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quollstar · 2 years ago

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Devil in Disguise; ch1

michael (the good place) x reader

warnings: this is a pairing between you and unreformed demon michael, aka before the team cockroach storyline, aka he's evil and mean. what can i say. be mindful that he's going to call you names and stuff so if that makes you upset be careful reading!

notes: there isn't too much actual plot here. basically reader/you are a fifth member of the group of humans michael is torturing. this is somewhere reboot like 300 or something. this work does include use of "Y/N"!

You were pretty sure the Architect was a demon.

It wasn't an easy conclusion to come to. Not at all. And you definitely didn't want to think that, not when you had previously believed you were in Heaven, and believing anything else meant that you were definitely in Hell. He wasn't particularly obvious, either, so long as you weren't looking. He played the part of the helpful, well-meaning, a-little-bit-clueless Architect so well that you wondered if it was a part at all.

Then the mask would slip for just a moment. He would say something so cruel that he had to have known it was hurtful, or he'd smile to himself when he shouldn't and he thought no-one was looking; but you were always looking. Really, your stupid crush on him was the only reason you suspected him at all, because you always wanted to be near him, and thus were always there for his slip-ups.

A few misplaced grins could be excused (he didn't know a lot about humans or social norms after all) but after a while it was a pattern. Maybe you only started looking because of your past experiences with manipulative liars on Earth, or maybe you never really believed you were in The Good Place at all; but either way, it seemed like you were the only one with any suspicions. So you started keeping a mental list of everything he did that just seemed off. Eventually it got so long that you couldn't excuse it. He wasn't what he seemed, and one day, you decided you were going to confront him about it.

So now, here you were. You'd asked if you could speak to him privately and he had obliged, looking equal parts confused and concerned as he ushered you into his office. The place was familiar from when you'd first 'woken up' here, been told where 'here' was, and that you'd made it and now you could enjoy your afterlife. It had been perfect until it wasn't, and you didn't like being forked around with, thank you very much. You tried to hold on to that energy as you passed through the hallway ("Welcome! Everything is fine." Yeah, right.) and took your seat in front of his desk.

Still, sitting across from him now, you started to doubt your suspicions again. You'd always been a paranoid person on Earth; wasn't it possible that you were just thinking too far into things again? And maybe he was just an idiot; maybe he didn't understand how to be nice to people yet. You'd known plenty of actual humans who still didn't grasp that concept, so really, shouldn't he get a pass?

But then you remembered your list; all the times he had laughed when Eleanor would trip, and then tried to cover it up with a cough; all the times he'd backhandedly called Tahani a failure to her face and she'd had to hold back tears; all the times he had oh-so-conveniently forgotten to mention that, by the way, there would be fun, new things involved today, even though he knew Chidi hated not knowing things like that beforehand. Given as the neighborhood had only started five months ago, there was no explanation for just how many times he'd managed to mess up, unless the reason was that he was trying to mess up.

So you'd set your jaw, even as the perfectly realistic look of concern on his face stayed, and he'd tented his hands under his chin and asked you, "What can I help you with?" He looked so much like a not-man afraid of learning that his resident was unhappy that it nearly made you waver again (Fork, he was good at that) but you held strong.

No point in beating around the bush. "This isn't The Good Place."

"I beg your pardon?"

"This is The Bad Place, and you're a demon."

He froze for just a second too long before knitting his eyebrows and slowly blinking once, twice, all the while still staring at you with very apparent shock.

Finally he spoke, calm as ever, aside from the note of surprise in his voice. "Why would you think that?"

You couldn't believe he was still committed to the bit, but then again, you didn't really expect him to throw up his hands and say, 'you got me!'.

You huffed. "There's a lot of reasons, man, but how about we start with my biggest one: you're kind of an ash-hole."

He didn't speak, just kept looking at you (rather uncomfortably), so you filled the silence for him.

"You're constantly condescending in a way I could excuse at first 'cause, hey, you're not human, but then you go and keep pushing everyone's buttons even though, realistically, you should know what's a sore subject- because you know everything! You're mean to Tahani and Jason, you're always putting Eleanor in stressful situations, you're downright cruel to Chidi, and that leads to my next point: you're never not around the five of us. Like, don't you have other residents?"

You paused to give him a chance to offer a rebuttal (and catch your breath), but he stayed quiet. In fact, his face had shifted to one of mild boredom over the course of your rambling, and you balked at him incredulously.

"You don't have anything to say? 'Cause I can keep going, I have a whole list–"

"To be honest, I'm just surprised you actually figured it out."

You mirrored his expression from before, blinking at him slowly.

He sounded completely different, like he'd undergone a total tonal 180°. Not only was his voice different, he looked a lot more sinister now, having finally dropped the mask of concern. His brows were raised over his glasses and his mouth was a flat line, and though he was in the same pose as before, now his tented hands looked devious rather than accommodating. His eyes were half narrowed behind the lenses, looking right at you unwaveringly.

The change was enough to shock you into silence for the time being. To be honest, even though you were pretty confident in your theory when coming here, you'd almost wanted to be wrong. Maybe he would have laughed at you good-naturedly, or asked you if you were feeling alright, then said something to explain his behavior; something that would quell your fear beyond all doubt. You'd have a conversation with him about treating your friends better (he'd say something like, "I'm so sorry, I had no idea!" and it wouldn't be a lie) and you'd be able to go back to enjoying your afterlife, now with a more open relationship between all of you and the Architect overseeing your paradise.

That would have been great, but obviously, it would never happen. He'd confirmed your fears rather than assuage them, and now you were sitting in a small room with a not-man you now knew to be a demon. One that had been torturing you this entire time. One that was watching all of this dawn on your face with a budding grin on his own.

You swallowed, then cleared your throat, trying not to look at his mouth. You were pretty sure his teeth looked sharper now than before, and you didn't want to think about that. Instead you spoke, forcing your tone to remain even and unconcerned. "So, I am right? You're… this is all just an elaborate torture scheme?"

"Yeah, dummy, and to be honest, you took a lot longer to figure it out than I thought you would. If it were Jason, sure, I could excuse it, because that guy is so stupid," he cut himself off by laughing, an evil sort of chortle that didn't feel right coming from the Michael you knew. Though, you supposed, this wasn't the Michael you knew, but instead the one you'd caught glimpses of under the surface since getting here. And man, he was a lot meaner than you could have guessed.

He shook his head, giggles subsiding as he leveled you with an almost disappointed look. "But you? I really expected more from you at the start. I mean, in the hundreds of times we've been through this, this is the first time you've ever been the one to call me out!"

"I'm sorry, hundreds of times–?"

"Yes, hundreds. Each time one of you– it's just you five, by the way, you got that right too; everyone else is one of us– each time one of you figures it out, I just wipe your memories and we start over. Back to square one, as it were. It's great."

He grinned widely as he waved a hand, bringing up a sort of floating computer screen to his left. On it was a chart with a bunch of lines marking different restarts, if you had to guess; some no taller than an inch and a couple that stretched off the top of the screen. Most, though, seemed to hover around the same height, including the highlighted one at the very right. Your current timeline. Probably. To be honest, your head was still reeling from Michael's abrupt change in attitude, so you weren't feeling too sharp. In fact, you felt a little sick to your stomach.

Michael was still talking, gesturing to different points on the chart and explaining his favorite events in those timelines (apparently at one point, you'd been trapped inside a torture obelisk for a month which was– direct quote– "super fun") but you didn't hear much, or at the least you didn't comprehend what you were hearing. It was just too much information overload.

"–Hey, dummy, you look a little pale– you're not going to throw up, are you? Because as embarrassing as that would be for you, and how fun it would be for me, I don't really want to have to clean that up." He waved his hand in front of your face a few times until you focused back on him.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

He sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. "Obviously, because I'm going to restart again, so it doesn't matter. God, you really aren't bright, huh? I mean, in the very first version of this, Eleanor was already coming up with a plan to get ahead of me once I restarted it, and it only took her like a minute. It didn't work, of course, but at least she thought of something. You're just sitting there with your mouth open like an idiot." He snapped.

You couldn't really help it; you winced. His biting tone was a little too alike to all the shitty men you'd met on Earth, and if there was one thing you were excited for when you thought this was The Good Place, it was the unspoken promise that you'd never have to deal with that kind of man again.

Maybe it was even worse coming from him because you'd thought, at one point, that he was your friend. If not a friend then at least someone who had your best interests at heart. Even if it was never true, it still stung to have him sneer and call you an idiot.

Michael dropped the smirk, replacing it instead with a fake pout; pushing his bottom lip out mockingly. "Are you offended? No, don't answer that; I know you are. I hurt your fragile human feelings. Poor baby." He shifted forward, hands flat under his chin as he leaned on his elbows. The elegant desk wasn't big enough to keep him out of your space and you did your best to hold your ground even as he invaded your personal bubble. "I can see those tiny cogs turning– no, literally, I can see your brain move when you think, it's actually very gross… So what are you thinking about? What's your plan here; what's the play? Whatever you're thinking, let me tell you, it's not gonna work." Ending the mocking with another bout of wicked laughter, he watched you expectantly, condescending sneer back on his face now.

Refusing to back down, you stared back at him, trying to look unbothered even while your mind raced. All of this had been for nothing; all the ethics lessons with Chidi, getting to know your new friends (who were the only other humans here, apparently, so you guessed it was a good thing you'd never decided to hang out with anyone else); all of it was pointless because you were just going to do it all again. So, you figured, if none of this mattered, you could afford to act a little brash.

"What are you thinking?" Michael reiterated, calm as ever, wholly unworried. Why should he be?

"I'm wondering if demons can feel pain."

"Why–"

You cut him off when you punched him in the jaw. You had absolutely no idea what possessed you to do so; you were normally a non-confrontational person, but learning you've been forked with for months, maybe years when you count every stupid reboot, will do that to someone– make you more aggressive. It wasn't hard to do given how close he'd gotten while antagonizing you, but shirt, did it hurt like a bench.

You shook your fist out, wincing at the sting. Your knuckles would bruise for sure if given the time, but you had the feeling Michael was going to reboot you pretty soon, so that hardly mattered.

Focusing back on the demon you'd just socked across the face, you weren't too shocked to see that he'd hardly moved with the blow. His head had turned just a bit, and his glasses were slightly askew, but he definitely wasn't bruised or bleeding. For the most part, he seemed relatively unaffected.

Well, maybe 'unaffected' wasn't the right word.

Michael's expression made you wonder if he'd ever been hit before. The pure shock (and even a little bit of awe? Respect? You were probably hallucinating) on his face made you think that he probably hadn't, and it brought you some sick joy to think you might be the first to humble him like that.

You allowed yourself a victorious smirk as Michael slowly put himself back together; silent as he straightened and righted his glasses on his nose. "Has that ever happened in your hundreds of reboots?"

He regarded you in silence for long enough for your smirk to slowly melt as you were reminded that, oh, right, this is the demon in charge of literally torturing you, and maybe you should not have done that. To be fair to yourself, thoughtful decision making was never your strong suit, even when you were still alive. Even so, this was probably your worst one yet.

You refused to apologize, though; groveling would get you nowhere. Instead you lifted your chin and stared back at him as he lounged, calm as ever, head resting in one hand and legs spread– the picture of ease. Actually, regretfully, it wasn't the worst sight in the world, which was a forked up thing to think given everything about the situation you were in. But if thinking with your dick at the worst moments possible wasn't the most human thing imaginable, you didn't know what was. It's pretty much the only thing you can count on a person for.

"...No, Y/N, I can't say that anyone has ever been stupid enough to try something like that."

end of chapter one!

there currently is no chapter two, but i'm getting there. if you wanna read that when it goes up the link is here:

#the good place #the good place michael #michael #tahani al jamil #eleanor shellstrop #chidi anagonye #jason mendoza #michael x reader #michael the good place x reader

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