a shaky breath and tore her eyes away from the ravine and the cracking glass and the busted door and the grey floor and she tried not to listen to the whistling, hungry wind.

‘Okay. Okay I’m looking.’ She closed her eyes. A tear snaked out. She opened them again and there was Michael silhouetted by mountains. His eyes wide, but intent on her. So bright.

‘Okay?’ he asked.

She shook her head and blew out more breath with a bitter laugh. ‘No I’m not okay. I’m about to freakin’ die.’

Michael squeezed her hand again, his eyes never leaving hers. Eleanor’s chest heaved.

‘Eleanor. You've done this before. You won’t feel anything. You’ll just wake up somewhere else. You’re not alone.’

Her other hand reached for his and she crushed it in her grip, her eyes searching. Michael looked back, nodded and stroked her cheek. The carriage yawned, tearing, crookedly, further away from the cable above them again. Eleanor flinched but she found she could breathe now. She didn’t look at the cracking glass, the door. She paid no attention to the ping after ping of whatever was giving way above them.

She inched closer to Michael. Michael watched her. The sky above him made his eyes seem like the calmest pool. She took his hat off, tossed it away and smoothed his hair. She rested a hand on his cheek. His hand covered hers. A crack got louder around them.

‘Don’t be afraid.’ he breathed. She got closer, until she could feel his breath on her face.

‘You’re here. So. I’m not afraid.’ Tears streamed down her face and she repeated it. She stroked his cheek. His eyes flickered closed.

‘Are you afraid?’, she whispered.

The carriage tore away, dangling by very little. The ravine yawned, hungry, below them.

Michael’s nose grazed her cheek as he rested his forehead to the side of hers. She felt him shake his head, but she always knew when he was lying. She linked her arms around his neck and whispered, ‘Liar.’ into his ear. He leaned back and smiled at her. For a smile so sad it was a knockout. ‘You always knew when I was lying. Drove me crazy.’ A tear slid down his cheek and he cupped her face.

‘Oh Eleanor. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.’

‘What? You never said-’

He grabbed her and held her tight.

‘Oh. This hurts. Bad. It’s the worst. I think my face is leaking.’

She leaned back and sniffle laughed and he touched her face as if trying to memorise-

The carriage swayed dangerously.

‘Eleanor. You asked me once and I was too much of a coward to tell you. You changed me. It was you. Not Tahani. Not Chidi. Not Jason. Janet helped but it wasn’t her. It was you. Always you. For three hundred years. Thank you for my humanity. I’d do it all again if I could choose. Every reboot. Every step I thought was a misstep that was a step toward you.’ His fingertips traced a path from her forehead to her chin.

She gave a surprised sob. ‘Michael. Find me again. You have to, somehow. You did it before, right?’ Her eyes were wide and Michael was all she saw. Timeless. Lost and found and elemental and silly and glorious and her best-

Glass rained on them from on the crown of the tram car.

‘Eleanor, you have to know by now that I-’

There was a wrenching crack and reflexively they held each other tight. She shook and he shook and she breathed him deep, her eyes on his, her hands cradling his jawline, thumbs wiping his tears as they broke free. Solace in blue. She brushed her fingertips over his lips, leaned forward, and covered his lips with hers.

Wind rushed around them as the shallow water and glistening stone bed of the ravine rose to catch them. Michael surrounded her, his arms shielding her from the cold with their warmth. She closed her eyes tight and felt tethered. She listened to his breath. No heartbeat. She thought of every laugh and embrace all the way up to this moment. Of the warmth of his hand when she reached for it, often. Of dancing in a living room in Toronto. Churros at sunset. Things she didn’t allow herself to think about. The dorky smile he couldn’t hide after she kissed him for the first time. And the second and the third. Taking contacts out of his eyes and drunk flirting with him until he was speechless in a cheesy midwestern cowboy bar. She knew what that was, suddenly. How could she have been so blind and afraid? She whispered the epiphany into his neck but he couldn’t hear over the wind.

They fell.

And they fell.

And they fell.

And they fell.

And they--

Chapter Text

A flash of white so strong she could see the ghost of rainbow at its fringes exploded across Eleanor’s vision with the mega-tonne slap of a mushroom cloud.

She stood in a field of wildflowers and daisies, their brilliant heads tipped to blue skies and a gentle, beaming sun. Her knees wobbled at the shock but she managed not to fall over, and found instead the reassuring sight of the meadow around her, fringed by tall, bushy trees. Above her, sunshine and a teal sky. Under her feet was a white cotton picnic blanket, and on it, two plates and a closed wicker basket. There was no one else anywhere. A breeze flirted with the tall grass and little brown grey birds sang, rough-housing in the generous boughs of the tree line behind her.

‘Hello?’

She thought to call for Michael but the last time she saw him he was with Judge Gen and the others. Talking about a test. Oh! Test. She’d take the fact that she wasn’t being rotated on a barbed wire spit over a sea of lava piranhas or something as a good sign. Maybe they passed whatever it was Michael negotiated for them. So he must be around here somewhere. He would know what was up.

‘Michael?!’

She cupped her hands around her mouth and tried a few more times.

Birds flew upwards in a rush at the sound of her yell, which only echoed back at her. A peacock emerged from the woods to watch her from the tree line.

‘What are we looking at?’ said a voice next to her in a mock whisper.

She yelped and turned to the most basset hound like person to ever scare the living shirt out of her. Short, bald and sort of hideous adorable in an old hangdog, droopy sort of way.

‘Well hey there, Eyore, kind of crept up on me. Not for nothing but I’ve punched people in the face for less.’ She fanned herself. ‘You wouldn’t know where I am, by any chance would you? I’m looking for my friends. Have you seen either a fancy British giraffe lady made of caramel, an idiotic Florida dirtbag or a cute, twitchy professor nerd from Senegal? Also looking for a kind of prissy, semi-reformed silver fox- if you’ve seen him he probably knows what’s up. He’s tall. Glasses. Wears a suit unless he’s depressed. Bowtie. Got kind of a hot Colonel Sanders via Sam the Eagle thing going on?’

Basset hound guy seemed to only be half listening as Eleanor buzzed around him. He was busy, instead, with unpacking the contents of the picnic basket. She crossed her arms and eyeballed him as he spread what looked like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Then purple jelly. She moved to stand over him.

‘Dude. I’m kind of in a mortal peril situation here so a little help would be great whenever you’re done making what third graders call lunch.’

He paused to eyeball her back, with a raised brow. ‘Funny you saying that. You seemed to like peanut butter and jelly just fine when you ate it for breakfast after sleeping with Kyle Lavery’s dropout brother- even though you were supposedly dating Kyle- in his grandmother’s basement.’ He waved the sandwich at her.

She scoffed indignantly but took it and landed beside him on the blanket with a thud, muttering about ‘what happens in Phoenix’. He chuckled to himself as she scowled at the sandwich. He prepped one for himself. She watched him before leaning back to feel the sun on her face. It felt like it had been a long time since she’d done that. Her eyes fluttered closed.

‘Huh. I can see why this was his favourite painting. It’s a really nice house.’, the old man said through a mouthful of sandwich. Eleanor sat up to glare at him.

‘Seriously? Who are you and what is your dama-’

When she turned again there was a big old house on the other side of the meadow. It was four floors high, a rambling house with green shutters covered in flowering climbing plants and skirted by pots of more flowers. A path cut through the meadow toward them in one direction and in the other, a path to a pond big enough to swim in, white fluffy clouds moving over its face as it mirrored the sky.

Eleanor’s breath caught. Something about the house set off this weird ache in her chest. There was a weird sense of doubling... She gulped but couldn’t tear her eyes away from it.

‘Just tell me they’re all okay. Chidi, Jason, Tehani. Tell me they passed their tests. Tell me if Michael’s okay, that Shawn isn’t tearing his limbs off and pouring him out over a million planets or whatever. Tell me Janet is okay. Then tell me where I am and who you are.’ She turned to give him her most threatening look. He regarded it fondly.

‘How about this? I’ll start backwards because I’m kind of contrary like that.’ He wiped his mouth with a napkin and offered her lemonade from a clear flask. She waved him away impatiently.

‘I am the Caretaker. I’m kind of Superintendent to all of Existence. Don’t own the building but I make damn sure everything runs smoothly. I can’t explain where exactly you are but I can say that you have been found worthy of the Good Place. Again. Good job.’ He smiled and she winced back. It looked weird when he smiled. Sure he looked happy but also kind of like he needed medical care.

‘With some of what you learned during your test, we think you might actually be able to help others, restore a little balance to things. You still have two more important choices to make.’

Eleanor watched him closely for any hint of insincerity but could find nothing obvious. ‘So you’re some kind of janitor. But to... all of existence.’

‘Caretaker.’

‘So what...you like make sure the plumbing’s okay and change lightbulbs for little old ladies and...’

‘Oversee the birth of at least thousand universes daily. Yes. I’m actually consulting on a technical issue in another dimension while I’m here with you. Black holes caused by the twenty-four hour news cycle. Real headache.’

‘Huh. Nice. So I have choices to make. We’ll circle right back to that in a minute. You didn’t tell me about the others.’

He chuckled again. ‘You’re just a forthright as I expected. Refreshing. Yes. Tahani and Jason and Janet are on track to arrive in about a week in our time. Chidi also.’

She watched him with narrowed eyes. ‘And Michael?’

He unwrapped a cookie. Chocolate chip by the looks of it. ‘Not sure about Michael just yet. Not my decision to make you see. We’ll know very soon is my guess.’ He offered her one and she waved him away, still irritated.

‘We’ll know soon?’ She batted away another proffered cookie. ‘Not cool. Wait. So I’m guessing these choices effect him...’

‘The ones I can’t tell you anything about? The first you’ve already made- that’s why you’re here. The next one you have to make within the next two days. Later there will be another. You’re sure about the cookie? Caution baked these and really she seems to pour all her spontaneity into her baking...’

Eleanor growled at him.

‘Fine. I know you pack a mean right hook so I won’t tempt you. Killjoy.’ He reached into the picnic basket and handed her a blue, ornately carved wooden box. A simple golden latch held it shut.

‘I mentioned your test.’

‘That I passed. Like a bawss.’ The Caretaker waited. Eleanor straightened and allowed her grin to fade.

‘Yes. I also mentioned that you acquired gifts during your extended life that could be beneficial to many on this side of life.’

Eleanor frowned at the box. ‘But I don’t remember anything that happened during the test. Wait, my extended life- I went back? Like I never died?’

The Caretaker nodded. Eleanor looked at the box in her hand and back at him. He motioned to the box. ‘You can open it.’

She held it gingerly and unhooked the latch, raising the lid slowly, acknowledging to herself the possibility that it could be full of many headed spiders. Or worms. Instead, all that greeted her was a little dancer in jeans that looked like her, standing en pointe. A tiny oval mirror behind the little dancer reflected her own surprise back at her.

‘It’s a music box. Wind it and by the end of the tune your memories of your second life will come filtering back.’ Eleanor looked back at the Caretaker and turned the box over to find a gold winding key underneath it. He nodded.

‘You will remember your death. You will remember things you may find distressing- as you know, no human life is without its emotional trials and your second round was no exception. Growth is never painless and grow you did, Eleanor.’

She looked at the bow again and traced her finger over the mini dancing Eleanor in a box.

‘I’ll remember my death.’

‘Yes.’

‘And pain.’

‘Yes.’

She eased the box closed and met the Caretaker’s eyes. ‘Gnarly. Like I haven’t had enough of that. And if I choose not to remember?’

The Caretaker sighed and looked off into the distance. Suddenly he looked much older.

‘I can’t say exactly. You still get to go to The Good Place but any benefit your gifts would have bestowed on you or on others would be lost. Forever. You won’t be given the opportunity to remember again.’

Eleanor bit her lip. ‘How long do I have to decide?’

‘Forty eight hours. Take your time. Your watch will beep to let you know when decision time is almost up.’ He nodded toward the house, ‘Not that you require food anymore but the fridge in there is fully stocked, sleep in any room. Every room if you like. There’s a media room in there too I think. What’s in there will mostly depend on you. You’re the only resident in The Lacuna for now. That’ll change soon, I’ll wager.’ He rose to leave and she chirped in protest. There was now a white digital watch on her wrist. She tugged at it.

‘Wait a minute. I still have questions. What will depend on me? I only have two days to decide this stuff?’

The Caretaker reached for her hand and she grumbled at him but stuck out her hand, grudgingly. He took her hand in both of his and smiled at her. Again. Yikes.

‘I have faith in your abilities, Ms Shellstrop. An honour. Truly. I’ll see you soon.’

He patted her hand, turned and strolled toward the woods. She started to yell after him but instead found herself watching his stubby form walking away through the tall grass, the industrious hum of bumble bees flitting from wildflower to wildflower a constant counterpoint to birdsong. He vanished before the tree line, as if he had never been there at all. She turned to look toward the house. The ache in her chest when she looked at it was gone. Now it felt familiar, welcoming- as if she’d just left it and packed the picnic herself. As if she’d been there many times before and had a picnic just like this one, in the sunny, bee-loud hum of the meadow. Her watch beeped as she reached for the door:

47:57:00.

Three minutes gone already.

She turned the big brass doorknob and pulled the door. It had a country cottage vibe but as she walked in she saw the house was huge. Terracotta coloured tiles mixed with wood blocks, parquet style, in the entrance under a mild turquoise ceiling that rose like an indoor sky. There were oil paintings of nature scenes on the walls and potted plants of every variety in corners that would have otherwise been shadowy. Floor to ceiling windows with seats helped banish dark corners.

The warm light inside said home. Old, lived in home. All the furniture had comfort in mind. Some of it looked soft and well-worn but nothing was musty.

Every room had bookshelves.

The staircase was a honeyed oak, polished and smooth to the touch and wide enough to fit four people standing side by side. She climbed the stairs and strolled the long corridor which was grand in a lazy way- as if some millionaire just used this place to crash with his closest friends or his family. A beat up grandfather clock stood silent guard at one end. She approached it. The pendulum was still and she thought, if she could open the glass door and swing it, that maybe it would start. She undid the catch on the side and opened the glass door to reach for the pendulum. It swung, gently, from side to side before her fingers could reach it, as if it had been holding its breath up until someone cared to reach into its chest to restart its heart.

She let out a surprised laugh and set the music box down to sit on the floor in front of the clock, watching the pendulum swing back and forth. She glanced back at the music box on the floor beside her and tiredness hit her in a wave.

Bed would help. She passed about ten bedrooms on the way to the clock- all of them variations on the theme of bright and cosy and reassuring. Some in white and pink, some in brown and cream, others in primrose- all with large beds and fluffy linens.

She picked the one closest to the clock, plucked a book off the shelf, shimmied out of her jeans, and crawled into bed. She fell asleep almost immediately.

*

When Michael opened his eyes he didn’t even try to move. His vision blurred and abstractly, he wondered why he could hear heaving and why he was dizzy and where Eleanor was. Understanding that he had died and that Eleanor was gone didn’t help. The sound was him. He knew it and he couldn’t stop. The feeling of wood underneath him, the soft light around him- none of it mattered and it was still too loud. He was a giant wound, open and full of salt. His nerve endings crackled. He closed his eyes and wished for sleep until it found him.

He woke and the light hadn’t changed. He had no way of telling how long he’d been drifting. He sat up with an unsteady breath. Somehow he was wearing a blue t-shirt and soft lounge pants and there wasn’t a scratch on him.

He looked around. Well, this wasn’t an oubliette or a void in any of The Circles, at least. The walls were mostly books. He stood, wiping his face.

‘Eleanor?’ he tried. His voice sounded hoarse.

He walked around, wary. The walls were a golden egg cream colour but there was very little wall space that wasn’t covered in pale wooden shelves of books. He went deeper into the long room. It was an elongated hexagonal shape, with cushioned reading nooks built into three of the walls, each big enough for a few people. Michael’s eyes tracked the bookshelves up to the ceiling which was impossibly high, some of the bookshelves had ladders hooked on rails for access to higher shelves, and they weren’t ceilings at all really but rectangular glass skylights into the inky black of a space full of twinkling stars. His voice echoed Eleanor’s name back at him as he called out again.

At one end of the room, a ladder led to another level. Michael made his way over and climbed up to discover a sleeping loft area with low lamps and squat bedside footstools with notebooks and pens and one of those music playing machines. A fridge beside the bed had a sticker on it that said ‘Ask me for Anything’. Then, around a corner from a built in closet very pointedly full of clothes in his size, was a bathroom in off white with a sink, mirror and large tub with a bright yellow rubber duck wearing sunglasses balanced on its lip.

He tried to picture himself soaking in a tub full of bubbles as the rubber duck floated by and he shook his head, electing to climb back down the ladder for a book. Eleanor would’ve loved the tub. He closed his eyes and hoped she made it to the Good Place alright.

He paused in the middle of the library- there was a soft hum but otherwise there was nothing but an alien sort of tranquillity. He was alone.

It was the opposite of the drafting halls of the Bad Place- the hectic buzz of industrious scheming, the knives out clambering backstab to the top... even in the fake Good Place there was his own voice, speaking in similar tones into a recorder, charting his manoeuvres and counter manoeuvres with Vicky on either the side of his office door, holding his feet to the flames with the threat of mutiny and exposure. His office there was a false haven but it had been the closest thing to a haven he had ever had. The first space of his own making. It had a door.

Of course, for infernal drafters, sleeping cubes were randomly assigned as necessary. Quarters were one of a cluster of twenty identical door-less rooms off identical hallways which ended in identical common areas leading to other hallways full of identical door-less rooms and common areas. When it was his turn to sleep (or ‘bitch out’ as Shawn liked to call it) he called a Bad Janet who, with a fart and an insult, gave him a sweat damp piece of paper from her armpit with the number of a cube on it. Why it was sweat damp Michael could never discern as Bad Janet had no pores with which to sweat.

In any case, quarters were all the same: humid, half lit, a too short bed scantily clad in a stained, unravelling afghan blanket that smelled like wet dog. Occasionally there would be slime of unknown origin all over some part of the room or acid spitting cockroaches. A few times Michael found what was either guts or vomit. On the walls hung variations of a framed needlepoint with the iconic thumbs down badge. Below, stitched in bold were things like:

THERE IS ONLY THE MIDDLE.

or

IF YOU WERE WORTHY OF THE MIDDLE YOU WOULD STILL BE WORKING

or

DO YOU DESERVE THE MIDDLE, LOSER?

Or once, simply:

DICK

The surrounding graffiti was as colourful and as unoriginal as anyone would expect. Technically, in his human body, he only required sleep once a month and it wasn’t his favourite place (the crick in his neck would last a year) so sometimes he’d manage two months without having to go to a cube at all. Besides, he was so busy. Obviously, all infernal deadlines were, well, punishing.

Which is all to say, as Michael stood in the library, his eyes skimming over endless books of every size and colour imaginable and cream coloured walls, cosy reading nooks with views into the vast majesty of space, and no knowing where Eleanor was and no set deadline, no set end to the gentle, contemplative solitude of this place, he didn’t quite know what to do about this nothing on the horizon, no plan, no course of action up ahead situation. Not even someone looking over his shoulder.

How did humans manage free time and powerlessness? Existing liminally? He never stopped to consider the real implications- there was never any need.

Overhead, a cloud of cerulean gas drifted by. He turned his attention back to the books. Eleanor wasn’t here so he’d have to stay calm and hope for news. Panic later. Be ready to move quickly if necessary, get to know his environment. For now there was no door in this place, he'd checked. The rubber duck with the sunglasses on the tub gave him a pretty solid guess of who had stuck him here anyway.

The books seemed to be in no particular order that he could identify. Only one wall was labelled:

‘STAFF PICKS’

He sighed. He supposed he could start there. He plucked a book off the shelf and strode back to the (his?) sleeping loft. The climb up made him realise how heavy his limbs were. He reminded himself the skin suit had been through a lot.

Perhaps a soak in the tub later wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Isn’t that what people did?

He sighed at the fridge.

Ask me for Anything?

‘Frozen yoghurt. My favourite flavour...no. Who am I kidding? I don’t have a favourite. Eleanor’s favourite.’

The fridge chirped happily and he took that as his queue to open the door. Inside a coconut and passion fruit swirl sat in a paper cup with a luminous pink plastic stub of a spoon sticking out of it at a jaunty angle.

Michael smiled a small, bittersweet smile despite feeling like he’d just been shot, at close range, in the chest. ‘Just ruined a little bit. So you can eat more.', he said softly.

He scooped a spoonful into his mouth and manoeuvred into his new bed to flick on a light, clutching his book. He opened the first page:

‘Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.’

Huh. Could be juicy. All sorts of wicked things began with chases.

After the first sentence the words began to run together. He threw the book down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them he noticed the media player again. He leaned forward, picking up the card resting on top of it.

Music? Just ask.

He sighed.

‘Play the ‘only good jazz song’. Reference: Erika Shellstrop.’

The tinkling of piano filtered through speakers, softly. He fell back onto the bed, the soft weight of the book and heavier weight of his experiences on his chest, and closed his eyes.

He opened them again at a fluttering sound. A printed letter was on his pillow-

Michael,

Enjoy your home for the week. You are safe for now, as are your friends.

Apart from you (and me, obvs), only one other person in the universe can open your library door and it is not Shawn.

Choice awaits you, yet.

Everything is fine.

Best,

The Caretaker

Michael balled up the piece of paper and threw it at the wall. He sighed at the music player.

‘Play the song again. Piano only version.’

He rolled over and went back to sleep.

*

The next day came and went. Eleanor wandered the house and read and thought and thought and read. She wasn’t sure what she was scared of. She was already dead. But there was this lingering feeling that once that tune played on the music box that the semblance of balance she had found would be upended. She passed the test, overcame everything so surely there was no reason to be chicken about this?

She swam in the pond, floating at the centre of it like the only woman in the universe, floating in the sky.

At night, she stared at the box by her bedside before going to sleep.

The next day passed in exactly the same way as the first. Only this time, that night, when her watch beeped it read:

12:00:00.

The next morning, forty six hours after annoying meadow snacks with the Caretaker, she lay on a picnic blanket and the watch beeped:

2:00:00.

She put down her book. The book seemed like it might be a comedy but she couldn’t concentrate on any books she had tried reading since getting to this ‘Lacuna’ place.

There was the peacock in the clearing again. She pointedly went back to her book.

Her thoughts meandered away from the page and veered toward everything that led her to this meadow.

How she found this hodgepodge of a second family in the fake Good Place- people she, Eleanor Shellstrop, was willing to suffer eternal torture for. Would she owe it to them to remember what got her here, to this dreamboat of a lazy vacation spot? It seemed such a small thing. Chidi would say she had a duty to use her gifts for the betterment of what... everyone? Insane. What did that even mean? Michael would ask her what she had to lose, probably point out that she only had everything to gain. And hey, if she got to the Good Place as a result of take two then shouldn’t she know about it since it was awesomeness that she was directly responsible for? What if she really could help others? That was what good people did. She would always wonder. The watch beeped again.

1:00:00.

One hour left.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She hoped that everyone was okay. That Chidi was making good choices, or any choices at all. That Tahani had really stopped trying so hard to impress everyone. That Jason hadn’t choked on a child’s toy or fallen down an open man hole and died again the second he got back. That Michael was safely away from Shawn’s evil, grubby little clutches. That he found somewhere he could be appreciated for how nuts and bizarrely sweet he was. That Janet was still doing Janet.

Three rapid beeps came from her watch.

00:15:00.

She picked up the music box and cursed, contemplating a clean yeet into the pond with a test lift.

The peacock warbled. The watch trilled three times in quick succession again. With shaking hands, her fingers closed around the key. She wasn’t a lame wimp in life, no point in starting now. She steeled herself and wound the box. This better not hurt or that Caretaker dude was getting it in the face.

The ballerina twirled over a tinny version of a tune she knew. Her grandmother’s house before she died. She was about four. Her mother had probably disappeared again. She sat on the floor. Her grandmother played one of her favourites. The guys name was. Nate? No, weirder. Nat. Nat King Cole. The ballerina twirled and the first memories came in a heady rush.

A park near her place in Sydney, overlooking the water. BBQ with the Soul Squad. Travelling. Her mother’s annoying shiny new life. Michael telling her about loving Chidi. Iced tea on her head. Trying to argue with Chidi after a drunken declaration. Michael sitting on a bench outside a rando motel in Canada, putting a jacket over her after she drunkenly confessed to Chidi that they had been in love. The sting of rejection. Swearing love was bullshirt. How she felt so-

The song finished. She tried to outrun her memories by running back to the house. A dam had burst. By the time she got to the landing outside her bedroom her head span with memories. A shabby but cosy house near Toronto. Michael standing in a mansion agreeing to being some rich lady’s date- the two of them standing in a park, promising to help him with-

Then there was nothing for a while. Just Eleanor alone in a beautiful, peaceful big house. Dusk fell and she wandered down for cocoa, trying not to be disappointed that Chidi-

Night time brought more. She was kissing Michael. Teaching him how it was done, supposedly. Classic Shellstrop full throttle confidence, thinking that that wouldn’t make things weird. But then, she realised as she sat down hard, it didn’t make things weird, it made them- once she started kissing him she didn’t want to stop. It scared her because it only brought them closer.

By lunchtime she realised she hadn’t stopped. She kissed him again. Slow dancing in a living room. There was a ball. Michael in a blue tuxedo. Handsome Devil with another woman. And then there was that annoying little old guy who met her here, kidnapping Michael and she was so mad and okay, maybe a little jealous, and she was giving him a piece of her mind then he was just gone and Janet didn’t even know where he was. Even though Janet knew everything. But he came back and they were all going to have to die, again. She sat in the garden on a lawn chair for what seemed a whole day with Michael floating in and out of her field of vision, which was the sky on earth. Surprised to discover that there was nothing she wanted to do with the little time she had left. Nowhere she wanted to go. No one she wanted to see. She had lived her life ready to abandon anything and everything. So in the end, nothing in her life had any significance beyond her friends. She knew she had loved Chidi once and-

Chidi was leaving. She saw Michael’s eyes across the table shoot to hers when Chidi announced it and she didn’t think she flinched but really, who knows, she may have. His eyes as they fixed hers. It would be just them until their time was up. Somehow she felt as if it was always supposed to be that way. She wasn’t going to die alone in a place that she didn’t care about and that didn’t care about her. He would be there. Making her laugh or saving her from her worst self just as she did for him. Also, she thought, she was pretty sure he’d chosen to stay instead of accepting some easy out. Again. So there was that. She watched them all go their separate ways. Then she was driving with Michael. The wind in his hair. There he was eating weird road food. Tanned. Laughing at things like dingy truck stop bathrooms or fluorescent slushies. Different types of meat on a stick. Deep fried butter. Pine car freshners. This contagious delight and insatiable curiosity that trailed him everywhere. Trying to match her at bars but double or triple since it took more to get him drunk. His face turned her way, concerned, or rolling his eyes as she tried her best to self destruct, plucking that extra drink out of her hand and gathering her up when the reality of what was happening was too much. Laughing with her at how ridiculous all of it was. Reminding her that she could do better. Be better. Making her feel safe and not saying anything about her sleeping next to him because not going to sleep alone made the nights bearable. Maybe it was just him.

A reformed demon as the best friend she’d ever had- had anyone heard anything more ridiculous in their lives? His eyes when she woke him in the moments before he realised where he was- something like a sky with no clouds only there was always this split second of surprise. Diamond sharp, clear and bottomless. Then so warm when they fixed on her. He flinched awake once and she wondered how he woke, before. How he woke in the Bad Place. How someone like him survived an endless lifetime there.

They danced again on what she knew now was the final night. She remembered now, how she had gotten used to holding his hand. They were big but soft and always warm and made her feel grounded if she thought she was spinning out of control. By now she just liked being around him all the time, having him to herself. She watched his grin, a little bit untamed but a mile wide as they danced and it was stupid how much fun they had at the stupid dance. They made fun of everyone and- did they almost kiss for the second time that day? (something about contacts) Piggy back to the hotel. Her arms in the air. She remembers thinking she could kiss him at the door to the hotel and take him to bed but did he want that? Would he think it was gross? Too human? It was all a charade before. He looked nervous, standing by the bed. He didn’t know what to do. She hoped he wasn’t afraid of her. Not now. He'd read her file. He knew everything about her. (And still he stayed, part of her whispered. Still he stayed still he stayed still he stayed.)

The memories slowed and Eleanor decided to shower.

After pressing her face against the cool tiles as hot water peppered her back, she found some soft clothes in the drawer of her chosen bedroom, and went downstairs to curl up in a living room. It was there that the final day found her. The height, the sounds, the cold and fear. How he looked at her. As if she held the answer to everything. She looked back.

‘Are you afraid?’, she whispered.

The ravine. His face, how he tried to lie and say he was okay. How he told her it was her who changed him. Glass raining down on them. And then falling-

He held her. He held her and the last thing she did on Earth was wipe away his tears and kiss him.

Then the wind.

Tears pooled in the neck of her t-shirt, she couldn’t bring herself to even blink them away. She could barely breath. Where was Michael now? She had this horrible feeling he had done something stupidly noble. For her. Again. She chewed a lip.

Numbness ate at her, thinking about Chidi. She had wanted so much from him, from them, she’d hung the sun, moon, and stars on reclaiming her first experience of love, with Chidi. What had been this beautiful thing in one life was lovely but only circumstantial in another, part of a past. Things were different. They were different. Her breath hitched. The others were supposedly due to arrive soon. But this Caretaker joker had said he ‘wasn’t sure about Michael’. Not sure. She didn’t like the sound of that at all.

‘Hey!’, she shouted at the ceiling. ‘Yo! Caretaker dude. You told me everyone would be fine. Tell me about Michael.’

She stood up, pounding on the side of the couch. ‘Hey!’ she wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. ‘Tell me about Michael!’ She hurled a cushion across the room, kicked over a stool and then went ramrod straight.

Her head snapped back as pain, white hot, shot through her forehead. It was as if her head was filled with light. She collapsed into the couch.

All the memories from all the reboots flooded in. Every single one.

Chapter Text

She didn’t move for a full day. It easily equalled one of her top five worst hangovers ever. A couple of days swam passed her and she tried to keep pace with the current, filling them with wandering bookshelves, picking a book or four at random in attempt to occupy her mind. She opened closets in every room of the second floor, most were empty. She explored the grounds, still not venturing far into the forested area but wandering hours into the meadow clearing to watch the birds or flop down with one of her books. Memories didn’t flow so much as pop up as tiny things triggered them.

At the base of a barrell-chested tree, she nearly choked on her lunch remembering Chidi running by, chased by bees. On a bench near the pond she remembered sitting by a fountain eating frozen yoghurt and laughing at Jason as he explained how he was relived that ‘The dogs here spoke English’. Tea and cake with Tahani came flooding back when she found a pretty old rose garden behind the house. Cracking wise with Michael outside in the clown house came as she sat by a table with lunch. Then again when she found a pair of oversized wax lips in the attic in a huge wooden armoire full of board games. She smiled at the memory of the wacky human artefacts in his office. He had no idea what he was hurtling toward.

Once she found her way up to the roof, she took to sitting up there on a deck chair, listening to music on an iPod type gizmo she found in one of the bedrooms. From the roof she could see for miles. She watched deer grazing in a clearing in the not-too-distant-forest, the occasional rabbit hopping by the house.

In a way she was glad she was alone. This remembering crap was turning her into a basket case. She found a paperclip on the floor in one of the rooms and it almost ruined her afternoon. She felt like an upturned handbag repacked poorly- tears and snot or the kind of laughter that once caught wouldn’t stop until her stomach hurt.

Yeah, no one should see her like this. When everyone arrived she’d play it cool, keep everything on an even keel til she got a handle on things. Vulnerability was fine, for a while, but fork this horrible wobbly feeling. Just waiting and missing- Just forget that. Once the gang arrived and the Caretaker came back she would figure out how to save Michael and they could all go back to the way it was before the fake Good Place fell apart. He'd- they'd all like it here.

By her the sixth quiet night Eleanor was pretty confident that nothing would appear out of a dark corner to attack her. Still, being alone in the big house at night came with a lifetime of eerie televisual baggage- restless, hungry ghosts (ha!), home invaders, kidnappers, wiry prison escapees with hot sour breath, serial killers who kidnapped you, put you in a hole and forced you to apply lotion regularly so they could make a dress out of you... let’s just say, even on Eleanor’s side of the vale, the night was still felt dark and full of terrors. Also, she possibly shouldn’t have watched Silence of the Lambs on night four.

So, after sleeping in a different comfortable bedroom every night and still tossing and turning, she spent the last two nights in the media room. Which was, to be fair, her favourite room in the house. At least it wasn’t so quiet when she found she couldn't sleep.

There were long one-and-a-half sectional couches with oversized cushions in light earth tones, a big screen tv mounted to the wall with a sleek built-in sound system and, on one of many ottomans, a remote with a sticker on it that said ‘Ask me to Play Anything’. The first time she saw it Eleanor gave a gleeful ‘Challenge accepted.’ and asked for infinite Netflix.

What a ‘Recommended’ section. She spent a day just scrolling and picking things at random until whatever ran Afterlife Netflix must have felt like it knew her and just autoplayed a new thing as soon as whatever had played before ended.

There was everything from a British philosophy show hosted by some kind-faced, chill European dude to The Golden Girls. Night fell as Friends came on, she almost reached for the remote to switch it, feeling a pang for the whole Michael situation. She let it play. Eventually she was going to have to deal with that. Totally. For now there was TV to avoid thinking with. And Twinkies. She wandered into the kitchen daydreaming about them yesterday and found them in a drawer. Eleanor was going to have to confirm her suspicions but she had a hunch, having found her favourite conditioner in the shower, that this Lacuna place had some kind of wish fulfilment kink that she backed one hundred precent.

Long after the sun had gone down, about five episodes into her Friends marathon, a clatter down the hall woke her up. A yelp followed. Someone was in the kitchen.

She scrambled off the couch, got tangled in a fluffy blanket and landed hard on her elbows. Eleanor extracted her face from the shaggy rug and listened. The clattering hadn’t stopped. Someone was knocking into the pans that hung in low racks from the kitchen ceiling while cursing. One made a loud gong like the big one at the beginning of old movies as it must have connected solidly with the visitor. She heard what could only be muffled cursing.

From the floor Eleanor snorted. At least it wasn’t some creepy undead house burglar.

He had always been too tall and gangly for his own damn good. Her smile faded. She took a deep breath and swallowed against the lightning bugs raving, impromptu, in her stomach. Too many Twinkies? Nah. Impossible when she ate them for dinner for a straight year when she was sixteen.

Drawers and cupboards opened and closed unceremoniously around the kitchen. Utensils hit the tiles. More cursing. The freezer door opened with a thunk against the fridge. A tray of ice cubes hit the deck.

She smiled. If she didn’t move soon, by dawn the kitchen would be a smouldering crater. She crept down the short hall to peer around the kitchen door.

Michael sat, long legs dangling off a table, in sweat pants, his socks almost brushing the floor. His white hair was sticking up from under the grey hoodie pulled snug over his head. Broad shoulders hunched over the biggest tub of ice cream she had ever seen, ploughing through it with a serving spoon. He was still, inexplicably, wearing glasses. He paused to sigh into the ice cream.

Eleanor smiled to herself involuntarily at the sight of him and leaned against the kitchen door. She clapped her hand over her mouth as she watched him, a crippling rush of affection that made her eyes water threatening to do her in. She cleared her throat-

‘Can’t help but notice the grey hoodie, buddy. Are ya eating your feelings?’

His spoon froze mid swoop as Eleanor stepped out of the shadows. When he looked up his face was mostly eyes. The spoon dropped into the tub. He squinted as if she might be some kind of trick of the light. A little laugh escaped him. He grinned.

It wasn’t a conspiratorial murder-is-ethical-in-this-case-and-I-know-you-agree grin. It wasn’t a high-five-because-torturing-Chidi-is-hilarious grin. It was relative to the small grin he gave her when she thanked him for pouring iced tea on her head because it was what friends did for each other when they were being annoying- the one made from of things too new and tender to be load-bearing. But at the same time she had to admit this grin wasn’t even from the same barrio. His face lit up until his eyes shone. Michael beamed at her. So broadly it made her feel unsteady.

He shoved his hood back, ditched the ice cream and reached her in two long strides. She straightened, not sure what to expect when he wrapped his arms around her and stooped to press his cheek to hers. He breathed her in. Her eyes closed and she did the same. Fresh, crisp rain. Thunderstorms. Michael smell. He eased her back but didn’t let go. His eyes scanned hers.

‘Tell me you’re real,’ he whispered.

She grinned. ‘Real as crabs after spring break in Cancun. Díos mio, I barely remember how I even got those. I mean, cantina caballero or booze cruise dude bro? Who’s to say? My guess is dude bro. All good now though. Older and wiser. Thanks to you guys.’

She laughed nervously and met his eye. He shook his head, still grinning.

‘It is you.’ He laughed.

They stood in the kitchen under the honeyed glow of a single pendant light, looking at each other until Michael realised he was still holding her arms. He shook himself and apologised and Eleanor waved him off.

‘Glad to see you too, um, buddy.’

The word tasted wrong in her mouth. As if it didn’t fit anymore. Then again, maybe Michael was always too big for it. His eyes hadn’t left her face since she had stepped out of the shadows and they scooted to the side at the word. He rubbed the back of his head.

‘I’m... glad you’re okay.’

She nodded and tugged on the hem of her tank top.

‘Yup. I’m fine. Takes more than falling out of the sky into a ravine to take out a Shellstrop...well, I mean. Sure, it literally killed me but now I’m eating Twinkies and watching infinite Netflix in a sweet ghost mansion. So that’s a win.’

Michael frowned. ‘You remember dying?’

Eleanor gave a cough. ‘Oh that. Yeah. Parts of it. That Caretaker ash hole who kidnapped you after the ball gave me the option of remembering everything when I got here. I thought, why the hell not, right? Not like it would hurt me now.’

Michael nodded along, focusing on a point over her shoulder. ‘Everything?’

She nodded. ‘The reboots-’ She nodded again, with a sideways smile. He bit his thumb and very obviously avoided her eye so she continued.

‘So yeah. Um. I have a lot to thank you for.’ she said, to his profile.

He turned and gaped at her. ‘You’re not mad?’

Eleanor gaped back. ‘Mad? Why would I be mad?’

Michael panic muttered about torture and ethics. Eleanor stepped closer and stopped him, mid babble, with a hand on his arm.

‘Hey. No. Michael.’ She waited until he looked back at her. He looked tired. Thinner maybe. He shifted awkwardly from one socked foot to another. There was a broad smudge of chocolate ice cream on his chin. Huh. Adorable. Wait. Adorable? Still he watched her. She moved her hand from his arm to his chest to stop his fidgeting and he froze. They both looked down and seemed surprised at her hand.

‘You. Uh. You stayed.’, she said.

He blinked as if he was drunk. They were very close, she noted, distantly.

‘I-?’

‘Stayed, Michael. You stayed. Everyone bails on me eventually. Every single person I’ve ever...’ She looked at her hand still on his chest and then back up at him.

‘...cared about.’

The corner of his mouth twitched upward. His gaze was a spotlight so bright it was almost unbearable.

‘Everyone leaves. Except you.’ She looked back at him.

‘Eleanor. That’s not true. Chidi-’

‘Left because he had stuff to work out. It was okay and I understood. I know he cares. But you...’ She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Honesty she could do. He deserved that.

‘Through everything you were there. When I freaked over finding out I’d been in love with Chidi you were there. When I wanted to destructo road trip my way through the country while drinking you drank with me. Made me laugh. Saved me from setting myself on fire. Dude you held my hand and died with me. I’ll never be able to pay you back for that and I’ll never forget. So, um, thanks.’

Michael looked down, she was sure he was blushing.

‘Oh. Sure. I would’ve done more if I could but I’m glad I could be there. If that...helped.’

He shifted, and she could feel him begin to pull away. She pressed down on his chest until he looked at her again.

‘Helped?’ she gave a small laugh. ‘You did more than that. That’s what I’m trying to say. Even before my second life- I’m here and not getting my nails pulled out with pliers, or my nose filled with fiery maggots or whatever partly because of you.’

‘Huh. Fiery maggots. So retro. But, no. Eleanor-’

Michael put his hand over Eleanor’s on his chest. He stepped forward. She held her breath.

‘You are here because of you. You beat me over and over again. In every way imaginable. So embarrassing. And you still made me feel like I won.’ He raised a hand as if to touch her cheek and dropped it before it reached her.

He squeezed her hand instead. She smiled a dazed, slow smile and he smiled back.

‘I am pretty awesome.’, she said with a raised eyebrow.

Eleanor reached up and swiped a thumb over the smudge of chocolate ice cream on his chin. He flinched. She grinned with a raised eyebrow and wiped it on her shirt.

‘Chocolate ice cream on your chin. Any more of that stuff in there or did you scarf it all while you were mourning me becoming a human pancake?’

Michael barked a laugh and pulled her into another crushing hug. She felt him chuckle against her. ‘Sneaky little so-and-so.’

She swallowed a lump in her throat as she got a face full of soft grey Michael hoodie and squeezed back, closing her eyes. He was crushing her but she felt the loss when he let her go.

‘Sorry. Wasn’t sure I’d see you again.’, he said in a quiet voice. He grabbed the ice cream and handed her the tub with the spoon in it. ‘Here. Go to town.’ He grinned again. ‘Oh wait! You need a fresh spoon.’

Eleanor grinned back. ‘Nah. I’m good.’

She grabbed his spoon and dug out a good spoonful to shove in her mouth. Michael’s mouth opened and closed. He swallowed. ‘Ah. Ok.’

She put down the tub and licked ice cream off her thumb. Maybe a little too slowly. Michael stared.

‘Hey. You wanna hang and marathon in our pjs? I have a sweet set up. We could watch Friends but... Netflix here is custom or something. It picks the perfect thing every time.’

Michael cleared his throat, as if he hadn’t just been looking at her as if she were the sunrise.

‘Yeah, sure. You could say I’m... on vacation.’

Eleanor chanced another look at him.

‘Cool. Cool. I’ll grab some Twinkies. You bring the ice cream. I have a hunch there will be extra blankets on the couch by the time we get back there.’

Michael obediently took the ice cream tub.

‘Great. Uh, Twinkies? Are they those synthetic, uranium coloured-’

‘Dream cakes? Yes. Remember how you thought churros were delicious trash but you liked the yellow things better? These were those.’

*

There were extra blankets on the couch. Bigger than the ones Eleanor had been using. She dive bombed the couch and rolled around on one.

Michael smiled crookedly, one arm full of Twinkies, and sat next to her. He let them spill all over the couch between them.

She tossed him a blanket which he unfolded half heartedly over himself.

‘Ok so now what?’

She laughed. ‘What do you mean now what? You know how this works- you shotgunned like nine seasons of Friends before we even met.’

He sniffed. ‘Well sure. But I did that alone in my office. For research. This is different. For fun.’

She pictured Michael alone in his office, the light of a TV playing off his collection of random human paraphernalia. Michael trying to understand why any of it was funny and, to give him full credit, understanding like 80% of it. He probably took notes. ‘Yeah. This is different. This’ll be the same as when we were on the road.’

She patted his arm. ‘Or Young Frankenstein.’, she added quietly.

She got up and grabbed a blanket, fanning it in the air before placing it over his legs. She stood back. His eyes crinkled at her.

‘Stretch out, man. Get comfortable.’

She grabbed his ankles and he let her lift his legs so he was stretched out on the couch. She scattered a few Twinkies next to him and nodded, satisfied. He smiled again. It was as if he figured they would have to renegotiate their entire relationship now that she remembered. As if he was holding his breath for her to yell at him or maybe he still didn’t fully believe she was real.

She hopped up next to him, curled up, shuffled closer to him and once she had her blanket, grabbed the remote. The sound of a Twinkie being unsheathed and sniffed came from next to her as she set the TV up.

‘Here we go! Let’s see what Netflix Infinity has for us.’

A cartoon started to play. Eleanor frowned.

‘Cartoons?’ Michael asked.

She shrugged. A shy little boy with big glasses and rough and tumble girl who could only be described as overcaffeinated met, made friends and played.

‘Uh oh.’ said Eleanor, ‘I think I saw this on a plane once.’

‘Ooh,’ said Michael, ‘do they get eaten by monsters?’

Eleanor smacked him with a pillow. They watched as the kids grew up, planned adventures, fell in love, and got married. The pair overcome everyday tragedies together, they age. One day, running up the hill they used to play on as kids, the lady falls over, sick.

‘Oh.’ Michael said in a little voice.

The man is left beside her hospital bed and then her coffin as the once happy tune turns slow and sad. The screen went dark.

Eleanor sniffed and dove for the remote.

‘Yeah that one got me too, bud.’ She shuffled over until they were leg to leg and bumped him with her shoulder.

‘You okay? I don’t know why it decided to show us that one and then crash.’

Michael was cleaning his glasses, pointedly keeping his eyes down. He turned to face her.

‘Yeah. It’s just. You humans are so fragile. It’s very tricky when you care so much about one- I mean them. It’s tricky when you care so much about them.’ He winced before meeting her eye.

She smiled at him, not fooled at all and rubbed his arm. He smiled reluctantly and looked down again.

‘I didn’t love experiencing you die and not being able to do anything about it, even though I knew you were going to be okay after. There’s a feeling I’m sure you know the name of. It’s uh, when it feels like your internal organs are being squeezed but nothing is actually bleeding when you check. Everything feels tight when you breathe but you haven’t been punched. Then after, the pressure doesn’t really go away so you can’t quite sleep. Eating isn’t fun anymore. Nothing tastes right and you’re never hungry. There’s a weird sort of ache. Like all over. You don’t leave bed much because you don’t want to go anywhere. Reading only works some of the time but mostly you find yourself just staring at the skylight above your bed. Also you keep playing this one song over and over again but it only makes you sadder.’

His jaw worked. She couldn’t look away, her gaze soft.

‘What was the song?’ she whispered.

Michael looked off to the side.

‘Just that song you said your grandmother used to play. You called it the Only Good Jazz Song.’

Michael glanced back at Eleanor, tentatively, and she gulped at the memory.

‘We... danced to that song didn’t we?’

Michael nodded, once, unblinking. Eleanor felt like she had when she opened her eyes in the Lacuna for the first time. The same way she felt standing on the top of somewhere beautiful but very, very high. Like the cliffs of the swimming hole she swam in as a kid. It made her dizzy.

‘Sounds terrible. Sorry, buddy. Maybe you were just grossed out by the whole death thing?’

He gave a sad smile that said neither of them would get away with that particular lie and looked into her eyes.

‘Maybe.’

Then he watched her unwrap another Twinkie and turned to look down at the wrapper in his hands. It was Eleanor’s turn to glance up at him.

‘You, uh, mentioned you have a skylight above your bed? That sounds nice. Where do you live now?’

He smiled broadly. ‘It’s kind of great really. I live in a library with this little loft apartment in it. Huge windows in the ceiling with views of space, reading nooks... puts that Friends apartment to shame. It just suddenly moved here a few hours ago. A door appeared so I came to check out this place. It looked, uh, familiar.’

Eleanor raised her eyebrows.

‘Cool. I gotta see that.’

Michael nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘After the marathon-ing?’

Michael smiled and nodded. They just looked at each other. There it was again, that crackle of being on the cusp of something huge and scary.

Eleanor jumped when, on the TV, a lion roared over a familiar movie logo.

‘Oh look. Something else is starting.’

She gathered her blanket close and as the movie started found herself wanting to lean into him for comfort at the fluttering in her stomach. She frowned at herself over the opening credits:

‘Oh ‘When Harry Met Sally’. I’ve heard of this one. They put it on TV a lot near Christmas. I always missed the beginning.’

She elbowed him and he gave a distracted smirk. They settled in to watch the movie. She picked at the stitching of her blanket, unsure of how close to him she should sit now.

On screen, an old man sat next to a tidy old woman on a couch, and the man spoke to the camera, interview style. They both wore matching patient smiles-

‘I was sitting with my friend Arthur Cornrom in a restaurant. It was a cafeteria and this beautiful girl walked in and I turned to Arthur and I said, "Arthur, you see that girl? I'm going to marry her, and two weeks later we were married. It's over fifty years later and we’re still married.’

The old woman smiled and patted his arm. Eleanor gave an exaggerated sigh.

‘Ugh you wanna turn this off? Thing really seems to have a boner for sappy crap tonight. Weird.’

She laughed but even to her it sounded hollow. Michael sat back and shrugged.

‘I don’t know. It’s reassuring. It gives me a warm feeling. Happiness. I’m assuming that’s happiness. Unless you think it’s because of the Twinkies and blankets and getting to hang out again.’

Eleanor snorted and smiled despite herself at the warm feeling at Michael’s happiness and turned back to the movie. She chewed a lip and settled against Michael in their veritable open top blanket fort on the couch.

Michael was mostly silent during the movie apart from chuckling a few times and tensing during the more romantic moments but when Eleanor decided to sneak a look at him as the credits rolled he looked stricken.

‘You okay, man?’

He blinked a few times and seemed to slide on his upbeat poker face.

‘Sure. I bet it’s confusing, isn’t it? Love?’ he paused. ‘Is it?’

Eleanor hesitated. ‘Yeah. You could say that. Sometimes. Only sometimes it’s really not.’

They looked at each other for a moment before Eleanor shook herself. Her plan to go back to the way things were before weren’t going too well. Everything was the same but it was as if the air between them had an electric shimmer to it. The air before a storm. If she ignored it, maybe it would just go away. That was what she wanted. Right? To be on solid familiar ground again? She grabbed at the remote just to have something to do.

The screen flicked back to the movie poster and beside it, the synopsis and some movie credits.

‘Ugh. What category are we even in here?’

She pressed a few buttons for the category tags and frowned.

‘Idiots in Love? Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Huh. Well that’s new. Weird.’

She laughed nervously and sprang up. Michael’s hands rested on his knees and it took him a second to look up at her, he seemed to be lost in thought.

She knocked him with a pillow.

‘So you going to show me this swanky new library loft pad or what? I can show you ‘round this place tomorrow.’

Michael gave a happy cluck, rose, and wagged his hand at her.

She took it.

*

Half of Michael lead Eleanor up the path to his library and answered her questions about his new home. This half of Michael was only giddy that to be around her again, was still basking in the after shocks of relief- because here she was! Eleanor! Not gone forever. At least not yet.

The other half of Michael was bowtie deep in civil war, asking impossible questions in an increasingly clear voice about things he was feeling. Was what he just saw all love was? The funny electricity of a particular hand placed for a millisecond on your bare forearm? The rush at the weight of her head on your shoulder? Is it being constantly surprised by her and yet not being surprised at all because she’s so precious and complex that you were willing to risk being ladled out, drop by drop over the surface of a thousand suns so she would have even a chance at being safe? The hilarious tragedy of it was almost too much to parse if it was true. He was about to say something like it when they died but he had thought it was the fear and caring about her so much because beings like him couldn't... he wondered, ignoring the very troubling fact that he was half drunk at the weight of her hand in his. Michael’s head buzzed.

The path from the back door of the house left them at a smooth grey door double Michael’s height. There was no handle or bell, just the worn brass curve of a door knocker. The outside of his library was a couple stories bigger than the house and almost twice as long. He mused that it looked like it had always been there. Weather beaten ivory coloured limestone clad the external walls and the building making it look modern in a low key, inviting sort of way.

Michael let go of her hand to press his hand to the door as the Caretaker told him to do in a note. It would only open for Michael, The Caretaker, or... he stopped before his hand made contact and turned to look at her.

‘Wait. I’m curious. You try.’

She frowned at first but shrugged and held her palm up at the door. She quirked an eyebrow at him and he nodded.

She pressed down. It sprung open.

Michael paused and smiled to himself before holding the door open for Eleanor. Well, shirt.

The first thing that struck Eleanor was not the walls of books- they were pretty amazing- but the stars above them. She didn’t hide her amazement. Michael followed close behind her, quiet, as she paced the length of the building, stopping occasionally to run a finger along the books.

She climbed into a reading nook and plumped a bright orange cushion under her head. ‘Oh man. I would’ve loved this when we were studying- actually I probably would’ve slept through studying so maybe not.’

She hopped out and plucked a couple of books off shelves, humming at some of the titles. She stopped in front of the Staff Picks section. ‘Staff Picks?’ She snorted. ‘Who’s the staff?’

Michael chuckled. ‘Well the Caretaker keeps some pretty wild company so I can only imagine.’

He moved to stand near her. The books he’d read he replaced on the lower shelf.

‘Uh...try this one. It’s sad but in a kind of good way? I still have no idea what that’s about. If something is sad it shouldn’t feel good sad, but hey, feelings make no sense so...’

Eleanor nodded in bittersweet recognition. ‘I don’t know. That’s kind of how I feel about my second life.’ Her legs swung in the air outside the nook. Michael gave her a hand out and she dusted herself off. ‘I had a great time even though it was also kind of... painful. Confusing.’

Michael watched her. ‘Now you know how I felt for three hundred years.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘We tortured each other. Dude, the look on your face every time I figured it out. That time Jason figured it out-’

Michael laughed. ‘You had to rub that one in?’ He ran a hand over his face and shook his head, smiling down at her. He nudged her with his shoulder. ‘Guess I work better with you than against you.’ He shrugged. She nodded, and returned his smile and they looked at each other, nothing but the hum of the library around them.

‘So you going to show me the rest of this place? You mentioned a loft.’

Michael blinked. ‘Oh yeah, sure. There’s a fridge that will make you anything. I’m sure it does shrimp.’ He motioned for her to follow him.

‘Oho. Bold of you to assume I want shrimp when what I really want is more ice cream.’ He snorted as he led her up the ladder to the loft. It looked lived in but comfortable.

He paused. ‘Oh. Huh.’

‘What?’

‘It’s bigger. As in I’m sure it just doubled.’

Eleanor laughed. ‘Weird.’ She yawned.

Michael leaned against a bannister and smiled. ‘You’re tired.’

Eleanor nodded and moved to lean beside him.

‘You uh, want me to walk you back to the house? Say goodbye in case this place moves in the morning?’

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Michael looked around. ‘You can stay if you want. But that door only just appeared before I came in so you might be stuck here.’

She stepped closer. ‘Meh. I’ve been sleeping in a different room every night, can’t seem to find one I like in the big house anyway so I don’t care if you don’t.’

He rubbed the back of his neck, flushed and smiling one of his small surprised smiles. She grinned.

He blinked and nodded at the bed. ‘Okay, you can have this one. I’ll take one of the nooks downstairs.’

She looked toward the bed and back at him, ‘No, come on. We shared plenty of times on the road. You’re too giant to sleep in one of those things.’

‘Eleanor I don’t really need sleep. It’s nice but I could easily stay up reading or-’

Eleanor snorted, ‘Don’t make it weird, man. It’s fine.’ She jumped on the bed and kicked off her slippers.

‘Ice cream?’

Michael smiled and showed her the little fridge. ‘Coconut passion fruit swirl only not frozen yoghurt this time?’

‘You know it!’

He chuckled and brought the cup over. She patted the bed next to her.

He hesitated but sat and scooted closer. She ate a few bites and watched him. He sighed.

She held the ice cream out. ‘You want some?’

He gave a small smile and shook his head. She put the cup of ice cream down on the footstool. He’d been quiet since the movie ended. ‘What is it?’

He looked away then back again.‘It’s stupid.’

She moved closer and put a hand on his. ‘Nah. Man, I’m sure it’s not. You can tell me. I won’t make fun of you or anything.’

He looked down at her hand and his hovered over it and then he rested it beside hers on the bed. She frowned slightly. He was very obviously avoiding looking at her. He tried to shrug.

‘Hope I don’t vanish in the morning.'

She leaned closer, eyes wide. ‘That’s the opposite of stupid.’ She looked down. ‘I really, really don't want you to vanish either.  Once I remembered, I... I was pretty confused. But then, then I was uh, kinda worried. That guy wouldn’t tell me what happened to you. Said the others would be okay and all I could think was... I mean, I remember...’

Michael watched her. He looked tired and lost and vulnerable and he was so close. She sighed and reached up to trail fingertips across his face. She couldn’t help it. His eyes fluttered briefly.

‘Still had chocolate ice cream on my face?’ he looked shy. Of her. Shy. Joy threatened to bubble over. She grinned, glancing down at his lips. ‘No. Just promise me you’ll tell me if you want me to stop.’

He frowned. ‘Stop?’ She nodded. He shook his head slightly. ‘Stop what?’

Eleanor slipped her fingers under the neck of his hoodie and tugged, pressing her lips firmly to his. He froze and Eleanor was about to pull away when he groaned with surprised relief and kissed her back. She pressed a palm to his cheek, placing kisses on his face.

‘Eleanor. Are you sure you- oh, screw it.’

He threaded his fingers through her hair as he sucked her lip and nipped, his tongue sliding against hers. She moaned and he hauled her into his lap. He pulled back to look at her, his eyes half lidded and full of promise. She pulled him back down, deepening their kiss. They both span in kisses, heavy and sweet and urgent and gravity stopped. She pushed him back and straddled him.

‘Eleanor-’ he started but she put her hand over his mouth and kissed his cheeks. He closed his eyes.

‘If you don’t want this tell me. But if you do, please Michael, just shut the fork up.’ She leaned down, on top of him where she could feel the hard heat of how much he wanted her. She kissed him again, tasting him, catching his lower lip, hard. She pressed down and ground on him with a roll of her hips and his breath stuttered, his eyes flying open again, bright. She cupped his face. ‘Tell me what you want.’, she whispered in his ear. He looked at her, leaned on his elbows and reached up to tuck hair behind her ear, gently. He was flushed and his eyes, pupils blown, burned into hers. He ran his fingers down her cheek.

‘You. Just you.’

She made a small sound and leaned down to kiss him again.

The air tingled when she sat up and pulled her top off, her eyes locked on his as she unhooked her bra. They stayed on her as she took his hand and placed it over a breast. He gave a small intake of breath and sat up so they were chest to chest as she started to move in his lap, one of his hands cupping a breast, the other firm on her back. She shoved the hoodie off his shoulders and reached under his shirt to palm his bare skin. She kissed him, long and deep and squeaked in surprise when he rolled them so she was under him. He smiled into a kiss that made her want to bite. She grinned and teased his lip with her teeth. He grinned back, kissing bruises into her neck and blew into her ear as he nipped her ear lobe.

‘I think I know what you like. I hope that’s not,’ he paused to give her a crooked smirk, ‘unethical?’

A breathless laugh escaped her and she reached up for another open-mouthed, slightly giddy kiss before arching her back to slide out of her pants.

He got braver about letting his hands wander. His thumbs swiped gently then assertively over her nipples and she sucked in air. He discovered her as he kissed her, touching her cheek, stoking down her neck and slowly across the swoop of her collarbone, trailing kisses down her jaw and throat, closing his mouth on a rosy peak with a swirl of his tongue. He kissed a deliberate, slow path down her sternum to her belly button and lathed at the notch of her hip, down to the inside of her thigh where he sucked and dragged his teeth lightly. Her breath hitched. He whispered her name and bent down to taste her, one hand flat on her belly, the other adding to the pressure building in her, so intense she had to pull on his hair for him to stop. She cursed and tugged on his shirt until he took it off, sliding a foot down his hip into the waitseband of his pants because she wanted them off too.

He sat up. 

‘Eleanor. I'm a demon. You shouldn’t, you deserve-’

She stopped his words with her mouth and leaned back to look at him. 'You're Michael. I don’t give a shirt what you were.’ She eased his pants down herself and traced the curve of his ass. He sprang free, heavy and he looked at her like he wanted to devour her. They were a tangle of limbs as they rolled, lip-locked, their hands stroking and kneading, exploring each other where before they could only look. She bit his ear lobe and he kissed her harder. Finally, she closed her hand around him and they locked eyes.

She hummed in his ear and stroked him. 'Michael.'

She sucked marks into his neck. His eyes closed and he gave a growl that could have been a moan. Then he watched her as they moved against each other, intently, eyes impossibly blue.  

She looked back and pressed her forehead to his. His hands mapped her shoulders, her face, her breasts as they breathed each others’ stuttering air between heavy, wet kisses.

Eleanor pushed his shoulders back and claimed his lap. A deft roll her hips and they would be there. Connected. He watched as he touched her as if he couldn’t quite believe... She wrapped her arms around him tight, wanting him closer so they could be pressed together everywhere, drunk on the molton heat of him resting between her thighs. She moved in time with him. One of them made a wrecked sound.

She bit a lip and kissed him, languid and firm with intent. ‘I can feel you. Do you want me? Do you want this?’

He placed a hand on her cheek then stroked over a breast. He crushed her mouth with an answering kiss. Then nipped and nuzzled her. God she could taste herself on his mouth and she could feel herself all over him, wet. She wiggled a figure eight in his lap to steal his breath.

 ‘Yes. Ungh. Always, Eleanor. I've always wanted you. Like this. Fork. So much. How do you not know that?'

She clung to him and kissed him hard with a needy sound, bucked her hips and sank down on him. They cried out together, gasped, and were lost in blinding sweetness. His eyes were wide and surprised, gazing into hers. Eleanor whimpered and began to move, scratching lines down his back.

‘Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor.’ Michael gasped, joining her rhythm with a hand gripping her ass, the other in her hair. She answered and moved in time with him.

He mouthed kisses into her neck and lifted her further into his lap. He braced a hand on the headboard behind her, and tipped her backward, leaning down to mouth at her nipples only to drop his head briefly to her chest as he moved faster. He leaned up to look into her eyes, his thumbs bracketing her hips as he moved deeper and deeper, slower but more deliberate. Her mouth fell open and he took it as warmth built and built, his name on her lips, his fingers moving over her clit in time with every rock into her.

‘Oh Eleanor I’m-’

She opened her eyes and held him so they were chest to chest, panting into each others’ mouths. The shore breathing in the sea. The sea breathing in the shore. Over and over. Over and- She bit his lip and pulled his hair. Palm to palm, their fingers slid together, intertwined.

‘Fork. Michael!’ Tears bit at her eyes, this overwhelming feeling expanded in her chest until she was on fire with it, this bittersweet joy she couldn’t explain, coming home after a long journey, when she’d thought she was lost only she was never lost she- his eyes, so blue, searched hers and she held him tighter and covered his lips with hers just like- she flew over, eyes shut tight, and he followed.

 They melted together, slowly, under the stars glowing through the skylight. They found themselves under a sheet kissing softly as they floated back down. Then they just stared at each other, dumbstruck, hands tracing gentle patterns with reverence and ready to drift off to sleep, limbs still entangled. Michael trailed kisses along Eleanor’s hairline and, their fingers laced together, they slipped away.

Chapter Text

Michael woke first and watched Eleanor sleep. This would be the only time, he figured, that he’ll get to see her like this. All he wanted was to trap the moment in amber.

The bright morning sun streamed through the skylight above them, laying warm over her bare shoulder and her hair. He held out a hand to skim the air above her, wanting so much to touch but not disturb. There was the sweetest bleeding feeling centred in his chest, ebbing at a steady flow into the pit of his stomach. It might be called joy, he thought, but it had so many other huge, scary, and confusing things attached to it that felt too big and the word joy just wasn’t complex enough to describe all the facets of this, this thing that was- anyway it was annoying. Just so annoying. But also the most glorious, sweetly agonising thing that ever...

Her shoulder rose and fell and there was this kind of pain at the sight- he mused vaguely over the burgeoning galaxies he watched at the edge of existence, that explosion of colour and wildness, the sense of awe... the image fit somehow.

Could be that Eleanor was now elemental to him- his undoing and his re-making. Like some kind of pint-sized blonde Kali Yuga that chewed him up again and again and somehow spat him out with sunlight in his non existent blood.

And soon Chidi would come and claim her. Finally, then, they could be together and Eleanor would be happy. Michael would... well he was a demon, wasn’t he? The Good Place would have no place for him anyway. If he was lucky he could find a way to assist the Caretaker somewhere on the fringes. As some kind of- what did they call those people who got paid to swan in to tell everyone what they were doing wrong without actually committing to one workplace? A consultant. He could be a consultant to the Caretaker. Maybe he’d be allowed to see her again. Maybe he could keep his new library home, ask that it be posted somewhere near the Edge...who was he kidding? If he was sure she was alright he was sure he could face retirement. Or Shawn. He’d face anything. Again. For Eleanor.

When even watching her sleep became too much, he made his way to the kitchen, a banana split breakfast on his mind. Something about vanilla and banana together made him feel better. He stopped when he noticed a new oval shaped window overlooking the pond. A glass door now stood next to the window where there was once just wall. It opened out to steps leading down to a path. Caretaker sat on a chair in the new window, sunlight streaming though the kitchen.

‘Lovely morning, isn’t it?’

Michael, now used to the Caretaker’s visiting style, was only startled for a moment. The Caretaker had added a dining nook to the kitchen. Of course he had. Michael smiled and took the chair beside him. He turned to the window and waved at it amiably. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’

‘You had quite the night.’ The Caretaker regarded him drily, his droopy eyes twinkling. Michael let out a single bark of laughter and tried not to blush.

‘Mhm. I have questions for you. I’m hungry. Breakfast?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Sure.’

The Caretaker snapped and they were faced with a stack of pancakes, syrup and bacon. A tall diner style pot of coffee stood to attention alongside the meal. They tucked in.

‘Shawn knows where you are,’ he said with a mouthful of syrup-covered bacon.

Michael sighed and put his fork down to fold his hands. ‘It was only a matter of time.’

‘Yes. Now. Because you’re still technically his subordinate, he could travel here to apprehend you at any time. You’re not protected. Officially.’

Michael nodded.

‘I can’t file legitimately to account for you here yet. Depending on how things go in the next twenty-four hours, I may never be able to make a case for your presence here. However.’ The Caretaker paused to shovel more pancakes into his mouth.

‘There is a position on the outskirts of The Good Place with your name on it. A new job that would give you protected status beyond Shawn’s jurisdiction.’

Michael’s eyebrows went up. The Caretaker nodded.

‘Pretty nifty, eh?’

Michael’s nose wrinkled. ‘Too nifty. There’s a catch isn’t there?’

The Caretaker inclined his head, waving his fork in assent. ‘Depends on how you feel about leaving here for a thousand years, never to return. Immediately.’

Michael shoved his plate away. ‘Immediately? Like now?’

The Caretaker nodded. ‘Yup. Only one meaning for immediately as far as I know. Unless...am I using it wrong? Language can be so basic when you’re existing in a hundred realms simultaneously. Like trying to cram a foot into a shoe that’s several astral planes too small. Well. When I say immediately I mean in, say the next ten minutes.’

Michael looked out at the pond. ‘So I’d be safe there but I’d have to leave here now. For what? A thousand-’

‘A thousand years. Yes. The assignment is in a part of the universe that contains twenty interlocking black holes so it kind of phases in and out. Makes travel windows really tight.’

‘I couldn’t visit? Eleanor couldn’t-’

‘Not unless you’re good at reassembling shards of souls scattered across multiple timelines. She’s human, Michael. The job will be overseeing a team, repairing some of the damage the imbalance has caused. Stopping the holes from expanding, maybe even shrinking them. A little light consulting for me on the side, every half century or so.’

Michael stared, numb, as the Caretaker continued-

‘Accept. Leave now and you’ll be safe from Shawn’s clutches forever. You’ll have a set path to The Good Place once you finish the job. Your friends passed their tests so they’re all safe here.’

He crunched a slice of bacon and turned solemn, looking him in the eye. ‘Congratulations, Michael. It’s the impossible happy ending you were hoping for. Everything you’ve ever wanted- recently. You’ve earned it.’

Michael shook his head. ‘I suppose it is.’

Except he could barely hear his own voice over a building roar in his ears.

He sat back in his chair, remembering the needlepoint signs in the sleeping quarters for drafters in the Bad Place: HOPE FOR THE MIDDLE. This was just another middle, wasn’t it? Everything he wanted. Was that what he wanted now? Another millennia slotted into the middle of the system. Head down. Back to business as usual. Cramming himself back into a bureaucratic mould. How well had that gone before? He took a deep breath. Eleanor a thousand years away. The idea induced vertigo.

‘It was what I wanted. Except now it isn’t. Not even a little bit.’

Eleanor asleep in his bed, looking up at him last night in the kitchen.

You stayed, Michael. You stayed.

Her voice last night- her limbs around him, them, tangled, inseparable, immersed in this amniotic sea of pure feeling- his name in her voice. Devastating in that he felt like he’d been taken apart and reassembled in the most beautiful way possible.The best torture.

The Caretaker watched him. ‘What are you saying?’

He laughed, slightly hysterical at himself.

‘I’m saying I’m not leaving Eleanor. Not now. Not ever.’

The Caretaker cocked his head.

‘Michael. Do you understand what you’re turning down? No one else is in danger but I can’t stop Shawn from coming here to drag you back to The Bad Place to do whatever he wants with you. This job offer is the only certain way to avoid that.’

Michael’s jaw tensed but he nodded.

‘And, I’m not sure you factored this into your decision but you understand that Chidi Anagonye will be arriving any moment now, I’ve unlocked the doors, and, given Eleanor’s romantic history with him, there is no guarantee that she will be willing to pursue a romantic relationship with you over her established relationship with him?’

Michael flinched but looked him dead in the eye.

‘That doesn’t matter. She has my friendship. They both do. No matter what.’

The Caretaker pushed aside his plate and leaned forward.

‘Why, Michael? Because you had human intercourse? I’ve heard it can, with the right partner or even the wrong one, be a very pleasant experience but-’

Michael stopped him- ‘Stop. Ew. No. No, it’s not about that.’

‘What is it then, Michael? Why are you turning down a chance to get to the real Good Place, the crowning achievement of all of your recent goals, to stay by Eleanor Shellstrop’s side and face certain eventual painful and slow destruction?’

Michael chewed the inside of his cheek. His eyes widened and he took a deep breath. He shook his head. The Caretaker smiled softly.

‘Hm. I wonder. I asked you to consider a question when we first met. Granted, I info-dumped the hell out of you but you’re bright for a nine-dimensioner, so I’m sure you remember...’

Michael’s eyes were trained on the window, not really seeing the light playing on the surface of the water, but somewhere beyond it. ‘You asked me what holds it all together. The universes, all of it.’

‘Yes. And now that you maybe know the answer, you understand how beings like Shawn, unchecked, can erode the fabric of everything until there is nothing left. Because if there isn’t enough of something to hold up against the darkness, universes collapse.’

‘Like souffle.’ Michael said, half daydreaming.

He swallowed over a thumping heart. It was as if he teetered on an irrevocable change. The danger of it made his mouth dry. The Caretaker watched him carefully.

‘So Michael, I’ll ask you again: why won’t you leave Eleanor Shellstrop?’

Michael couldn’t even blink as he looked at him. This unassuming little old man. But he wouldn’t lie to himself or anyone else any more.

Eleanor’s bare shoulder peaking out from under the covers this morning was the most cataclysmically beautiful thing he’d ever seen and he had been around so long he heard them gossip as a cadet hellraiser about dinosaurs going extinct. His first steps were taken at the lips of the original lava pits as they were handing out assignments. The first torturees hadn’t even arrived when he was assessed on the molten scales and put on a Human Affairs track instead of being thrown to the manticores. All of these things were true. But nothing about him now was truer than one thing.

‘I love her. I’m in love with her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to a middle management track, misfit, drafting hall lackey demon like me. That’s the truth of why I can’t leave her. Ever. It doesn’t matter that Chidi is coming back. That she’ll go back to him. It sucks. It’s going to hurt worse than the burning ladles, but... I couldn’t bear the idea that she would wake up and I’d be gone and not only would she know that I was just one more person who had left her but then, on top of that, I would never even see her again. Never be there for her again. No. Let Shawn do his worst.’

Michael’s eyes shimmered, his jaw set. The Caretaker smiled one of his tight little smiles, handed him a napkin and patted him on the arm.

‘So there is hope for 1356A and B after all. I’m proud of you Michael.’

Michael dabbed an eye and sniffled, once.

‘What?’

‘Well obviously I was hoping you’d turn me down.’

‘Obviously?’

‘Duh. Damn but you people can be slow.’

He shook his head.

‘Michael. I’ll declare it officially. You have evolved and can no longer be classified as a being of the infernal realm. You will now reside in the Lacuna indefinitely, subject to your consent and pending the outcome of conditions yet to be determined. Project yet to be finalised with details to follow. Existence hereby acknowledges your change in status.’

The Caretaker extended a hand to Michael whose mouth had fallen open, having only just seconds ago resigned himself to an eternity of being slowly dismantled in service to Shawn’s whims. The Caretaker cleared his throat and Michael gave his hand, waiting for it all to be some kind of trick.

‘We’re not out of the woods yet- Shawn still has a claim on you, officially, but Team Existence thanks you for your part.’

‘My part.’

The Caretaker stood.

‘The universe, Michael. You, being a being equal to Shawn, just became his opposite force.’

Michael floundered visibly. The Caretaker rolled his eyes.

‘As much as Shawn hates. You...’

His eyes cleared.

‘Love. So my love for Eleanor-’

‘Helps a good deal. You had to embrace it, you see, to have real options and choose for there to be any difference.’

The Caretaker tilted his head, seeming to listen to the air.

‘Ah. Fire to put out. Good talk.’ He leaned toward the kitchen entrance. ‘You can come out now, Eleanor. There are still some pancakes here if you’re hungry. I’ll talk to you later.’

The Caretaker slipped through the new door, vanishing before the bottom step as Michael stood immediately, spinning toward the entrance to the little kitchen. The contents of his coffee mug spilled out over the table and pooled on the floor.

Eleanor shuffled in, looking guilty, wearing her sloth tank top and the bedspread as a skirt. Michael felt queasy.

‘Sorry. I heard my name and I smelled bacon. Then I...’

Michael couldn’t find his voice.

She winced. ‘Sorry.’

*

Michael sat down in a chair, hard.

‘You heard everything didn’t you?’

Eleanor shifted, awkwardly. ‘If by everything you mean the part where you professed your undying love for me in the most mind-boggling way possible then yes. Way to go on being on track for The Good Place by the way. Also you’re Shawn’s equal? Check you out, man, boatload of awesome. Some of that ‘subject to’ and ‘pending’ stuff sounded kind of sketch but overall I think we’re golden so that’s pretty amazing.’

She cleared her throat and seemed about to say more a few times but opted to hum once instead. Michael sagged. ‘I, uh, didn’t mean for you to hear that. I know how you are about feelings. I was the same and... I don’t think I even understood, until just now, I mean I guess I knew but I didn’t know, ya know? It was all just so much easier when it was just anger and confusion and then, all that stuff at the fake Good Place, spending time with you on Earth and then I realised last night-’

She jumped and shuffled over in her blanket skirt with a hand out.

‘Stop. Michael. It’s okay. Just stop. It’s... shirt I am so bad at this. Dude you have to know by now that you m-’

A sound downstairs interrupted her. A voice floated up-

‘Eleanor?’

They both froze. Eleanor let in a little breath and turned toward the stairs.

‘Eleanor?’

It was Chidi’s voice.

‘Eleanor? A weird little old bald guy said you’d be in here and then he vanished. Eleanor?’

She looked back at Michael. He gave a sad smile and his eyes sparkled, piercing, as they searched her face. He looked down once he seemed to find something. Chidi’s voice was closer-

‘Oh God this is some kind of trap, isn’t it? Something’s going to leap out, destroying many good books just to eat me. Eleanor?’

Michael looked at her again. ‘Go, Eleanor. Go. I’ll be around. Go to Chidi.’

I know you want to, he didn’t say. She heard it anyway.

She reached over and grabbed his hand, turning it over, big in hers. She raised it to her face and pressed a kiss to it with her eyes closed.

‘Okay but just because I think he’s going to have a meltdown if I don’t get over there. We’ll talk later?’ she whispered up at him.

He blinked a nod.

She squeezed his hand. ‘Promise?’

‘Sure.’ He said, his voice hoarse. ‘Go.’

She threw her arms around him and squeezed. Then she went, pausing at the door to glance back at him, a solid solitary profile framed by the window and the pond behind it, turned away from her. He was looking out over the water. Her gut clenched and, for a moment, she hesitated.

‘Eleanor! Can you hear me? Oh God how is this library even organised? Staff Picks? No discernable category, like a book store display. Oh this is a torture isn’t it? We’re back in the Bad Place. I knew it. Oh God. Eleanor?’ Chidi’s voice had an edge of rising panic.

‘Hold on a sec, Cheeds! Coming down!’

She threw on Michael’s hoodie, grabbed her sweat pants and tugged them on, hopping on one foot and nearly falling over on her way down the ladder.

Chapter Text

Michael strode through the woods along the path to the clearing Eleanor had spotted from the roof of the house on autopilot. His stomach was a hard pit, a cold burn he was familiar with from when he thought he had lost Eleanor in death. He watched the treetops, the clear blue sky strobing through the bright canopy above him only a melancholy zoetrope of leaves. Thing was, he was fine. Really. Only he had harboured some sad hope that he could have her to himself for just a little while longer before Chidi arrived. Even after breakfast would have been easier. Then he could go back to being... whatever they were to each other before. But it was only forestalling the inevitable anyway. Better for him to get used to the way things had to be. So he was fine. Really.

He tipped his face to the sun as he stepped into the grass circle and closed his eyes. When he opened them again to look around, he started- a peacock stood on the other end of the clearing. It trilled when it noticed him. Michael couldn’t help feeling winded at the sight of the bird, its sapphire and emerald iridescent feathers spread and catching in the sunlight. All he could think was: Eleanor would get a kick out of this. She’d snort and call it the Tahani of birds. Or she’d say something like: ‘Ugh. Could that bird be any more extra?’ But she’d think it was beautiful too and he’d know because she would watch it and smile that small smile she got when she thought something was kind of amazing and assumed you weren’t looking.

Which is all to say, Michael— so busy telling himself he was fine even as whatever silent fire powered his skin suit buckled under the strain of what simpler beings might call a heartache— completely failed to hear a camouflaged Vicky slipping out of the foliage to shoot him in the neck with a taser.

*

‘Eleanor, I remember everything. It’s so complicated. It’s like my memories are arguing with each other and it’s this tangle of Gordian knots that I have to unpick before anything makes sense.’

Chidi spoke with his hands, glancing sideways at her. ‘Everything we went through was so heightened. I’m not even sure who this makes me. I’m a skeleton key version of myself. A not-ideal Platonic ideal. John Locke said-’

Eleanor reached across the reading nook they sat in and rested a hand on his knee. ‘Less footnotes more CliffsNotes, bud. I know it’s how you deal but maybe try to feel this one out without the table of contents? Just this once, for ol’ Eleanor?’

Chidi blinked. ‘Oh.’ he pushed up his glasses. ‘Ok. Sure.’ He seemed to search for words and he bit his lips.

‘Eleanor. Without a doubt you are one of the best friends I've ever had. We fell in love once. More than once. I’m not sure who I am anymore exactly but I know I promised you this conversation before I died, before I left to see Simone and you and Michael went on that road trip. I just- Gah! That was the most recent time I died wasn’t it? So. Many. Reboots.’

Eleanor patted his knee and sighed. ‘Chidi. Stop. It’s okay. Look, things change. There never seems to be a right time to have this conversation unless we’re just about to die and maybe that’s the glaring thing.’

She looked up at the roof of the nook to sort through her thoughts. Since the beginning of their conversation all she was really thinking about was whether Michael was okay. How she left him looking out over the grounds around the building. Holy fork, all the stuff she overheard this morning, which she hadn’t even had a chance to process... then last night (wowza) and that moment just before she died the second time- she looked at Chidi, who was obviously in the throes of a defcon level stomach ache. She found she felt only a passing fond amusement about that. And zero hurt about all the other stuff. Huh.

‘I feel like we’ll be friends forever.’ She blurted out. Both their eyes widened. ‘It shouldn’t feel this difficult so it can’t be right. Sure it’s always work but it should feel natural too, ya know? Exactly like...’

Her jaw dropped. ‘Like-’ She stared into the middle distance. ‘Shirt. Like-’ She blinked.

Chidi leaned forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘I think you’re right but... are you okay, Eleanor?’

She turned to him and her mouth opened and closed. Chidi squinted at her. Then he smiled. He looked toward the stairs and then back at her. His smile turned into a grin. ‘So that way too big for you to be yours sweater you’re wearing... is that... is that Michael’s?’

She narrowed her eyes at him but looked no less shocked. She nodded.

Chidi chuckled. ‘You can be honest- Have you only just now realised that you pretty obviously have a major thing for him?’

She seemed about to contradict him but when no words came out of her mouth, her eye twitched and she made a sound like the world’s tiniest car hitting the brakes suddenly instead. Chidi chuckled again and looked at her.

‘Yeah I saw you guys napping together on the couch that last morning in Toronto and I wasn’t even surprised. I thought...huh, that makes sense. You’re in love with him aren’t you?’ He leaned in and squinted, inspecting her facial expression. ‘And it has broken your brain. Nice.’

He shook his head, still smiling. ‘Glad we had this talk.’ He thumped her knee and wrapped his arms around her. It was a tight, heartfelt thing. ‘I feel better about everything. I always thought you guys might, you know... Even during the reboots. Something in the air around you two. Feels inevitable.’ He smiled.

Her mouth still hung open but she reciprocated. He leaned back to clamber out of the nook.

‘You should go find him and tell him. I’m pretty sure he’s been in love with you since the low single digit reboots, the poor guy. Or demon. Only, he’s not really that anymore, is he? What is he now? Hm. Not my field but I’ll read up.’ He brushed off his khakis.

‘This library is awesome. Imma read the hell outta all y’all, friends.’ He made finger guns at the books and rubbed his hands together in anticipation and then frowned back at Eleanor.

‘Eleanor, why are you still here? Go find Michael and tell him you love him for Kant’s sake. Or if you don’t feel ready for the L bomb at least talk to him.’ He tugged on her arm and walked her to the stairs. She gripped the handrail and seemed to snap out of it. She climbed a few steps before turning around.

‘Yo. Cheeds?’ She smiled down at him. ‘Thanks.’

He smiled and raised a book to her. ‘Always. And hey- “Love is the cause of unity in all things”. Who knows? You two might just be the ones saving us all.’

She grinned ‘According to Aristotle huh?’

Chidi gave a delighted yelp and a fist pump. ‘Yes! I rule at teaching.’

Eleanor laughed. ‘Yeah you do. You really do.’ She turned to run up the stairs, calling for Michael.

The bed was made but empty. In the kitchen, all signs of breakfast had been cleaned away. The new glass door leading to the stairs down to the pond path banged open and closed softly in the breeze. Eleanor’s stomach twisted.

She zipped Michael’s hoodie and ran in his direction.

*

In the Lacuna’s western forest, at the far end of the clearing, a lopsided portal with a sickly illuminated red surface stood, churning. Shawn stepped toward it and Vicky trailed behind him, dragging Michael in a closed lasso. Michael hovered three feet off the ground, stiff and unconscious, hands cuffed. Trevor fought to keep pace with Vicky, pretending to boss her around as he lagged behind.

Eleanor entered the clearing and shouted Michael’s name as soon she saw them. They glanced over, barely slowing. She struggled to pull a heavy sagging branch off an overgrown bush over Trevor’s insults. It tore free and she charged with it held high. Trevor’s high pitched laugh was interrupted with a smack. Then she went for Vicky, clotheslining her under Shawn’s glacial, apathetic gaze.

The Caretaker appeared and snapped his fingers. Eleanor let go of Vicky’s hair. Concrete grey rippled over the portal’s surface and it stilled. Shawn raised an arm to still his minions. He turned to The Caretaker.

‘Not that I have to justify this to anyone but I’m taking my employee back where he belongs.’

The Caretaker folded his arms. ‘Hmm. Maybe but it looks like something might be wrong with your portal there. Might take a while to fix.’

Eleanor pushed Vicky off her. Vicky hissed and yanked Eleanor’s hair and got a face slap in return. Eleanor shoved her away and strode over to the Caretaker, eyeballing them. She pointed at Shawn. ‘You’re not taking Michael anywhere.’

Shawn gave a humorless laugh, his eyes barely landing on her as they fixed again on the Caretaker. ‘I don’t know what your game is here, Builder, but your interference is not necessary. This is a clear cut case, administratively speaking.’

The Caretaker hummed. ‘Interference. Interesting choice of words. Especially when that’s exactly what one genuine act of love would insulate this plane from: interference.’

Shawn scowled. ‘Act of-? Gross. If I wanted to watch primates compete for supremacy over each other’s bodily fluids I’d watch the Superbowl.’

Trevor chimed in- ‘Or Love Island.’

Trevor and Vicky cackled and high-fived each other. Shawn held up a hand and their giggles trailed off. He rolled his eyes. The Caretaker regarded them with dry amusement. ‘Hard to get good help these days?’

Shawn sneered. ‘Enough chitter chatter. Out of the way, dinosaur, we’re taking what belongs to us and then your pathetic attempt at organizational revolution fails. What you call ‘the imbalance’ will suck the inferior universe into ours and then we’re going to- You, male minion, educate this dodo bird.’ Shawn nodded at Trevor and the Caretaker.

‘Have like a massive influx of humans to process that we’ll struggle and ultimately fail to deal with?’ Trevor raised his eyebrows, smug in the certainty of praise.

Shawn scoffed and swished a finger in Trevor’s direction. Headphones clamped themselves to Trevor's head, Enya’s ‘Sail Away’ bleeding from them. Everyone watched with morbid fascination as Trevor ran toward the portal, screaming and gripping his head as he struggled to pry the headphones off, only to crash into it and knock himself unconscious. Muffled Enya played into the grass.

Shawn remained as nonplussed as ever. ‘Three months oughta do it.’ He turned to Vicky. ‘You. Short female skinsuit I’ve seen before. Question goes to you.’

Vicky rushed forward, eagerly. ‘We party?’

Shawn grimaced. ‘Exactly... We. Get. Happy.’ His face remained stony.

Caretaker considered them with a lifted brow. ‘You newbies don’t know the deal here. You’ve forgotten the rules. I’ll summon two beings to educate you. Pay attention, Eleanor. Teachable moment.’

He snapped his fingers.

A refrigerator sized man faced them. He stood seven feet tall, with shoulders that could support a ceiling. He was a breathing obsidian Egyptian statue in black rough spun robes, with an objective air of serenity hewn by gravestones. His eyes were a fiery, cool green. He smiled with the precision of someone who has experienced only just enough levity to know what smiles were. His gave the impression that his smiles were a mark of high regard.

‘Friend. Colleague. I stand with you, as requested.’

The Caretaker’s head dipped in thanks. Another snap.

Judge Gen appeared holding a back of caramel popcorn. ‘Oh no he didn’-’ She chirped in indignation. ‘Ugh. Bob. Really? I know you gave me a heads up but now? I just had a nice long soak in a warm satisfying bath of Integrity, season three of GLOW was dropping on the ‘flix. I was gonna paint my nails.’ She wiggled her toes, clad as they were in foam separators. ‘I had my caramel popcorn, I-’ she looked down. ‘Oh. Still got the corn.’ She popped a handful in her mouth. ‘Ugh ok. Cool, cool. Go on.’ She stood by Tall and Serious and then elected to free her toes.

Shawn frowned. The other two looked at each other. The Caretaker clapped his hands. ‘Right. Judge Gen. Ani.’

Eleanor piped up. ‘Wait. More about these rules you mentioned.’ She cupped a hand toward the Caretaker and spoke in a stage whisper. ‘Who’s the big guy? How can he help us?’ She glanced at the man next to Judge Gen. ‘No offence, sir. Congrats on the vibe- very sexy Grim Reaper.’

He bowed his head. ‘None taken, Eleanor. I enjoy your spirit. Ever since the concept of you was gossiped about amongst the stars, I listened with interest. And amusement.’

Eleanor leaned back. ‘Huh. Amusement?’

Ani cracked a placid half smile, his eyes glittering cool green fire. ‘I have both respect and amusement for any playful agent of mischief.’

Eleanor stepped back when The Caretaker cleared his throat.

‘Ani’s scales are infallible. Have been since the dawn of mankind, before the Great Re-org. In order for Michael to stay, and if Eleanor is willing, we will perform the test of Three Truths.’

Eleanor frowned. ‘The what now?’

The Caretaker gave a small smile. ‘Old ways. Old laws. Still binding. You’re about to be head of The Lacuna, Eleanor. Leader of the sanctuary that is the middle place: 1356C.’

Eleanor sputtered. The Caretaker held up a finger. ‘More on that later. Don't worry, I'll leave a manual. Unfortunately, Michael has no official reason to be here. Nothing to keep him here that overrules his tie to negative 1356B, The Bad Place. So despite his change in status, he’s unauthorised, so to speak.’

Eleanor frowned. ‘Are you saying he’s like... living here illegally?’

Ani smiled. ‘She is as bright as the stars promised.’

The Caretaker nodded.

‘Ok, I’ll just ask the obvious. How do we make him legal?’, Eleanor asked.

Shawn stepped forward. ‘They can’t. The test is a myth and no way it’s still binding. It’s old, outdated and stupid and a union won’t prove-’

Eleanor’s head snapped up. ‘A union?’

Everyone watched her. Her eyes slid to Michael hovering, unknowing and still, over the ground. It looked like he was sleeping as he had, right next to her, this morning, before...

She stepped toward him. Vicky made a gagging sound. Eleanor looked back at the others. ‘You talking about a like greencard marriage kind of deal?’

Ani chuckled. The Caretaker wasn’t smiling. ‘In a matter of speaking. A soul union can be formed with the consent of both parties. You choose the three truths that you hold deeply true. They have to be about your union partner. You both speak them. Ani will weigh the truth to see if it is soul truth and then you are joined. For three hundred years you have to exist on the same plane. This transcends any bureaucratic tie a place has on a soul. Because you are tied here indefinitely then Michael will be too. By then he should no longer belong to The Bad Place. If you both do good here, of course.’

Eleanor took Michael’s hand has took a deep breath. ‘Let’s do it.’

Shawn gave a single ‘Ha!’. ‘As if you won’t lie.’

The Caretaker sighed. ‘Oh yes, I should probably mention. If either of you lie you both end up in the Bad Place. Your friends too since this place would collapse without you to lead it. Not metaphorically. I mean like phhhtt!’ He made a flattening motion with his hand. ‘Like a soufflee thing. Which then means your universe will probably end up-’

She put up a hand. ‘Got it.’

The Caretaker snapped his fingers and Michael fell to the ground and gasped awake, his cuffs opened.

Eleanor turned. ‘You could do that this whole time?’ she glared at the Caretaker, who shrugged.

She turned to Michael and leaned close, her eyes soft. ‘Hey, Mikey. Glad I found you.’

Michael smiled at her as if she were already far away. He jumped when he saw the others and manoeuvred between her and Shawn. He leaned toward her, an arm out. ‘You should go back to the house. To Chidi. I’ve got this.’

He rounded on Shawn and put on his deeply unconvincing tough guy voice, ‘You think you’ve won. Whatever... jerkface. Joke is on you- my friends are safe here. You can’t lay so much as one of those barbed, slimy little tentacles of yours on-’

The Judge cleared her throat. Michael noticed her and then the imposing man next to her for the first time.

‘Ah.’ He winced. ‘Judge Gen. Great to see you and your... friend?’ he gulped audibly. Judge Gen gave her best unimpressed look over folded arms. Eleanor snorted. ‘They’re here for both of us, knucklehead.’

She lay a hand on his sleeve. Michael’s head tilted, as he tried to puzzle out what was going on.

Shawn groaned. ‘Euch. Smells like fluffy puppies and baby’s first smile over here. Both are only acceptable to me puréed and spread on burnt toast.’

‘Oh okay so he’s the one who eats babies. Makes sense.’ Eleanor said to Michael who nodded, eyes wide.

The Caretaker waved a hand. ‘Eleanor agrees that you should stay here, Michael. She has agreed to a union.’

Michael’s mouth fell open. ‘What? Is that still a real thing?’ His eyes shot to Eleanor, whose eyes shone up at him. He saw the truth on her face.

‘Oh no. No. You don’t want to do this. It might work out with Chidi one day. You love each other. You make each other better. I’m just- Also, what about your freedom? You can’t. Not for me. I would only let you down. Disappoint you eventually.’ He shook his head. ‘Eleanor, you know what I am.’ The muscles in his jaw ticked. He squeezed her hand and let go.

Eleanor straightened. ‘Use that excuse one more time I’m gonna haveta punch you. Demon shmemon. Labels are for dinks or ash holes who have honor role students for children and lame bumpers to not so humble brag on. After everything we’ve been through? Besides, look at me- a sizzlin’ hot Arizona trashbag asking an ex-demon to get greencard hitched in a legit Middle Place that I’m gonna be boss of in front of the janitor to the multiverse, an interdimensional judge with a pretty glaring binge watching problem, sexy death guy, and a handful of bottom feeding demons,’

Shawn sighed. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere. But not this time, rainbow breath.’

Michael clapped. ‘You're gonna be boss of this place? Hot dog! Eleanor, that's great.’

Eleanor rolled her eyes. ‘I know right?' She cleared her throat. 'What I'm trying to say is that this, to me, right now, somehow makes perfect insane sense. It’s as if it was only ever gonna go this way.’

Michael looked stricken, his gaze unbearably intense as he scanned her face.

Eleanor’s mouth twitched as she moved into his space. She reached up and held a palm to his cheek, looking into his eyes. ‘You saying you don’t want me?’

Michael made a hurt sound and leaned into her hand. ‘Oh Eleanor.’ he whispered.

The Caretaker cleared his throat. ‘Michael. The union isn’t necessarily romantic rite, per se. If you’re worried about either of you changing your mind. You can. You’re binding together here. This place that could be as big as you want it to be. Another Earth, even.’

Eleanor watched Michael who was still blinking. Shawn scowled and crossed his arms. ‘She’s doesn’t even know what you look like, Wimpy.’

Michael’s fists clenched. ‘He’s right.’, he said, turning to The Caretaker. ‘Shift her dimensions so she can see me. The real me.’

The Caretaker bristled. ‘I don’t see why-’

‘I’m going straight through that portal with this ashole over there unless you do it.’ He turned back to Eleanor who grabbed his wrist instinctively.

‘Beyond the dimensions you can perceive, I’m still a monster, Eleanor. Sure I can do good but you think you know me, under all this. I’ll show you exactly why you can’t do this.’

She shook her head. ‘And I’ll show you that trying to scare me isn’t gonna work. Never did.’

The Caretaker moved to Eleanor’s side. ‘Let me know when you’re ready.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Oh I was born ready, benches.’

The Caretaker covered her eyes with a hand. ‘This is, uh, gonna sting for a second.’

He took his hand away and her eyes burned. There was a ringing in her ears like speaker feedback blasting full volume in a cave. Everything went black but she was still conscious. White hot pain robbed her of air and then receded as quickly as it came. When she opened her eyes, every colour she had ever seen and others she had no name for bled back into her vision until every atom around her was visible. She looked around.

Geometric patterns danced in fields around every living thing around her, the areas around them thrummed and pulsed with prisms of tones sent out in beams. Everyone looked as they had before except now around Shawn was mired in a churning cloud of black and red rays in undulating tentacles that looked toxic. Vicky and Trevor had smaller, less dense, identical fields lagging around them, black flecks buzzing in clouds like mean, sluggish mosquitoes. The Caretaker stood in a field that only reflected everything around it, she could barely see him and the others.

She looked up across from her where she knew Michael stood.

Surprise knocked her back.

He was half a foot taller and broader. His face was almost the same, strong masculine lines like Atlas in Rockefeller Centre in New York but graceful and less obviously brutal, his skin was cooling basalt, fire underneath the surface glowing in tiny fissures all over his body. His hair was the same colour as the rest of him, slightly longer than he wore it now, his brow swept up into sturdy black stag antlers with otherworldly flame flickering at their tips. Some of it orange, some of it blue. The hypnotic light around him ran from white to cyan to vibrant indigo and violet the closer it got to his source. His chest and his arms were thick and strong but not hard, his hands disappeared into his own light. His legs too.

Once the shock wore off she edged closer. He flinched slightly. She looked up into his face, new but somehow the same. His eyes weren’t changed but for an unnatural crystalline brightness. They glowed with the same lapis light of his aura. She could see all the years in them. None of them happy. The weight of suddenly knowing that. She reached out a hand, tentatively. He flinched again. She raised her eyebrows.

He bowed his head. Her hand settled on his cheek. His skin was soft, with a slight roughness if you went against some kind of grain. Velvet stone? The thought made her smile. She reached up and ran her fingertips across his face. He looked down at her sideways, as if afraid of what he might see. She smirked. He frowned at her. Then the frown turned into something else. Something that made his eyes widen. And just like that, there he was. Fake Good Place Michael, staring back at her from his seat. Ear pierced with a lame diamond in the throes of an existential crisis. Adrift and unsure and letting her see him. Under her hand the orange fissures under his basalt skin turned marine blue, lilac in shimmering flashes. Around her hand the colour branched outward. His chest filled with the it. Shawn snorted. ‘Pathetic.’

Eleanor met Michael’s eyes. He smiled sheepishly. ‘Oh. Well that’s kind of embarrassing.’

‘Nice mini fangs. Did you just full body blush purple light?’

He rolled his eyes. She chuckled. ‘Yeah. Oh I’m sorry. You’re terrifying, babe. Terrifying. I should run away and not greencard marry you at all, before it’s too late.’

Eleanor called over her shoulder. ‘Tall and hot? I’m ready. Can dark sparkly Ed Cullen over here decide what he’s doing after I go?’

Ani appeared beside them and answered that she could, when she was ready.

She took a deep breath and put her hands in Michael’s. ‘Eleanor, this is crazy-’

She put a finger over his mouth.

‘First truth. Michael. You’re my best friend. Only more- you and the others are my family now. This sounds so stupid considering how batshirt we drove each other during the reboots.’ She took another breath and met his eyes.

‘The truth is that no one has ever been there for me like you. You yell at me when I’m being annoying because you know I can do better. You remind me. You believe in me. And I know that when I’m not sure of anything else that I can count on you. Sure you mess up, but so do I and I trust you with me. I trust you and I don’t ever wanna be without you again. It sucks.’

Michael’s eyes misted. Eleanor gave a tight laugh.

‘Okay. Not so bad.’ she sniffed.

‘Second truth. I’m only gonna say this once so don’t get too impressed with yourself. I’ve seen how much you dig a good round of applause, you ham.’ She sighed. ‘You’re kind of amazing. You left everything behind, you turned your back on everything you knew once you realised it was the right thing to do. You threw yourself into being good. You changed. That’s what I’ve been trying to do everyday. It’s kind of inspiring. And you do it even though sometimes it scares you.’

Michael shook his head. ‘I gave up nothing because I had nothing. Before.’

Eleanor blew out a breath and shook out her hands. She looked up at him and tried to smile. A tear slid free. Michael reached for her. His touch was cool. ‘You don’t have to do this, Eleanor. The Bad Place was always endgame for me. Look at me. I was conning myself. My time with you has been worth every single-’

‘Shut up. Third truth. Last one. Has to be a big one doesn’t it?’ She gave a nervous laugh. She seemed to steel herself.

‘I’m in love with you. Probably have been for a long time. It felt so natural that I didn’t even forking notice when it happened.’

Michael froze. Even the light around him seemed to hold its breath.

‘We have this crazy connection because of the first two things I mentioned but then... I read this quote once- love is friendship on fire? I wish I could say I saw that somewhere fancy but probably saw it on Pinterest. It’s like that. Now all the good stuff I experience I wanna share with you. I didn’t tell you yesterday- I couldn’t sleep when I first got here. I tried a different bedroom every night. I spent every night just staring at the ceiling after my memories came back and I think, even though our road trip was less than a week, that I was expecting you there, next to me, when I fell asleep and then when woke up. So I couldn’t sleep. Because I missed you. How pathetic is that?’

She threw a hand up. Shawn muttered something bitter about it being very pathetic that everyone ignored.

‘And there’s this weird joy you give off when you discover something you like, it totally cracks me up. You’re all in. Doesn’t matter if it’s philosophy or learning how to jimmy a claw machine. And kissing you. Shirt dude. Haven’t you noticed the mad chemistry? Last night was... Yeah. I’m in love with you. You’re home base to me. Hashtag Truth.’

Michael blinked. A trail of clear, glittering liquid slid down his cheek, trailing a soft purple glowing ripple under his skin. Eleanor looked at him expectantly. She used a sleeve to catch his tear.

‘Eleanor, you’re not just saying this to save me... are you?’ He couldn’t hide the tremor in his voice.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

‘If I lie we lose everything. Our friends too.’ She turned to Ani who stood at a respectful distance. ‘Can you test what I just said? Weigh it or whatever?’

He moved forward. ‘Do you, Eleanor Shellstrop stand by these three truths as soul truths? This is your final chance to turn back- the consequences of lies after this point is an eternity of silence or screams.’

‘Wow. Well, I'm Eleanor Shellstrop. You gotta know I would never admit I needed someone unless it was 1000% true. Or if they had a coupla Drake tix.' She snorted. 'Joke! Bad joke. Sorry. Yeah. I swear. Failed girl scout’s honor.’

Michael made a choked noise in panic. Ani reached down and plucked a blond hair from Eleanor’s head. He raised a palm and a compact digital scales appeared.

‘No way! My old college dealer had one like that.’

Ani chuckled. ‘The very one. I thought that would amuse you.’

He placed her hair, so fine it was almost invisible, on the scale and let the scales float in the air.

Shawn gave a dry laugh. ‘Well I can’t say that it’s been fun, losers because it’s been a real snooze fest.’

The scale beeped and Michael flinched. Everyone leaned forward except for Eleanor. She stepped toward Michael.

A pixelated feather appeared on the small black and white screen on the scales.

Ani smiled broadly at Eleanor.

‘Eleanor Shellstrop speaks true.’

The Caretaker clapped. Judge Gen whistled, picking caramel popcorn out of her teeth. ‘Woo! Damn girl, this format works. There should be a show.’

Michael just looked at Eleanor. Just before she worried he had passed out standing up from the shock, he gathered her to him, closing his eyes. Then he let go, and she saw him again as she’d always seen him. His hands cradled her face, warm. He looked into her eyes, closing them to place a deep, long, lingering kiss on her mouth. He peppered her lips with kisses after someone shouted for them to get a room. She smiled, flushed. He nuzzled his nose with hers. ‘How can this be happening? What about Chidi, Oh Eleanor, tell me you’re not making a big mistake. Are you sure?’ Eleanor grabbed handfuls of his shirt. ‘Dude, death just weighed my forking hair. I think we covered this.’

The Caretaker piped up. ‘Plenty of time to celebrate later, Michael. You have some things say to Eleanor.’

Michael didn’t take his eyes off hers. ‘Eleanor. You know you’re my best friend. I read your file and I thought you were just another human. Then you walked into my office. I told you that you were dead. You just smiled and shrugged and said ‘Cool.’ I felt... something. Immediately. It must have been attraction. But ha! I was already toast. One word from you. A look. And it only got worse, which was the best. The first truth is that I would do it all again, a million times, exactly the same way. Even if it ended up in retirement this time. Even if it does now.’

Eleanor grinned and bit her lip. He brushed hair off her face.

‘Second. You are the most remarkable, resilient, gloriously infuriating being I have ever met in the history of forever. You’re better than me. You changed me. I promise to be there for you no matter what. I promise to listen. I know I’ll fail sometimes and I hope that’s okay because I’ll never stop trying to not let us down.’

Eleanor sniffed.

‘Third has to be the big one, huh. I thought love didn’t exist. Not for a creature like me. For a while I thought that what I was feeling was more complicated, more complex and unique because I was supposedly a more sophisticated being. More than human. Somehow I thought that meant I was above love. But the truth is...The truth is that what I feel for you is the maximum any one of us in any universe is capable of. And we’re the same. I've just been here longer and clearly that doesn't count for much. I love you, Eleanor Shellstrop. I always will. And so, uh, all that I am is yours. Whatever good that will do you. For as long as you want. If you change your mind at any time down the line I promise I’ll respect that. You have my friendship no matter wh-’

‘Holy forking shirtballs, enough.’

Eleanor jumped up and wrapped her legs around him, covered in tears, kissing him hard with her arms wrapped around his neck.

Judge Gen whooped. Shawn made retching noises. Vicky left, stomping back toward their makeshift portal which was now flickering red in thin veins across the dead grey surface.

The Caretaker reached up and plucked a hair from Michael’s head as the couple remained entangled.

Ani produced the scales and let Michael’s single white hair settle on the metal face.

The couple didn’t even notice the ping from the scale. They had their backs to the grey image of a feather on the scale's tiny screen. They breathed each other in.

A bush near Shawn burst into flames under his only slightly more severe than before stare. He nodded in Michael’s direction.

‘I’ll be back in three hundred years after your inevitable failure. Douche.’

Michael stopped kissing Eleanor to glance at him as he stalked of in the same direction as Vicky. Michael looked incredulous. ‘I think he just wished me luck.’

Eleanor shook her head in disbelief.

Judge Gen swanned over.

‘Congrats y’all! Let me know where the party at and I’ll bring dessert. New unies. So cute.’ She twirled a finger and a scroll appeared.

‘I’m gonna need a last name for Michael so I can rubber stamp his change in status.’

Eleanor grinned. ‘Whatchya gonna pick hot stuff? A Mikey classic? Giveswell was a good one. I’m hear to tell ya, after last night that you do give very well. Pizazz was pretty good too. Indigo kinda sucked.’

Michael grinned. ‘No, those are just silly names. Put down Shellstrop. Uh. If that’s okay with you?’ He looked at her, suddenly nervous again. She huffed in surprise.

‘You wanna take my last name?’ Michael nodded, shyly. ‘Like we’re a tiny official family of you and me?’ Eleanor’s voice was high and tight. Michael bit a lip. ‘Holy shirt. That’ssoforkinghot.’ She kissed him hard and didn't let up. He gave a slightly mad laugh and picked her up, still kissing her.

Judge Gen snorted. ‘So Michael Shellstrop?’

Michael waved an agreement, his arms and face still full of Eleanor.

She signed the scroll and waved it away. ‘Okay. All done. You’ll know when it’s official. I expect the shindig invite in the mail!’

She opened her arms. ‘Bob. It’s been real. Bring it in.’

She winked at him and mimed 'call me' with a wiggle of a finger phone. The Caretaker gave her a hug, chuckled and snapped her away. He held a hand out to the man beside him. Ani shook it with another one of his rare smiles. The Caretaker sighed. ‘The old ways prevail. Grounds for reversal of the re-org. Or at least an overhaul. Ugh I’m going to be drowning in paperwork and committees for the next few millennia. No good deed goes unpunished.'

The man gave a deep chuckle in agreement. The Caretaker nodded, waved his goodbye, and snapped again.

Michael didn't so much carry Eleanor back in the direction of his, now their, home, he wore her. The loft now expanded to a house that stood on its own, closer to the woods and the pond, attached to a vast library at the other side of an internal courtyard.

Before the Caretaker, known to friends as Bob, snapped himself to his nice quiet bar near the Edge, he smiled at something he heard in a Eleanor’s voice on the breeze:

‘I said it before but I’ll say it again- Michael Shellstrop. Fork that’s hot. Can we mess around with the real you later? I have ideas. That Sam the Eagle vibe and those mini fangs. Mmmm.’

A wicked little chuckle answered. Then maybe a declaration of love in a tone laced with promise of the best kind of torture.

Balance restored. 1356A-B held true. And 1356C looked like it was off to a solid start.

Chapter Text

Naturally, Tahani was outraged when she found out. Eleanor had never heard the word ‘nuptials’ said so many times in such a tone of betrayed horror- no, scratch that. She never even heard the word ‘nuptials’ said so many times, ever.

From an upstairs window in the house, Chidi had seen Michael and Eleanor arrive back from the forest and shove the door open without pausing to stop mauling each other. Eleanor had already started unbuttoning Michael’s shirt on the stoop after his tie was whipped off and went flying over his shoulder.

Chidi laughed and gave a soft whistle. Which is exactly when Janet and Jason arrived, Tahani an hour later. So Chidi filled them in on the Lacuna’s first, juiciest nugget of gossip.

They decided to knock on the Library house door with baskets of brunch supplies the next morning.

After a while Eleanor answered the door in an oversized t-shirt and aggressive bed head.

‘Guys! No way! Awesome. You’re here.’ A sound came from inside and she leaned behind the door towards it.

‘Yo! Babe! The gang are here.’ She turned back to them. ‘Ooh whatcha got there?’ Eleanor leaned forward and grabbed the croissant basket and shoved half of one into her mouth.

‘Mmph. Starving. Skipped dinner last night.’ She winked.

Everyone looked on expectantly. Tahani was the one who finally leaned forward. ‘So you and Michael...finally...’ She made a leading motion with a hand.

Eleanor smiled. ‘Yeah. Oh we got greencard hitched yesterday. Pretty cool.’

Janet gave a happy gasp and clapped. Chidi barked a laugh. Jason said something about liking soccer too while Tahani gaped.

‘Pardon? You got what hitched?’ She said the words like they were a slur. ‘Are you saying that you celebrated nuptials without me, your best mate, to plan and lovingly arrange every little detail? I refuse to believe it. It could not have happened.’

She met Eleanor’s blank, croissant chewing stare with an indignant huff and looked to the others for explanation. Chidi shrugged. She crossed her arms.

‘Well then. Of course I’m delighted for you both. Congratulations are in order. Fine. What did you wear?’

Eleanor was ploughing through a second croissant. She frowned. ‘Oh. Hmmm. Sweatpants, sloth tank top, Michael's hoodie... you know, pjs. We didn’t even know we were-’

Tahani pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes shut. ‘Really, darling I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You don’t even invite me to your wedding,’

‘I told you, there was no wedding Shawn was-’

‘Or at least wait until we all got here so we that could properly celebrate-’

‘It wasn’t a wedding it was an emergency situa-’

‘And you get married in the garb of a common street urchin. I’ve seen what you generously call pyjamas, and I fail to comprehend-’

‘Tahani.’

‘How one could lower themselves, on that day of all-’

‘Tahani’

‘-days. And to add insult to-’

Eleanor rubbed her face and groaned under the brunt of Tahani’s tirade when the door eased back to accommodate a bright eyed Michael wearing his 'Architects Do It Better' t-shirt.

‘Gang! Am I happy to see you. Ooh. We’re all back together!’ He hugged Jason and Chidi and was reaching for Janet when Tahani jabbed him in the ribs. Michael gave a surpised ‘Ow!’ and rubbed the spot.

‘Sorry, Michael, am I to understand that yourself and Eleanor celebrated your nuptials yesterday?’

Michael looked happy and flustered and stepped back to beam at Eleanor and take her hand.

‘Yeah, guys. Big news! We kind of did. Eleanor saved my life, maybe everyone’s lives, and agreed to put up with being around me for a really long time. We’re, uh, soul partners.’

Tahani crossed her arms and ground her teeth. ‘I see.’

Michael looked puzzled at her reaction and Eleanor rolled her eyes. She cupped her hand over her mouth and leaned over to explain to him, ‘She’s mad she didn’t get to make me wear a stupid dress like at a real wedding and that she didn’t get to throw a big fussy ladidah.’ She yodelled the last part.

Michael squinted at Tahani who looked like she had steam coming out of her ears. She sniffed, her hands on her hips. ‘Well. Let’s hear it then. How did you ask her?’

Michael blinked. ‘I’m sorry. Ask?’

Tahani gestured to Eleanor. ‘How did you ask Eleanor to become your wife, Michael? It must be a good story.’

He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Wife? Wow. Yeah I guess you could say... actually that sounds kind of amazing. I kind of love that. My wife, Eleanor.’ He looked at her briefly like the smitten fool he was and then cleared his throat, gesturing at imaginary people. ‘Hello, have you met my wife, Eleanor?’ He gave a giddy laugh. 'It's like having a home address only it's having a home person.' Then he turned to Eleanor and took her hands. ‘That’s you. To me.' He frowned. 'Wait. Should I call you that now? My wife?’

Eleanor actually blushed. ‘Oh. Huh. I guess we never talked about...’

Tahani growled. Michael turned back to her. ‘Right. Well, it’s complicated. See, I got kidnapped by Shawn and...’ He stumbled through a vague explanation of what happened. ‘So it means we’re tied to the same place. Because of love. Eleanor said a bunch of amazing things that made me cry and I did the same and...’ He shrugged. Then he looked at Eleanor and tucked her hair behind her ear and she smiled back at him. ‘Now I’m the luckiest not-demon who ever lived.’

Tahani hummed. ‘That’s very sweet, Michael. But am I to understand that you never asked for Eleanor’s hand nor she yours?’

Eleanor groaned. ‘It’s not like that Tahani, we’re afterlife greencard married, it's different to a real wedding situation. There aren’t proposals and flowers and stuff it’s-’

Michael leaned down to her. ‘Should there be that stuff?’

Eleanor stopped cold. ‘Huh?’

Michael stepped closer to her and studied her face intently. ‘Do you want that stuff? I’m not human Eleanor, you’ll have to be honest with me so that I know how to make you happy because that’s what I wanna do. Make you happy.’ He ran a thumb across her cheek. ‘You used to say marriage was for insecure lame-os who wanted an excuse to give up and be miserable. But then you like romantic stuff in movies. I’ve seen it. Like after that guy in the movie said... ‘When you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you want it to start as soon as possible.’ You weren’t grossed out. You smiled.’ Michael put a hand on his face in thought. He looked between Tahani and Eleanor, who looked flummoxed.

‘Tahani’s right. When it comes to us, Eleanor was the brave one,'

'Dude you almost died for me. Literal-'

He put a finger to her lips. 'She took the leap into faith. You did. Well...’ He uncovered Eleanor's lips and took the basket of croissants from her and handed it to Janet, who was already reaching for it. He took Eleanor’s hands. ‘Okay so Chandler did this in that episode of Friends and I totally didn’t get it at the time for obvious reasons...’ He got down on one knee. Eleanor squeaked.

‘Eleanor. Soul partner. My home person that I love more than anyone in the universe, will you human marry me in front of our friends so that I can call you my wife every day and so that Tahani can throw a really big stupid party?’

Tahani jumped up and down and clapped. ‘Not stupid. Tasteful! It will be so tasteful. Pastoral themed, in honour of our bucolic surroundings.’ She sighed happily with a sweep of her hand. ‘Ah I can see it now. So much better than the exclusively raw food, Swedish pagan chic affair that my good friend Taylor Swift was planning before she and Calvin called it off.’

Michael looked over his shoulder to shoot her a look. She put up a hand and apologised, muttering about tree bark napkin holders as the other three hugged each other and watched. Michael rubbed Eleanor’s hand. She was just blinking. Chidi leaned forward to whisper to Michael. ‘Yeah. She did this yesterday when she realised she was in love with you. I think love breaks her brain. She’s buffering. Should come back to us any minute now.’

Michael giggled, encouraged by the fact that she was still holding his hand. Still he knelt. He reached up to flatten her hair and booped her nose because he knew how much she hated it. Eleanor caught his hand and huffed a laugh. She looked up with tears in her eyes. The gang watched on, beaming. She tugged him to his feet and he dabbed at one of her eyes. ‘Oh no, lovely, don’t cry. Would you hate if I called you wife? Too stuffy and lame? It’s stupid. Forget it. It’s okay if you don’t want-’

She took a wobbly breath. 'Shuttheforkup.', and kissed him quiet. Then she pecked his lips and kissed him again. Their kisses turned hungry and urgent and she grabbed him by the waistband and hauled him inside.

The door shut in the gang’s grinning faces. Tahani wiped a happy tear from her eye. 'So glad I convinced him to propose properly. It was only right.'

She sighed and straightened her dress, breathing in the fresh air theatrically. 'Janet. We have a wedding to plan. I'll establish a centre of operations. How many swatches can you generate in an hour?' She held up a hand before Janet could speak. 'Foolish question. You can do anything.' Janet nodded and winked. Tahani took her arm and they strode toward the house.

Chidi followed, holding both pastry baskets, trying to decide between a plain croissant or a pain au chocolat. A plain croissant would allow him a toasted cheese option or a raspberry jam option. The pain au chocolat on the other hand was just chocolate. Which would be nice with a cappucino... that's not to say that raspberry jam with a croissant wouldn't be nice with a cappucino. It was close to lunch time so the savoury option would technically dovetail with this meal's proximity to lunch. Should he just wait for lunch? He could make scrambled eggs to go with the plain croissant. Or fried. Maybe fried would be better, he did like a runny yolk. That pain au chocolat really did look good though. If he was a stoic he would...

Jason caught up to them. ‘No way! You guys, I think Michael and Eleanor like finally got together. Go Jaguars!’

*

Eleanor wore a rosy cream floor-length silk dress covered in exotic flowers accented by stray sequins, to catch the light. She shivered in the breeze, the top was two generous strips of material that just about covered everything. The skirt was soft and full. Afternoon bled into evening by the time festivities got under way. The gang gathered round. Tahani had contacted the Caretaker via this old timey postal system in the attic of the big house and put out an open invite to the Caretaker and the inhabitants of the Edge, Jeff the Gatekeeper, Judge Gen and Ani, all with plus ones. All in all, the numbers added up to thirty plus the Soul Squad.

During the day, Tahani had Janet working double time, conjuring up floral arrangements, outdoor tents with chandeliers, tasteful paper lantern garlands and most definitely not ‘fancy pants tiki torches’, thank you very much Eleanor, but rather chrome plated portable outdoor lighting.

There was a stage with live musicians recruited from Accounting through word of mouth and a dance floor set up near a bar, flanked at the opposite end by a buffet and a seating area with tables.

One hour in, tugging at her dress, Eleanor marched up to Michael, knee-weakeningly dashing in a royal blue suit, who smiled and straightened when he saw her from his leaning spot by the bar. 'Oh Eleanor, you look-' She kissed his compliment away and hiss whispered. ‘Thanks. Let’s get the fork out of here!’

‘What?’ His eyes twinkled with amusement.

‘This whole thing is weird. It has zero chill. I feel like the headlining act at a circus. People have literally been poking and prodding me and you know how I feel about the combination of strangers and unwanted touching. Also who slash what are they?’ She pointed toward the buffet. ‘Are they okay with the food over there or are they just biding their time 'til we’re all too drunk to fight back and then we get to be the food?’

Michael craned to see where she was pointing. Team Chance were present in all their slimy splendor over by the buffet with others looking on, warily, from the outskirts of a very obvious, guesstimated safety zone. Cindy and Ron were tentacle deep in a tray of shrimp cannelloni and sautéed string beans. Harry and Marge were either making out or trying to ingest one another while Joe was working on an upturned bottle of champagne latched into the pincers around his mouth, his head tipped back. Michael winced, about to explain who they were but Eleanor wasn’t done-

‘Also, Tahani won’t stop adding powder to my face. It’s the forking afterlife. How could I possibly need more powder? Apparently I wasn't quite 'dewy'? Then I got trapped in two conversations with some creepy lady who kept stroking my shoulders, apparently trying to “channel the collective unconscious to clear my upper dimensions of clutter”. I think she can actually disappear and reappear because I swear to fork she wasn’t behind me when I went to get a drink and then she was back. Trying to metaphysically Marie Kondo my whatever by touching me. Again! Also, The Caretaker, who I’m apparently supposed to call Bob now that we’re friends, keeps singing ‘Ladies Night’ complete with air humpy dance moves at the karaoke station- which usually I'd back 100%. But that can’t be the only song he knows. Can it? I mean how? It’s the fifth time-’

Michael chuckled and waved a hand. ‘Ok. Yeah, I hear you. This party sort of blows. It happened to me too. Judge Gen’s date is this weird beige guy whose name I can’t remember from Accounting. He wanted to talk about how mushroom picking habits in France effect the points system. In detail. And he seems to know a lot about mushrooms. Not the fun kind. So yeah, Jason might be a little disappointed because he wanted to do the ceremony part of today later, just like Donkey Doug did for him, but how likely is it that that wouldn’t have been a total disaster?’ He shook head. ‘Fork it. If you’re on board, my one and only boo, I totally co-sign blowing this joint.’

He cupped her face and kissed her gently on the mouth. He hummed with an arm around her. ‘Hey, you wanna think of a ride to get us out of here somewhere nice and quiet? Just snap your fingers. See what that boss status has in store for you.’

Eleanor grinned and raised her eyebrows. ‘Say whaaaat? Are you saying that I can...?’

Michael shrugged. ‘You are the boss. You should be able to materialize objects necessary for your comfort and transportation if a Janet isn’t available. And since our Janet has evolved into an autonomous Janet Mendoza...’

Eleanor gave an excited yip, thought for a moment and then snapped her fingers. A golf cart with souped-up tires appeared, with cans and ribbon streamers attached to the back. She clapped and whooped, fist pumping the air.

‘Yeah baby!! Lacuna forest or bust!’

She slid in behind the wheel and honked the horn. Michael laughed and hopped in next to her, throwing an arm loosely around the back of her seat.

Tahani shouted her name and made a comment about creasing her dress. Eleanor leaned out to shout back, ‘Thanks for the party! Love ya babe but we’re gonna go have our own. Later dudes! Enjoy the drinks! Peeeeeace!’

She revved the engine, gunned it, and tossed her bouquet out in a cloud of tire skid dust.

Judge Gen caught the flowers and beige Accounting guy, Neil, wiggled his eyebrows at her. She wrinkled her nose.

Michael turned on the little cart radio full volume and stretched an arm out to skim the fresh air. Eleanor whooped over the strains of 'You Shook Me All Night Long' by AC/DC, the wind messing up her hair- the way she liked it.

They drove for a while up a forest trail in a direction they had never been before, music blaring, until they came to a lazy river with a nice spot near its banks.

Eleanor snorted and pulled up. ‘Well I guess we don’t have to worry about crocodiles or anything since we’re not actually alive.’

Michael grinned at her in the moonlight. ‘Ha! That’s not true. Don’t you feel alive?’

Eleanor smirked. She bit her lip and levelled a look at him from under her lashes. ‘Never felt more alive in my whole life.’

Michael raised an eyebrow and gave a heated look at her bitten lip. He sighed and tentatively reached over to run his fingers along her collarbone, his eyes trailing their progress before glancing back up at her. Her breath quickened. He watched her face as his fingers met her dress. He didn’t stop, but eased it off her shoulder, slowly. The night air gave her goosebumps under his stare. His eyes ate her up as he leaned closer, his hand curving around her shoulder. She moved to meet him, kissing him with a need that hadn’t in any way abated since yesterday. She swam in his taste, kissing him into a heavy, slow breathlessness, dragging her teeth on his bottom lip. He hummed. She reached down to undo his pants and palm him and pressed her forehead to his cheek as he hissed at the contact. He covered her breast with a hand and tweaked a nipple. It was her turn to hiss though a smile. ‘Fork. This is all you and your suit’s fault, you snack. Since I saw you in it this morning all I wanted to do was this.’

He was starting to smile when she kissed him deeply, sucking on the tip of his tongue lightly as she teased it with hers before trailing fresh bruises down his throat and yanking his pants open to take him in her mouth, repeating what she’d done with his tongue, harder. Michael moaned her name. He gripped the dashboard. It was all he said for some time.

‘I like the stars here. Is it me or do they seem happier?’

They lay side by side on a blanket. They’d found champagne in the back seat of the cart, along with blankets, and proceeded to drink out of the bottle together. Heavy heads of Queen Anne’s lace tipped and bobbed in the long grass around them, clusters of little white flowers snatching silvery moonlight in delicate waves.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. Why wouldn’t they be happy? This place is literally built on hope. Also you’re the boss. Doesn’t get better than that.’ Michael leaned up on an elbow to kiss her shoulder and stroke circles into her arm. He nudged her dress down again.

‘I think I like this dress best when it’s down.’ He grinned with intent and leaned down to kiss a path to her breast, nudging the other shoulder of her dress down to take the other one into his mouth. Eleanor laughed and gasped at the feeling.

‘Holy shirt. You’re a boob guy, huh? How are you even more of a horndog than me?’ She felt his chuckle, low and delighted around her nipple. He lathed at the space between her breasts and leaned over her to kiss her, sweetly, thoroughly.

He stroked her face. ‘Love does crazy things to all beings I guess.’

Eleanor’s eyes filled. She looked up at him. Her expression turning serious. ‘I should tell you the truth, probably, if this is going to be a lifetime thing the way we want it to be.’

He looked concerned. ‘Of course, you know you can tell me anything. No judgement, just the truth, good or bad. Or wait until you feel ready. You know. Whatevs.’

She sniffed a laugh and looked down. ‘This sounds stupid because we're kind of married already. But I skipped out on the ceremony part of the party, the uh, wedding part, because the whole thing freaked me out. All the noise and everything, it just felt...’ She sighed. ‘It felt like too much. Then I started thinking about my parents, about all the people who get married and fork it up and end up hating each other. So I know you wanted all that stuff but-’

‘What? No Eleanor, you nut. I want you. Nothing else. I mean, we’re tied together here and it’s new and sure the idea could be scary but nothing matters more than being together, to me. And we’re together, right? Are you still okay with that? I mean if you need more space I could stay somewhere else and-’

Eleanor sat up. ‘No. Holy shirt, Michael. No way. I love waking up where you are, breakfast in pyjamas, movies, skipping lunch for fun time in bed then the bathtub and maybe dinner too.’ She slid her arms round his neck. ‘Part of what’s freaking me out is that I’m happy. You get me. I don’t have to be anything else with you. I’m not used to that, at least, not while being with someone. It's...nice. Amazing even.’

Michael grinned so wide she gave a surprised laugh. ‘Oh.’ He said, softly. ‘Oh. Amazing, huh? Well. Tell me if you need more space. I promised to be here for you no matter what and that never changes. Okay, a ton of reboots say I might need help along the way. Not a giver-upper either though. So there’s that.’

He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids which fluttered closed under this thing his hand started doing as he hitched up the handfuls of the fabric of her dress and coasted up to the inside of her thigh. He kissed her forehead as his fingers found their mark and slid home. Eleanor fought to keep her breath with a smirk and looked him in the eyes. ‘Thought you’d gotten attached to the idea of calling me wife. You’re not disappointed?’

He increased pressure and his eyes darkened, he covered her mouth with his and she sighed at the pressure of his fingers. ‘How could I be? Oh Eleanor, I want you. Any way you'll have me. Never less, only more, the more I love you the more I-’ He trailed his other hand down her body and moved the skirt of her dress aside so he could cover her with his mouth. She found his hand and squeezed it.

‘Michael, wait, stay up here. I want you closer. Now.’ He complied, content to kiss her as she unzipped her dress, slid out of it, and shoved it away. Still kissing him, she ripped at his shirt until the buttons popped and tugged at his already open pants until he helped her shove them down. She wrapped her legs around him and he pressed into her. They sighed into each other’s mouths in sudden relief. She bit down on his shoulder, next to an identical, healing mark, dug her nails in and they moved together.

Eleanor closed her eyes and held Michael tight, immersed in the warm rising tide of his smell and touch. He cradled her and placed kisses deep into the crook of her neck. She rolled them over and pinned his wrist above his head. He grinned at the fierce beauty of her above him as she arched her back. His hands trailed and wandered with the sort of sure tenderness that made her feel precious but also invincible, like love was in her bones, insulating her from harm with only the responsibity to return it, take care of it. Feed it and water it and- She returned his smile, placing his hand over her breast. She wiggled her hips in a way she knew short-circuited his brain and leaned down to whisper.

‘Janet said we didn’t have to do the ceremony anyway.’ She nipped his earlobe and he groaned.

She angled her hips and took him deeper. He gasped as she moaned at the fullness of him and swore she could see the stars in his blue eyes as he watched her, imagined that she could catch glimpses of that shade of ocean abyss that surrounded him now and always in dimensions she couldn’t see.

‘You didn’t ask why. Ungh, Michael.’

His look was hazy as he kissed her, his arms coming up to wrap around her as if from a dream as he sat up to move in answering time.

‘Why, love?’

He held her and moved lazily, holding her tighter each time her breath stuttered.

‘She said.’ Eleanor gasped. ‘She said as Head I can decree anything, no ceremony, if everyone agrees after.’ Michael rested his cheek to hers, lost in feeling for a moment. He traced her spine and the column of her neck, threaded his fingers through her hair. Distantly she thought of how he held her in a ballroom, not too long ago. ‘What are you saying?’ He whispered into her ear as he nuzzled at the curve of her jaw.

‘She said I only had to say one thing. You too.’

She stopped moving. She held his face and looked into his eyes, feeling the heat of him still there, molten, inside her. Her eyes stung. Because this feeling should not be possible. It was too much. Her thumbs moved over the sharp lines of his face as he looked back at her, so still. The face she had come to depend on because she knew she could. Three hundred years or just a few months or a year or how ever long you counted it from, it felt like an immovable force, a load bearing pillar. Maybe everyone said that about love but if this place was about hope and if she really believed they could achieve what they said they would then they could do it together. Supporting each other. Laughing and dancing and shooting the shirt. Best friends. Lovers. Soul partners. Spouses. Who gave a fork what it was called as long as she could spend her days doing this? With him.

She breathed into him and moved again, slower, but with purpose. ‘She said if I was ready I could say this to you. I’m ready.’ She watched his eyes, big and blue and ageless, glisten. She pressed a lingering kiss to his lips and then leaned to whisper into his ear.

‘I take you as my husband, for now and always, if you will have me.’

Michael gave an intake of breath.

‘Eleanor.'

She covered his mouth with a kiss and hugged him. ‘Do you want to say it back to me?’

His hold on her tightened. ‘Yes. Yes. I take you as my wife, for now and always, for as long as you’ll have me. You know I do.’

They kissed each other until they barely felt separate at all, clinging through the cresting wave of strange joy, holding on, coasting on the wonder and absurd magic and the honeyed heat so sweet it almost burned.

Home, they thought.

Finally, finally, finally, finally...

Then they clung together reaching higher and higher, faster and faster until they tumbled like Icharus, only instead of plunging into the sea they cried out and descended on a full sigh, tired limbs wrapped securely around each other, heart shaped, sweat cooling in the night air.

When they were aware of the hush of the river and the twinkling of the stars again, Michael kissed her shoulder and whispered into it. ‘I have something for you.’ She turned over to look at him. ‘Yeah?’ He nodded, with a shy smile.

He sat up to rummage in the pocket of his suit jacket, disgarded on the blanket. ‘I uh, kept a hold of it because I thought Jason would either lose it or choke on it. Just in case you actually wanted to do the ceremony thing earlier.’ He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.

Eleanor sat up and smirked. ‘You got me a ring, didn’t you, you big old school mushball?’

Michael laughed, his hand coming out of the suit jacket pocket, closed. ‘Kinda.’

‘Well are you gonna show me or are you gonna sit over there secretly blushing purple?’

Michael scoffed and rolled his eyes. ‘I’m going to be hearing about that forever aren’t I?’

Eleanor laughed and then her eyes turned serious. She lunged for him and hauled him in for kissing. ‘You bet your sweet reformed ass you’re hearing about it forever.’ She squeezed him once and pried his closed hand open.

It was a simple diamond band. Only, they weren’t diamonds at all. She picked it up and looked at the stones that made up the band with a smile. One minute the stones were a mesmerising buttercup color, the next amber. Then fuschia, then indigo. Only, you could never see it change color. It just was a different colour. As if it had always been. Eleanor breathed.

‘Woah. Funky fresh. You got me an actual magic mood ring?’

Michael laughed in delight and hugged her to him. ‘Mood ring! Ha, I guess it kind of seems like it. Nah, the Caretaker, sorry, Bob, helped me get it. It’s the stuff they use to make new universes. That’s why it seems to be different colors. It’s actually every colour ever all at once.’

Michael gulped. ‘Do you like it? You don’t have to wear it or anything I just, I wanted to have something to give you so-' She jumped on him, pinning him down with kisses. She gave him back the ring and held out her hand. He gave a huff of disbelief and took her hand and placed the ring on her finger.

He kissed her. ‘Wife.’ He whispered, in awe. ‘I never thought I’d even belong let alone experience love or... Just... five hundred years ago I was miserable- wrangling infernal filing codes, sorting gizzards for the lead Architect, preparing him that hot brewed drink he liked to start his day with...'

'Coffee?'

Michael winced. 'Sure. Sure. Let's call it coffee.'

Eleanor snorted.

'I just can't believe you...' He huffed and shook his head a little before looking at her, taking her hand and pressed it to his chest. 'Thanks for loving me, Eleanor.’

She stroked his face and kissed him. ‘Same, Mikey. Same.’

She hopped up, naked, and went round to the golf cart and reached in, pressing a button to open the glove compartment. She grabbed something from inside and sat down by Michael. She opened a little pouch.

Inside was a sturdy ring, a silver white colour. It had a bumpy, braided texture and was bevelled at either edge. Michael beamed. ‘For me?’

Eleanor smiled back and nodded. ‘Yeah. Spoiler alert: I'm soft for you. I figured I better get you something... Um, Janet helped. You can't tell but it’s made from stuff from everywhere on Earth we were together. A staple from the old office in Sydney, soda can tab from the Donna trip to Nevada, crazy golf token from our date Toronto, a metal pinball from the machine in the fire breather bar in New Orleans, some stuff from twine in Kansas, stamps in Nebraska, a metal shot glass from the cowboy bar in South Dakota and then, who can forget the falling tram car that was our one way ticket out of Wyoming? It’s all in there. Oh! Also some platinum because otherwise it would definitely look weird. Like for sure.’

Michael stared at the ring in his fingers and gave a little laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. Eleanor watched him and cleared her throat a little. ‘Um, do you like it?’

Michael huffed. ‘Are you forking kidding me? It’s too much. The most beautiful gift I've ever... Eleanor.’

He kissed her and leaned back. ‘Will you do the thing? The human ceremony thing?’ He handed her the ring. She put it on him.

They kissed and whispered their dreams for their new home under blankets until they slipped into an easy sleep, wound in a lover's knot.

Michael jumped awake. Something had bitten him? He looked down at his wrist. Eleanor jumped, slapping at her wrist.

‘What the fork? I thought nothing could bite us here. I mean it’s our place-’

‘Eleanor. Check your wrist. Look.’

She turned her wrist over and rubbed it. It was a silvery green infinty symbol, just over her pulse.

He turned his wrist over and chuckled. ‘Oh! Guess that means the Judge filed our paperwork.’

She barked a laugh and then turned to look at him. ‘Matching tattoos. Badash. Hey! You’re officially safe now. Yass!’

She kissed him hard, shot up to let the blanket fall and streaked all the way down to the river. She jumped in, screeching at the cold. Michael laughed from their blanket then leaned back to watch her, splashing and swimming in the water, her bare skin golden in the new day’s light, the heaviest light feeling threatening to burst out of his skin. When just watching got too much, as it so often did lately, he kicked off the blanket and followed. There were things he had never done in a river that he was dying to try. First was swimming. He’d never been swimming.

*

The Caretaker visited frequently over the coming week to train them in.

Eleanor would be Head of the Lacuna while Michael and Janet were Deputy Heads. Eleanor would oversee any structural and interpersonal challenges and lead youth programmes in consultation with Janet who would also train her in counselling as a continuation of the training she had started in her second life. Michael would be reporting to Eleanor as Logistical Architect (also with Janet’s help) since he'd built a neighboorhood before, he'd also support Eleanor with the direction of the programmes for the Lacuna's inhabitants. Tahani would use her ashram days to design mind, body, spirit wellness programmes and work with Jason on dance, entertainment, and movement. Chidi would be Head of Education and welcome newcomers with the same philosophy programme they’d all taken first in the fake Good Place and again on Earth. He also promised to continue their classes with moral philosophy assignments for the team, assigning quarterly personal projects. Together they would be The Committee. To that end, they all had limited administrative snapping power. Well, all but one- Jason’s had to be suspended when he attempted to snap a baby elephant onto a tricyle, which forced Janet to un-demolish the rose garden.

Slowly but surely, the Lacuna was taking shape. In another week, its first inhabitants would arrive via Ani's scales- which apparently measured the valency of a soul as well as the true weight of their misdeeds. Then they'd undertake their programmes for a prescribed time before eventually moving on to the Good or Bad Place. If they qualifed, they'd also be given the option of staying in the Lacuna to become part of the team pending the Commitee's approval.

*

Tahani's second meeting about arrival entertainment arrangements was thirty-five minutes in and everyone was ready to go. A gift from The Caretaker, a book that was about half a foot tall sat in the center of the conference room table:

‘The Lacuna : A Middle Place Haven, Guidelines and Suggestions’

Tahani clicked her pen. ‘Okay. So then, to reiterate finalized plans, Janet will kindly organise enough canapés to feed twice the amount of people and Jason,’ She shot Jason a look. He was colouring in the loops on the printed page of meeting minutes in front of him, ‘so there will be enough food. The entertainment will be low key, tasteful. No live animals- unfortunately, Jason darling, perhaps next time- or live music, just a sound syst- Sorry, does anyone hear buzzing?'

A distinct buzzing sound came from Eleanor’s end of the table. She had been staring into the distance but she shifted in her chair. ‘Hm?’

(buzz buzz bzzzzzz)

She cleared her throat. ‘Whazzat Tahani?’

Tahani frowned. ‘Eleanor. What is that sound?’

Eleanor brushed hair out of her face, she was flushed. ‘Sound? What s-’

(Bzzz bzzzz bzzzzzzzz)

She blew out a breath. Tahani turned to Michael who sat, eyes trained on Eleanor. He was biting the side of his thumb and he had that focused torture gleam in his eye they had all tried to forget. There was something small in his hand. Chidi snorted and covered his face with papers, his shoulders going up and down behind them in silent laughter. Janet was busy making notes, she had mentioned adding chapters to the Caretaker's book, which she had read cover to cover in five minutes.

‘Michael.’ Michael didn’t even turn to look. The buzzing started again and Eleanor shifted in her chair. Tahani tapped the conference table. ‘Michael. What is in your hand?’

Michael blinked and tore his eyes away from Eleanor. Eleanor smiled at him, darkly, and licked her lips. The buzzing started again. Eleanor gripped the table. Tahani repeated her question and the buzzing stopped. He hummed, tucking the thing in his pocket.

‘Sorry Tahani. It's nothing.’

Tahani scoffed. Eleanor grinned and seemed to be undressing him with her eyes. Michael grinned back. Tahani threw her hands up.

‘Is there no end to the eye shagging? Good grief. They’re married now. Banned from sitting across from each other at the conference table because of Eleanor and her wandering feet. If they're next to each other she can physically reach him so that's worse. The moment they get bored... a pair of teens in heat! I mean, yes, so inspiring but-’

Michael's hand strayed to his pocket and the buzzing started again. Eleanor had looked, a little contrite, in Tahani's direction but instead she snorted and took a big, unsteady breath.

Chidi barked a laugh and shook his head. Michael looked back at Tahani and cleared his throat.

‘Apologies Tahani. Your plans sound great. Just as they did when we agreed on everything in the last meeting. Oh um, actually, I think Eleanor and I might have to review a few things on our end. I have... unanswered questions and may have to liaise privately with my wife to... work out a few kinks.’ He smiled his best wicked smile at Eleanor. She bit her lip with a grin and nodded.

Chidi laughed and rose to leave. ‘Uh-huh, I bet you do, big guy. C’mon guys let’s get out of here before this turns graphic. Honestly this meeting could've been over twenty minutes ago, we're all set. Crazy lovebirds.’

He ushered an eye-rolling Tahani out of the conference room and Janet led Jason out with a wink. Chidi paused at the door.

‘You guys are getting that honeymoon once the first crowd is settled, promise.’

Michael just smiled, suddenly earnest. ‘Our honeymoon is every day, Chidi. It’ll be every day for as long as I exist.’

Chidi smiled and rested a hand on Michael's arm. ‘That’s so forking romantic it’s nuts. But I believe it.' He turned to leave. 'Oh. Um, you guys are gonna disinfect the conference table after right?’

Michael grinned. It was a toothy one. Chidi winced. ‘Okay then. Meetings in the big house from now on. Or however long as it takes for cooties to die.’

The door closed and Eleanor tackled Michael on the conference table, scaling him like a leopard scales a giraffe it has decided to take down. As if he wasn’t almost completely undone seeing her in her suit, at the head of the table, flushed because of him and he hadn’t even been touching her. Revenge for the last meeting, that thing she did with her feet from across the table just when Jason was reading out his plans for a gaming and dance tournament crossover.

The buzzer panties were his favourite. Janet’s wedding presents really were the best. Some of them looked complicated. Like the whole sex ed section of their library he'd just discovered that held many instructive books with detailed diagrams and suggestions. Pages and pages of experiments he could get behind. Or under. With Eleanor.

Her palms were flat on the conference table while he cupped her breasts from behind, under her shirt. He moved quickly inside of her. Then he got annoyed that he couldn't watch her eyes widen or her mouth as it fell open, her face flushed, or kiss her or feel her breath on him as she made those sounds that lit his blood on fire... so he turned her over and that was so much better. There she was. There were her arms to hold him and her legs to- He bruised her lips with kisses, and nipped, meaning to open her shirt but ripping it instead. She looked at him, aghast at the destruction of her silk shirt, and he grinned as he reclaimed her mouth. ‘Sorry not sorry. Fifteen shirts, Eleanor. You’ve destroyed fifteen of my shirts. We’re not even almost even.’

She laughed breathlessly and grabbed him by the tie, rolling it once in her fist as he gripped her harder, moved faster. Her legs linked around his hips, her stilettoes pressing into his lower back. They panted in unison. He pressed his face to hers, holding her tight. She fluttered around him. ‘Ungh. Mine.' She whispered, her breath hot in his ear. Her nails dug into his back. 'Forking love you.’ She fell apart and he followed, chanting her name. He kissed them both back down.

‘Wife.’ He whispered, still amazed.

When he felt like his legs would work again, he gathered her up and threw her over his shoulder, limp with laughter and kicking. He laughed and carried her in his arms then, his overfull not-heart ready to explode, down from the conference room above the library connected to their house, passed their separate private offices and across the internal courtyard. He turned so that she could press a palm to their door. It clicked open and he put her down once they passed the threshold.

He kissed her and ran a thumb down her cheek. 'See? Who needs uber to get home?'

She giggled and kissed him again. 'So I lost our bet about not getting busted but gotta say, I don't feel like I lost.' He chucked as she looked thoughtful. 'Hey, remind me to spend some quality girl time with Tahani this week, I think she feels neglected. I'll plan something nice.'

'Mmm. I have been hogging you. You'll have to make up for today too. She really was kinda great about the whole eloping to the forest thing. I liked the flowers she sent when we got home.'

Eleanor agreed. 'Hey we have an hour before we meet the others for arrival prep and final inspections tomorrow. Whatchya wanna do?'

He hummed. 'Lunch?'

She nodded. He rubbed a lip. 'Pancakes? I'll make 'em.'

Eleanor gave a fist pump and made a face like he'd just said the hottest thing she'd ever heard.

There were a handful of things Michael discovered he could cook without burning with the help of cookery YouTube and pancakes were on the list. Eleanor kicked off her shoes and tossed her suit jacket on a chair. She tied a knot in her ripped blouse.

'I'll help. It’s gotta be whipped cream and hot fudge and nuts and strawberries for toppings though. We're doing this right! This isn't a breakfasty maple syrup type situation. These are post conference room bang out lunch pancakes. Serious shirt.'

She high fived him, slapped his ass and he whistled about spousal abuse with a chuckle, following her further into their home, which was roomy, simple, bright, cosy, and modern. Next to some of Michael's old human artifacts and a jar of paperclips on a plinth, a tiny clown statue stood on a side table in the living room, in honour of the fake Good Place clown house. Everything was tactile, soft, warm-toned and laid out so sunlight touched everything if it was daytime.

Michael may have ended up wearing a lot of batter after a mishap with the mixing bowl which he promptly smeared on Eleanor with one of his demented chuckles. But least Eleanor found it in her heart to forgive him after leaving a handprint of it on his cheek before helping him make a second batch.  They proved you could kiss through pancake batter- and so what if a couple pancakes had little horns?

*

In some universes, Michael was a purple amoebic blob and Eleanor was a hissing chemical puddle, just bubbling and hanging out, until Michael learned to roll and then blam!

 -

In some universes Eleanor was a shrivelled seed and Michael was a twitchy drop in a cloud over the vast desert that contained her. Raindrops were not supposed to fall. This particular world had been arid since, well, forever, by design. It was literally their one job to stay put until they evaporated. The twitchier he got, the more likely he was to fall. Which he knew, only he couldn’t help himself. So he twitched to get a better look at what he was pretty sure was a seed. A seed? How pointless when there was no rain to... Twitch, twitch, twi-

 -

In another, more evolved universe, Michael was bound for war, a skirmish to eradicate freedom fighters- upstarts from a lesser species trying for liberation from the existing world order. His side had just about clinched planetary domination- as sure as the fifth sun sets on the twelfth day, they were sure to be victorious. He could finally get that promotion. Maybe then they’d listen to him when he said that they had stuff to learn from the other side, that there were better, more harmonious, ways of ruling them. Then they brought a prisoner in for him to supervise. A rebel cell leader. The door closed behind her and he looked up from his desk.

‘Rebel scum. You’re in my exclusive custody for the foreseeable future. I am going to destroy you.’

She stuck her chin out, the light catching her green skin and half shaved pink hair in this weirdly compelling way. ‘Cool.’, She said, a battle scar that ran from her scalp to her cheek glinting, ‘Bring it on.’ He suppressed a shiver.

 -

There was one where he had wandered to the very edge of the permitted sector of Lore as he did almost every day, and saw her climbing the feathered ellen trees from the ground. He was shocked still. She was mesmerising, so lithe. No one dared leave the sector let alone climb the sacred trees. Surely she would be damned for eternity for such an act. Higher and higher she climbed. She was just so beautiful, whoever she was. A branch snapped. She tumbled down. He didn’t see her land but he'd never run so fast toward anything, ever.

 -

The lady corp officer's jackboot pressed down on his chest. He was surely done for now. Try to steal the Territory’s loot and this was what you got. The steely boot before the chop. She looked down at him and seemed to hesitate. Her gun wobbled. ‘What do you have to say for yourself, marauder?’

He glared, trying to see her face. Electric blue eyes narrowed at him. They seemed surprised when they met his red ones. ‘What do I have to say? Death to the corps.’ He pulled the pin out of his grenade.

 -

Only a few universes had a Michael and an Eleanor. In fewer still did they even meet for more than one life changing moment. And in some not at all. Really, though, they were a pleasure to watch, the Caretaker thought, on his rounds, one always a catalyst for the other. A couple of bundles of molecules bound by the laws of physics, if not Fate when she wasn’t blotto. Maybe it was a little mysterious. Like the echo of the same two notes vibrating in harmony from parallel tuning forks, just humming ripples across Existence. Anyway, it was all above his pay grade. So it wasn't important. There were things he accepted that he wasn't required to understand and things he knew to place stock in through either experience or instinct- that worked just fine.

Love, sure. Love he believed in. After all, it powered everything, held everything together. It was rendered all the more precious when viewed through the impossible prism of choice. Because it wasn't just one choice but a series of choices made every minute, every hour, every day. In perpetuity. Nothing grew universes like it. The power of choosing it again and again. And really, who needed further explanation when he could watch the receding black holes and retreating tendrils of darkness in 1356A-C as balance was slowly restored?

So as far as he was concerned Michael and Eleanor were just a neat, funny couple running a realm who happened to have powerful echoes across multiple universes and timelines.

Ain't love grand?

*

A week of preparations came to an end.

Eleanor looked at Michael sitting next to her on the stage. He looked sharp in a three piece grey suit, crisp white pocket square and thin black tie, one long leg resting on a knee, his generous hands folded. He saw her watching, gave her a wink and mouthed ‘You got this.’ with a thumbs up, his eyes warm. She rubbed her infinity mark for encouragement. It tingled, and when she could physically feel Michael’s belief in her, she bit her lip and looked out over the small crowd, then back at her friends, or her family, really- Tahani, Chidi, Jason, and Janet sitting in chairs next to her on the stage. They smiled. Janet nodded and Tahani mimed a little clap of encouragement with a grin.

Eleanor set her shoulders back and faced the crowd, raising her microphone.

‘Hi everyone and welcome. You’re here because the universe is complicated. You’re here because maybe life wasn’t easy or kind. Or you made some crappy choices. These days most of us have. Recently the world has gotten busy making it really tough to lead a life that isn’t packed with huge grey areas. It’s super easy to get turned around and wander way, way down the wrong path before you know it.’ She scanned their faces- some wary, some hopeful, some who were both.

‘Do we deserve to suffer an eternity of torture because we were a little vain, or a little dumb, or indecisive, or too caught up with bad people, or a little selfish?’ She glanced at her friends and then back at the crowd. ‘I don’t think so.’

She looked out to the horizon beyond the pond for encouragement and found it in the sunlight on the water. ‘But we don’t deserve a golden ticket to eternal bliss either.’ 

‘What we do deserve is the opportunity to accept responsibility and learn from what we will hopefully understand were mistakes. To think about who we really were and get another shot at putting things right. Because who knows?’ She threw up a hand.

‘Once, I was exactly like you. Dead sure I had all the answers and fork anyone who said different. I was so sure I didn't need anyone or anything I closed even good stuff off. I wasn't happy.' She looked back at Michael and smiled.

'But then, once I opened myself up to the possibility that we owe each other something, and that maybe through owing each other, by paying up and paying forward, we could share the best of ourselves- stuff we didn’t even know was there or think was possible- amazing stuff started happening for me.

Plato said that 'Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.' In my experience he's one dead white guy with a huge point. I was given the chance by accident. Plenty of good actions by others put me here today. Some of mine put you here. Your chance is no accident. You're meant to be here and you’re worth that chance. Hopefully you won't forget that.' She smiled at them.

'So I’m Eleanor Shellstrop. This is my husband, Michael. And my friends Chidi, Tahani, Jason and Janet. Welcome to the Lacuna.’

‘It’s not the Good Place. It’s not the Bad Place. It’s a Middle Place. A halfway house. A safe place for you to do the work to reconcile who you were with who you wanna be now. So you can start over because it's not too late. Our doors are always open and we have a whole raft of programmes to help. You’re going to learn a ton of new stuff. Some of it will be fun, some of it will be tough. All that we ask is you do the best you can. Engage. Try it all. Like really try. We owe each other that much.

Remember- you’re going to mess up and that’s okay. Keep going and repeat. Pobody’s nerfect.

But most importantly, don’t worry.

Everything is fine.’

The crowd clapped. There was a traumatised looking woman in the front row wiping away tears. A voice in the crowd with Simone’s hair shouted, ‘Eleanor?! Chidi?’.

The gang rushed over to Eleanor and patted her on the back, they hugged each other and high fived before slipping into what would become work mode. Doing good. Changing the universe. The gang left to herd the crowd over to the next induction thing.

As people drained away, Michael slipped his hands into hers. He leaned down to kiss her.

‘Couldn’t have done it better myself.’ He glowed with pride. His eyes scooted sideways and he rubbed the back of his neck, looked a little bit shy. ‘Also just realised that’s the first time you’ve called me that.’

She bit a lip. ‘Husband?’

He hummed. ‘Did it feel weird?’ She looked at him, all dithering and adorably nervous and she laughed and shook her head. She tugged him down for another kiss.

‘Nah, it felt meant to be. Just right. Honestly? I kind of thought I might jinks it if I said it. Like it couldn't be real. But that's not true. It is real.' She yanked him towards her and gave him a toe curling kiss, her mouth hot and open on his. When she let him go he was grinning, starry eyed. She brushed his lapels off and rested a hand on his chest. 'Now listen up, my very own not-demon daddy. Half an hour before they’re back here for room assignments. You know what that means.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Roomy coat closet upstairs, quickly?’

She grabbed his tie and bit her lip. ‘Better. Kitchen larder. More space. Not as quick?’

Michael growled and pulled her against him to kiss her by grabbing her ass. She grabbed his ass back. ‘Move it, hot stuff. The sooner we get through today, the sooner we’re in our pjs binging something and eating ice cream or sketching plans for that new safari thing you were talking about for therapy animals. Will you make quesadillas again?  Those are my new fave. Oh! Did Janet tell you she set up an ocean somewhere? Let's try and find it soon. Argh. Honeymoon, two weeks. Can’t wait.’

Michael agreed and lifted her into his arms with a wicked grin. He paused to look into her eyes. ‘Hey. Proud of you, Mrs Shellstrop. Seriously.’

She grinned, looking back at him. ‘Thanks, Mr Shellstrop.’ She threaded her fingers through his and their tattoos hummed.

'Love you.' She said.

He still looked suprised when she said it, every now and then. But then she still looked secretly worried he wouldn't say it back. That was changing though. Each day meant the air between them became surer, the ground beneath their feet firmer. They beamed at each other.

'Love you too.' He said, as he leaned down to kiss her so hard that they might have to forgo the kitchen larder for the gazebo a few paces away.

They snuck away, together. Toward the gazebo.

Later there would be quesadillas and book swapping in bed, Michael's head on her chest because she discovered, much to her amusement, that he not-so-secretly liked his hair being petted, like some kind of oversized cat. Then whoever was last to drift off would turn out the lights and watch their view of space through the skylight above their bed. Whoever it was would push a silent thanks out into 1356C and beyond into the ether. For love. For friendship. For beings reaching out and saving each other from darkness.

For everything being even better than fine.