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sesamestreep · 2 years

Note

Don/Sloan, 20

20. I’ve been looking sad in all the nicest places (from this prompt list) I don’t know what this is, honestly. I wrote a whole other fill for this prompt and decided I hated it and couldn’t finish it, then wrote this instead in like half a day. I don’t know. It’s a Good Place AU, I have next to nothing for it built out besides this snippet, that’s basically it. much love and bone apple teeth or whatever…

Sloan is on her fifth straight minute of willing her legs to work and take her back to the party—her own damn party, for Christ or whoever’s sake, she’s not really sure at this point—when someone nearly trips over her. In their defense, she is sort of hiding behind a topiary in a dark corner of the lawn, so there was no way they could have seen her, but she still finds it in herself to be annoyed.

“Could you please watch where you’re going?” she exclaims.

“Uh, sorry,” the man says, fumbling with something in his hands. “Though I don’t really see how it’s my fault that you’re sitting on the ground, in the dark. You’re basically asking to be tripped over.”

Sloan’s legs work just fine then. She stands up, straight as a pin, and throws her shoulders back, getting ready for some variation of the “I’d like to speak with your manager!” conversations she had almost daily back when she was alive.

“Here’s a tip for you,” she says, instead, with as much indignation as possible, “don’t go around accusing women of ‘asking for it’.”

The man winces. “Yeah, I heard it as soon as it was out of my mouth. That was, uh, poor form.”

The easy admission of wrongdoing shouldn’t surprise her here, where she’s allegedly surrounded by the best people ever, but it still somehow does. It helps that this guy doesn’t give the appearance of backing down from fights easily, which makes it all the more impressive that he’s doing so now.

“It’s fine,” Sloan says, backing down too. “No harm done.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m Don Keefer.”

“Sloan Sabbith,” she says, accepting the handshake.

“Oh, the Sloan Sabbith,” he replies, as he puts the item he’s been shuffling between his hands—a cigarette, it turns out—between his lips. He doesn’t sound impressed. She’s not sure how he sounds, but it’s probably not good.

“I suppose so.”

“This is your house,” he points out.

“Ah, yes. That Sloan Sabbith.”

“I mean, I knew you before,” Don says, and then corrects himself, “Sorry, I knew of you before. I lived in New York, when I was alive.”

“Oh, right.”

“Your name was always in the society pages.”

Sloan shrugs, not sure if humility is the right move here. She’s not certain Don would buy it. He pulls out a lighter and moves to light his cigarette.

“I guess you didn’t see the amount of fundraising I did for the American Cancer Society,” she says, frowning.

Don laughs, but he still brings the flame to the tip of the cigarette. “Sweetheart, it’s the afterlife. Lighten up.”

“I don’t like the smell.”

“Won’t be a problem,” he says, waving the hand with the cigarette between his index and middle fingers around a little bit wildly. “Neither do I. I got that robot assistant woman, uh—”

“Jenna,” Sloan interjects, over-enunciating the name for his benefit.

Jenna, of course, materializes with a soft tone at that moment, making her jump in surprise. How long does that take to get used to?

“Hi,” she says, brightly. “How can I help?”

Don looks at Sloan expectantly, and her face heats with embarrassment and irritation. She pointedly looks away, as if she hadn’t accidentally summoned the neighborhood’s virtual assistant and made a fool of herself.

“We’re good, Jenna. Thank you,” Don finally says, all charm, when it’s clear Sloan isn’t going to be helpful.

“You bet!” There’s another soft tone, slightly different, as she disappears.

“That is going to take some getting used to,” Don says, as if they’re buddies or something.

“You’ve never had an assistant before?” Sloan sniffs, aware that it’s a deeply snobby thing to say and not very concerned about it.

“Not like her.”

She whips her head around to glare at him. “Don’t be gross!”

“I meant because she’s literally omniscient,” he says, looking bored of her now. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Good, because I’d hate to feel any worse for your soulmate than I already do.” Just as she’s winding up to really lay into him, she suddenly smells something strange. It smells like salt water and…something else. Something she can’t put her finger on. She steps closer to Don and inhales. “Do you—what is that?”

“I told you the smoke wouldn’t bother you,” he says, holding the cigarette aloft proudly. “When I asked Jenna for cigarettes earlier, I was worried the neighborhood would have, like, a ‘no smoking’ policy, kind of like the ‘no swearing’ thing? But she told me that, since we’re in The Good Place, the smoke wouldn’t irritate anyone, and when they smelled it, it would remind them of their most cherished childhood memory, if you can believe that.”

Sloan wouldn’t have two minutes ago but now, she’s certain she’s smelling the boardwalk in Santa Monica that she went to constantly with her family when she was young. She hasn’t been back in years, and she supposes now she never will. Suddenly, she feels tears welling in her eyes.

“Thank goodness the tobacco industry didn’t have Jenna on their side,” she says, stepping back and trying to pull herself together.

“True. Though I imagine those guys would have trouble getting into The Good Place anyway.”

“That’s a…good point.”

“So, what does the magic cigarette smoke smell like to you?” Don asks, and then shakes his head. “There’s a question I never anticipated asking anyone. Not sober, at least.”

Sloan laughs, despite herself. “It, uh, smells like the Santa Monica pier. I grew up in the Bay Area, but my cousins lived in SoCal, and we’d visit them on school breaks or vacations whenever we could. The pier was always my favorite place to go.”

When she looks up again, she finds Don smiling at her in an unguarded way she finds…unsettling. Not because it’s creepy, but because it’s familiar. She doesn’t know what that means, but she knows it’s probably a sign of trouble.

“What about you?”

“Well,” Don laughs, looking down at his shoes, “that’s sort of a funny story. You see, I gave up smoking when I was in college, after my grandad died of lung cancer. I’d like to tell you it was because I was being smart and healthy, but the truth is, the smell of the smoke reminded me too much of him. I spent a lot of my childhood with him, because both of my parents worked, so he watched me for them. He was my favorite person, and my reference point for everything, and my moral compass. After he died, it felt like I lost a piece of myself.”

Don pauses, and then shakes his head. “I don’t know why I told you all that. The important part of that story is that he, uh, smoked like a chimney and his whole house reeked of tobacco all the time. His clothes smelled like it, his car smelled like it, everything.”

“Oh, no,” Sloan says, when the penny drops for her.

“Yeah, see? You got there before me,” he says, smiling sadly. “These forking magical cigarettes, they smell like his house, his clothes, his car.”

“It just smells like tobacco to you,” she supplies, and Don nods. “And the smell reminds you of him. And it makes you sad, which is why you stopped smoking in the first place.”

“It’s like some kind of Sisyphean torture loophole,” Don says, still smoking. “You can’t make this shirt up.”

“I mean, they could,” she says, thinking of her first meeting with Will, where he had the file for her entire life, down to the most minor of details. “They’d know about you and your grandpa from your file, right? And you said that Jenna’s omniscient, so she’d know too. That’s…weird, right?”

Sloan glances over at him to find Don staring at her, not smiling this time, but with an expression of barely suppressed horror. She can tell just from the look on his face that he’s running through everything that’s happened since he got to the neighborhood in his mind and looking for more strange occurrences like that.

“Have we,” he asks, hesitantly, “met before?”

“I don’t think so,” Sloan says, but not with as much certainty as she would have a few moments ago. “You mean, when we were alive?”

“Yeah,” Don says. “I guess that’s what I mean. You just feel familiar, in some way.”

“You did say you knew my name from the press.”

“I know, but I don’t mean familiar like that. I mean, familiar like I’ve known you for a long time.”

“We just met,” she says, as firmly as she can manage, though it feels like she’s trying to convince herself it’s true too.

“So, it’s just me?” he asks, and it’s not accusatory so much as disappointed.

Sloan feels so utterly thrown by this, she can hardly cope. It doesn’t help that in backing away from him earlier, she didn’t get nearly far enough away. She can still smell the Santa Monica pier—the sunshine and the sea air and the food stalls—but she can also smell what she suspects is Don’s cologne or soap or maybe just him—this clean, warm boyish smell—and now those two things are going to swirl together in her memory forever, and she’s going to be confused why she thinks of summer vacations whenever she’s near him. Not that she will be again anytime soon, she hopes. This has been too much for her.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she says, still too close to him and not backing away.

Don laughs, softly, and she thinks she can smell champagne on his breath. There was plenty at the party, she remembers, even though it feels like an age ago now. He doesn’t seem drunk, though.

“I don’t know what I want from you either,” he says, watching her closely. He’s not that much taller than her, so it’s pretty easy to gaze deeply into his eyes, unfortunately, and that’s what she ends up doing.

The cigarette falls from between his fingers, and lands harmlessly, already extinguished, on the grass beneath their feet. It vanishes a second later, and a daisy sprouts in its place, which figures. This place is too good to be true, she thinks, and then catches herself. Is it? Has she been thinking that all along?

She looks back up at Don to find his gaze still riveted on her face. “Something’s wrong,” she whispers.

He steps closer to her. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, but something is definitely wrong here,” she says, and it really sounds hysterical but it’s the truth. She can feel it. “Something is not right.”

“Maybe we’re just cynics,” Don offers, with a halfhearted smile.

“Maybe.” Why hasn’t she stepped away from him yet?

“We should…get back to the party.”

“My party,” Sloan says, nodding. “Yes. We should.”

“Our partners will both be looking for us, I’m sure.”

“Right. Yes.”

Neither of them moves, not even a fraction of an inch. Sloan’s hands, seemingly of their own accord, settle on the button placket of Don’s crisp white shirt. She runs a fingertip over a button. His hands come around to rest on her elbows, holding her in place.

“You do feel familiar to me,” she says, in the direction of the button, because she’s not brave enough to say it to his face. “I don’t know why. I don’t understand…how that’s possible.”

“Neither do I, but I’m not—it doesn’t feel like a bad thing, does it?”

Sloan shakes her head, and risks lifting her gaze to his again. He’s still watching her cautiously. She feels herself lean in, and then she feels him reciprocate. They’re only a breath away from kissing when they pause, and whether it’s hesitation or savoring the moment, she’s not sure. She’s watching his face for any sign of second thoughts and finds none, which gives her the courage to lean in that last bit, to close the distance between them.

“Don,” a voice calls in the distance. “Don, are you out here?”

They break apart instantly, putting a laughable amount of distance between them as quickly as possible, as Don curses under his breath. Or tries to, at least, despite the neighborhood’s swear filter.

“Don!” the voice shouts, closer now.

“Over here,” he calls back after a second.

“Where?”

“Here! Follow the….Marco!”

“Polo!”

This, thankfully, only continues for a few moments before a petite, adorable blonde woman rounds the corner. She’s wearing a sensible cocktail dress and has a drink in one hand.

“There you are!” she says. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“I was just getting to know our host better,” Don says, indicating Sloan with a wave of his arm in her direction.

The woman’s gaze swivels to Sloan and her expression opens up even more. “Oh my god, Sloan Sabbith, it’s so nice to meet you! You have such a nice place here!”

“Thank you,” Sloan demurs. She’s not sure how to behave around someone whose soulmate she almost just kissed. She’s not even sure there is protocol for that scenario. It’s probably just something you’re not supposed to do.

“I’m Maggie, by the way,” she says, eagerly. “I should have started with that.”

“Maggie was a professor of ethics and moral philosophy,” Don adds, draping an arm casually around her shoulders as she nestles into his side.

“Wow,” Sloan says. She wants to punch him so much.

“Oh, don’t be impressed,” Maggie says, humbly. “I’ve spent all night talking to people who are way more inspiring than me. And, obviously, my soulmate is this guy, so…”

Don makes a pained face at Maggie’s compliment, which Sloan finds both satisfying and odd. “What’s so impressive about Don?” she asks, coolly, and doesn’t miss the way his gaze flicks over to her sarcastically.

“Oh, he refuses to brag about it, but he was this super important human rights lawyer,” Maggie replies, putting a hand on his chest proudly. “I mean, if there was a cause you cared about, I’m sure he did some legal work to advance it when he was alive!”

“Sloan is a noted humanitarian and philanthropist, Maggie,” Don objects. “I doubt she’d be impressed by my work.”

“Right, sorry,” Maggie says, looking chagrined. “You’re, like, famous!”

“I guess so.”

“No wonder you ended up with Jim Harper as a soulmate! You must feel so lucky!”

“Yes, I certainly do,” Sloan says, with false cheer. She likes Jim. He’s cool. But she only just met him today. She doesn’t know where Don and Maggie get off being so coupled up and settled down already. It’s annoying.

“You guys didn’t know each other when you were alive, did you?”

“No, it’s weird. We somehow never crossed paths.”

“I loved his music when I was alive,” Maggie gushes. “I got a chance to talk to him at the party and he seems really nice!”

“He is,” Sloan insists for what feels like the tenth time. “Actually, speaking of Jim, I should probably get back to the party and, well, make sure he’s doing okay and the guests have everything they need.”

Maggie nods, enthusiastically. “Of course! It was so nice to meet you!”

“Yes,” Don says. “Very nice.”

Sloan has to concentrate very hard not to scowl at him, so she focuses most of her attention on Maggie, who she despises for totally different and completely undeserved reasons. “You too! Always a delight to meet one’s neighbors.”

“Oh, right! You should stop by our place sometime,” Maggie says. “It’s not as grand or as big as your place, obviously—”

“Nothing in the neighborhood is, as a matter of fact,” Don interjects, pointedly. Sloan’s eyes water from the effort of not glaring at him.

Maggie, meanwhile, thumps him lightly on the chest. “Don,” she says, playfully offended. Or maybe not playfully. It’s hard to tell with Maggie. Her smile is just a little too wide and bright to take at face value.

“Don’t listen to him,” she continues. “Our house is the one with the yellow door and the round window at the front, it’s just—”

“Two doors down, of course,” Sloan says graciously. “I did wonder who lived in such a cutesy little cottage and now I know!”

Maggie’s smile falters a bit, and she adopts a more serious expression. “Yes, well, I like it a lot, so…”

“I will be sure to stop by sometime,” Sloan says, trying to be more soothing. She’s a bitch, not a monster, after all.

“We’d love that,” Maggie replies. “Right, Don?”

“Absolutely,” he answers, with a thin smile in Maggie’s direction. To Sloan, he adds, with a significant look, “Don’t be a stranger!”

Sloan nods in acknowledgement and then gets out of there as quickly as possible. She has a feeling, though, that she won’t have much of a choice in terms of Don and Maggie’s invitation. For whatever reason, she suspects she might be stuck with them now.

#the newsroom #don keefer #sloan sabbith #don x sloan #they don’t have like a ship name do they??#whatever #au #the good place au #taylor swift song prompts #prompt fill #homelywenchsociety #firstelvens #Ok so I lied because my brain wouldn’t let me write any of it without some more worldbuilding #so Don is like a mix of Eleanor and John the gossip columnist #(Because he has to be a journalist it’s the only thing that makes sense)#sloan is mostly Tahani but with a little Mindy St. Clair mixed in #(She made her money on Wall Street then felt bad and started a charity but she did it for attention or to seem good etc etc)#Maggie is Chidi because she loved that ethics guy played by Jimmi Simpson and it felt right #maybe with a little Simone thrown In for good measure #Jim is Jason/Jianyu except instead of being a monk he’s like a rock star who got too into his Beatles transcendentalist phase #and became an annoying preachy cultural appropriator who thought he made the world a better place with his music #so he’s like Jason mixed with Kamilah??? Idk #will runs the neighborhood he’s Michael #Charlie is Shawn #Jenna the intern is Janet #And Mac is like Vicky #actually mac could be Michael and will could be vicky #YOU SEE?? It gets so complicated the more I zoom out #anyway I’m not writing it!!!!!!!! I’m NOT #oh and Leona is The Judge

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twstrhythm · 2 years

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Another long anon under the cut.

Aside from the fact that you seem to be trying to educate me about my own culture, you really are a fool, aren't you?

Yes, respect is important. And yes, it is not good manners to pick a fight with someone. However, there is that small bit you decided to highlight. Shall I say it louder for those in the back?

"Respecting the feelings of whoever is being spoken to."

That goes to say the same should be expected from this hypothetical female character too. If she was not respecting their feelings, why should she expect them to respect her back?

And for the Chinese OCs in question, here is how they would react.

Haoyu would not like it if she disrespects his feelings and would definitely talk back to her about it. If she won't show him respect, then he is not showing her any respect too. He does not see why she thinks this is okay to do.

Hui Jin is upset by this. He does not think the girl had the right to disrespect him for a joke. It is not funny to him, so he will react accordingly. He would tell her that she is being disrespectful and that he will not tolerate that.

Jian-Yu would be put off by the disrespect he is receiving and start judging this girl for it. He does not see why he should have to put up with his feelings being disrespected like this. If she has the audacity to tell him that he needs to respect her feelings, he will laugh at her and say "that's a funny joke. Funny, because you didn't do that for me. Why should I respect you?"

Jiao-Long is upset with it. He does not think he did anything to deserve to have his feelings just disrespected like this. He would likely start avoiding her. If he has to spend time around her, he makes sure someone else is with him. He refuses to deal with her alone.

Kunming does not like that she disrespected his feelings like this. He is more than willing to just throw hands with her. Whenever he sees her again in the future, he just turns the other way and ignores her. He makes sure to drop hints for other people to know that this girl was not so nice.

Li Feng shrinks into himself. He first questions if it is his fault. Then he will ask other people for their opinion on it. Finally, he concludes that this girl was being disrespectful towards him, and that he does not have to accept that. He would judge her from a distance whenever he sees her from that point on.

Longwei is baffled that someone would be mean to him for no reason. Oh? It was a joke? Haha. He does not find that funny. As someone who had been bullied before, Longwei will not just let her get away with it. He would confront her about it and make sure she understands exactly how he feels about her now, and he is not going to be nice about it.

Shen is upset and kind of wants to cry, but he doesn't. He tells the girl that she should try being nicer. If she won't change her attitude, then he will not talk to her anymore. He will ignore her if she tries to talk to him.

Shi Yin is annoyed by this, and he tells her that she was being disrespectful flat out. He also tells her that he will not be speaking to her again from that point on. If she refuses to respect him, he will not respect her.

Xiaoshi is not going to go easy on her. He starts out by telling her that he thinks she is a terrible person for not respecting his feelings. Why should he respect her if she is just going to treat him like trash? That is not something he will just accept.

Xinyi just begins avoiding her like she is the plague. He does not want to speak to someone who disrespected his feelings. He has no obligation to. If he has to see her again, he avoids looking at her directly and only speaks to her when someone else does.

Xue Long is not pleased with this. He has had plenty of experience with people disrespecting his feelings, and he has become more guarded as a result. This girl had said/done something that hurt him, so he is more cautious around her. He remembers what he has been taught, but this person did not respect him. He gives her judgmental looks any time she tries to speak to him.

YunLong would just sigh and tell her that she is not a good person for being so disrespectful. He would say he would like to be nice, but it does not seem like she deserves it. Whenever he sees her after this point, he makes sure to remind her of her actions and that she needs to change that if she wants his respect.

Zixuan looks at her differently from that point on. His feelings were just disrespected after all. "Treat people the way you want to be treated", he has heard people say. Since this girl was treating him disrespectfully, then he will not be nice to her. He ignores her as much as possible.

#anonymous asks #that annoying anon #oc: haoyu yang #oc: hui jin liang #oc: jianyu song #oc: jiao-long feng #oc: kunming ruan #oc: li feng jiang #oc: longwei jiang #oc: shen liu #oc: shi yin liang #oc: xiaoshi ren #oc: xinyi tian #oc: xue long yang #oc: yunlong yang #oc: zixuan wen

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guhamun · 4 months

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Jianyu's pupils are slit and a bright, vibrant white. It's a trait that exists within his clan and one that, if one knows of them, can automatically identify them. It is a piercing gaze with many believing that said eyes can see through lies, but this is just a rumor passed around. In actuality, there is nothing special about them aside from their appearance. However, this is a lie that his people most definitely capitalize on -- himself included.

#;m: jianyu #;ooc jabber #;headcanon

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mellowwillowy · 1 year

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Men that I drew today... mmh... so many XL

M! XL (A-Li) , Seth Twiright - XL (IRINA), M! XL (MARLON) - XL (IRINA), Feng Jianyu's reaction to the first pic

#art shelves #oc

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wutheringheightsfilm · 2 months

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oops that send prematurely 😭 I meant, do you want to elaborate more on your ocs besides Yu Xiulan?

yes !!! i can elaborate on ouyang yijun, qin jiahao, and li jianyu :)

ouyang yijun is from baling ouyang, which in my fic is brother sect to yunmeng jiang since they're pretty close in proximity. he's a metal affinity, but unlike a lot of metal affinity cultivators who put a lot of emphasis on swordsmanship, ouyang yijun specializes in daggers and throwing knives!

his faceclaim is gao han (as wan jie in the legend of chong zi) which is really funny cus when i chose him, i hadn't realized he was already in the cql cinematic universe in the living dead!! but im keeping him anyway lol.

qin jiahao is from laoling qin, and he's an earth affinity! he's very artistic and creative... he loves music and sings!! his father is an earth affinity as well, and one of the laoling qin sect specialities earth affinities focus on is terraforming, though it either takes a lot of power or a lot of people to accomplish it most of the time! he's the youngest in wei wuxian's generation/friend group as well.

his faceclaim was originally someone else, but i found that wang yun kai who plays xiaobao in meet you at the blossom fits how ive pictured him way better 😭

li jianyu is an orphan in yunmeng city! wei wuxian found him when li jianyu was five and sick with a fever, and nursed him back to health. ever since then, li jianyu has been wei wuxian's little brother essentially hehe. i don't have a faceclaim for him yet, but i love him with all my heart lol

#vero.txt #t #asks #vero ficblogging

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ao3feed-ineffablehusbandz · 1 year

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Gate Duty

by Ginger_Cat

Contrary to popular belief, there wasn’t a tally of a person’s good and bad deeds at the end of their life. There was no scale to balance. There wasn’t much fairness in it at all, actually. Whether a person went to Heaven or to Hell was loosely based on their qualifications, and the rest was up to the discretion of the angel and demon who happened to be on Gate Duty that day.

Guess who gets Gate Duty?

***DISCLAIMER: You do NOT have to be familiar with The Good Place to enjoy this fic!***

Words: 4696, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, M/M

Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens), Eleanor Shellstrop, Gabriel (Good Omens), Tahani Al-Jamil, Michael (Good Omens), Uriel (Good Omens), Sandalphon (Good Omens), Janet (The Good Place), Chidi Anagonye, Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza, Beelzebub (Good Omens), Dagon (Good Omens), Hastur (Good Omens)

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop

Additional Tags: The Good Place (TV) References, the good place crossover, The Good Place prequel, Eleanor is a horndog, Eleanor ships Ineffable Husbands, as she should, Come on, she's just saying out loud what everyone else is thinking, Body Swap, tequila shots, Drunk Aziraphale (Good Omens), Karaoke, Starmaker Crowley, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), A million and one references to Noah's Ark, Michael is a wanker, depictions of mass death, temporary major character... death?, you'll see - Freeform, Mentions of Suicide, Ineffable Bureaucracy, Humor, Angst and Humor, One of the funny ones, or at least occasionally amusing, I hope, Footnotes, not formatted as footnotes but hopefully it all makes sense, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Post-season 1 Good Omens

From https://ift.tt/k7WLUY1 https://archiveofourown.org/works/47995885

#ao3feed ineffablehusbandz #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #anthonyjcrowl

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sissytobitch10seconds · 1 year

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The Good Life

Fandom: The Good Place Summary: Her life may not be complete and it may not have been what she wanted it to be when she was young, but it's hers and she loves it. Warnings: Pregnancy, polyamory, and mentions of childhood neglect Word Count: 973 Ship(s): Tahani Al-Jamil/Chidi Anagonye/Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza/Eleanor Shellstrop

Archive link!

A/N: I've had this idea rattling around in my head for a long time. I'm not very happy with how the result turned out since I didn't have a concrete plan when I went into this, but I'm glad that it is now out of my head. I hope that you all enjoy anyway, haha! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Tahani could barely make out the doorbell over the din in her home. Most of it was coming from the rather loud debate that Jason and Eleanor were having over the best snack food. Jason was claiming that it was, of course, jalapeno poppers, while Eleanor was insisting that it was something called a ‘churro dog’. The thought of either one of those foods was making her feel quite ill, so she was trying her best to ignore it and focus on the mock lecture that Chidi was giving in his office. He was speaking to himself so that he could make sure it was good enough to give to his students the next day, but it was pleasant to listen to his voice.

As soon as she heard the doorbell, she began the rather arduous process of pushing herself off of the couch that she had been reclining on. She made her way to the door, smiling softly when she heard the slightly lull in her wife and husband’s argument so that they could make sure she was alright. She opened the door and then felt all of the happy chemicals and pleasant feelings come to a screeching halt.

“Kamila?”

“I didn’t think that it was true. That I would find you here,” her sister replied as she looked her over.

That kind of scrutinizing gaze would have broken her down had it happened even a year prior, but now she just ignored it. She wrapped her arms around the other woman in a brief hug before she pulled Kamila into her home. “I didn’t think that I would ever see you in this part of the world. Aren’t you meant to be touring around parts of Egypt while playing that music you write?”

“I was, but then Mother and Father got worried when you stopped returning back to the family mansion like you usually do,” Kamila said. She seemed to be a little bit startled by the fact that her sister had just hugged her, but Tahani wasn’t paying any mind to that.

She shut the door behind the other woman and then quickly brought Kamila through the house so that they were standing in the kitchen, where she then began to bustle around in her search for any tea bags that Chidi had left in their cupboards. “I know that I wasn’t returning home as often as I used to, but a lot has changed in the last couple of months. Years, even.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Kamila tilted her head down so that she was pointedly looking at the rounded bump that made up Tahani’s stomach.

The taller of the two sisters flushed and then leaned against the counter. “Yes, that’s the biggest change. I’m due in about three months, that’s why I look so big. My OB said that I’ve ‘popped’,” she giggled affectionately at the term. The pregnancy had been a big surprise, but a welcome one. It was the main reason that she was wearing a pair of overalls instead of her usual fancy summer dresses and no shoes because her feet had gotten far too swollen to fit in heels. It had also taken her only a single fall in her third month to decide that what she usually wore was too high and put her baby at risk.

“How cute,” Kamila looked rather disinterested and disgusted by the whole prospect. “What are you doing here, Tahani? This isn’t the greatness that you always promised our parents that you’d rise to.”

She let out a sigh. Her quest for tea was forgotten as she focused on what she was going to say next. “I’m not going to say that I don’t care about what they think of me anymore, because I do still care. But I value my happiness over what their opinion of me is. Do you want to know what my life is like?”

“I suppose. It might help me understand why you chose to live in middle class suburbia in Wisconsin,” she sneered.

Tahani felt herself smile as she thought about her quaint little cottage and everyone inside of it. “I met three people that had near death experiences like me when I went to Australia and they taught me that everything we were raised with just makes you miserable. I can live the way that I want without valuing how many names I know or how many brands I’m wearing. One of them works as a DJ part time, another is an environmentalist from Arizona. The one you can hear ranting in the other room, and who drank all my tea, is a professor of moral philosophy. They taught me what life is really about and how I can truly be happy. We’re all married in some way or another and we’re expecting our first baby. I don’t need what we were raised with even if I still prefer higher quality things and keep in contact with some of our wealthier friends and family members. But the point is, I’m happy here. I would love it if you could be a part of my life, but I understand if you don’t want to.”

She didn’t realize that she had started crying until the tears reached her neck. She then reached up and began to wipe them away as daintily as she could.

Kamila was frozen to the spot as she tried to take in everything that she had just been told. “Do you think that I could come back later and tell you?” she asked.

Tahani smiled, her sadness at the mere idea of her sister not wanting to be a part of her life forgotten. “Of course. You know where I live and I’m always home now that the baby is getting bigger. Feel free to come visit anytime.

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