#watching this video in abject horror

[stars-and-branches]

The Witcher 1 is such an unserious game. Like yeah group of cult members that are definitely going to jump me the minute I initiate dialogue I am so ready to throw down i just need to make direct eye contact and eat cheese wheels for an hour first

[anonymous-dentist]

A Little (bit of) Love

My piece for @tryzine !!

-

It starts deceptively simple: Cellbit and Roier are taking a walk together through the Favela at sunset, fresh coffees in their hands from Starbobby. Cellbit can’t stop staring at Roier. Roier can’t stop staring at Cellbit. Bobby is watching from above, probably rolling his eyes at how goofy Roier looks when he’s in love. 

There are two creatures walking a step behind Cellbit and Roier that Cellbit is purposefully ignoring. 

Roier’s shoe comes untied next to a recently-added flowerbed. Cellbit offers to tie it, Roier laughs and teases Cellbit, Cellbit hands Roier his coffee to hold as he crouches and takes Roier’s shoelaces in his hands. 

Just barely visible through the gap between Roier’s legs, Pulgoier looks blankly up at the flowers. They’re taller than it is, but just barely. 

?, the disgusting little thing, follows Pulgoier’s gaze. And then, horrifyingly, and entirely of its own accord, it reaches up and snaps a flower off at the base of its stem. It holds the flower out to Pulgoier, head ducked just slightly, almost bashfully; Pulgoier doesn’t smile, because it can’t, because it isn’t real, but it does take the flower. 

Frozen in abject horror, Cellbit doesn’t react as Roier annoyedly taps at his head and asks what’s taking so long. Why is he just sitting there, what’s wrong? 

And then Roier turns around and sees his Mini-Me holding the flower close to its chest and pressing a plastic kiss to ?’s cheek, and Roier gasps. 

“Aww, look!” he coos, fingers tangling in Cellbit’s hair excitedly. “They’re in love!”

And Cellbit feels nothing. 

-

Cellbit’s son is gone. So is a significant part of Cellbit’s heart, and yet he knows that he is still capable of feeling love. He’s alive, after all: he isn’t a religious man, but he likes to think that everything with a heart can feel love. Dogs love their owners. Lions love their mates. Crocodiles love the hunt. Parrots love to show off. 

The Mini-Mes? Notably not alive. They aren’t real. They’re plastic and felt and yarn and whatever-the-fuck electronics the Federation shoved into their fake little bodies. Their nerves are made out of copper. Their veins are filled with self-recycling machine oil. Their hearts are combustion engines that run off of the items that their islander counterparts provide them daily. 

Cellbit knows this. He’s cut his Mini-Me apart so many times that ? knows not to squirm on the dissection table. Every time he’s sewn ? back together, he’s made ? hold the roll of string so it doesn't roll away. He’s made ? bleed oil to the point that he once caught ? drinking gasoline when Cellbit’s back was turned. 

The Mini-Mes don’t feel emotions. They can’t. They aren’t real. They’re creatures, if one could call an inhuman amalgamation of wires and eco-friendly microplastics a creature. It’s more apt to call them robots. 

Monsters. 

Cellbit knows that the MIni-Mes were created for war. He watched the video at that conference, he knows exactly what the little assholes were made for. Now that they’re stolen, their purpose has probably been shifted by the Federation from fighting to spying. 

They can’t feel love. This much, Cellbit knows. They were created for battle, and now they’re just biding their time. Waiting. 

The fact that ? seems to be in love with Pulgoier is an outlier that should not be considered. They’re both just mimicking their owners, that’s all. Which begs the question of exactly how adaptive the Mini-Mes are; they can change appearance at the drop of a hat, but behavior? They’ve been robotic up to this point, what changed? 

Cellbit asks this to ? as ? sits in its cage staring at the oil-stained wall. 

?, of course, doesn’t respond. That’s good, Cellbit doesn’t know what he’d do if the little bastard learned how to talk. 

But, at the lack of a response, Cellbit inexplicably feels a sense of… God, is this bravery he’s feeling coming off of ?? Is that it? An attitude? 

Cellbit’s eyes narrow, and he leans in closer to the cage with a sneer. 

“Whatever you’re doing, I’m onto it,” he growls. 

? just adjusts its goggles in response. Its hand briefly dips into the Fear Room’s light, exposing a thin black line drawn around ?’s left hand ring finger. A ring. 

Cellbit is so surprised that he doesn’t even feel angry for a good moment. 

But then ? looks up at him as if asking, “And what about it?”, and Cellbit finds himself standing and kicking the cage so hard that it falls over, sending ? toppling. 

A ring. A goddamn ring. 

A goddamn mockery, more like. It’s mocking him. The Federation is mocking him, he knows it. He fucking knows it. 

(But… why?)

-

Pulgoier starts holding ?’s hand. ? keeps picking things off of the side of the road to give to Pulgoier, and Cellbit hates it. 

Roier makes a little shoebox bed for them that he puts under his and Cellbit’s own bed. Instead of powering off for the day in a corner of the room, ? and Pulgoier go there at night, and Cellbit hates it. 

? and Pulgoier sit across from each other on the floor when their owners have their meals. Sometimes they pretend to eat, usually pretending to feed each other, and Cellbit hates it. 

Richarlyson would have killed them by now. Cellbit wishes he was here to do so, but. 

But. 

-

But it’s well past midnight, and Cellbit can’t sleep. This isn’t anything too unusual; he learned how to live off minimal sleep back during the War, for better or for worse. 

But Roier can’t sleep, which means that he’s somewhere in the castle, which means that Cellbit is somewhere in the castle because there’s no way in Hell he’s letting his depressed and sleep-deprived husband wander around mourning. 

Tonight’s ‘somewhere’ is the garden, and Cellbit has Roier in his arms as they sway back and forth to the music playing softly on Roier’s communicator. (The Federation is shitty for so many reasons, but at least it’s providing the island with Spotify Premium free-of-charge.)

The song is unimportant. So are the two little freaks of nature watching from beneath a rosebush. So are the Federation’s hidden cameras, and Bad somewhere downstairs trying to carry Cellbit’s dining table out the door, and the itching bloodlust in the back of Cellbit’s brain. 

What is important is Roier, and so Cellbit focuses all his attention on him. 

He’s tired, clearly so: his hair is more of a mess than usual, his clothes are rumpled and wrinkled, his shoes are untied, his bandana is lost somewhere in the bedroom, his lips are chapped, and the circles under his eyes are dark enough to rival Cellbit’s. 

Cellbit doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more beautiful man in his life. 

He says as much, words ghosting across Roier’s pale lips. 

Roier smiles weakly, and he murmurs a quiet, “No, you.”

The song changes to something a bit quicker. They both ignore the change in tempo and decide to follow each other’s, instead. 

Cellbit’s arms tighten around Roier. He pulls him closer, nose burying itself in the side of Roier’s neck and breathing in his scent and internalizing it, filing it away in the little cabinet in his brain labeled ‘Roier’.

“You stink,” he grumbles. 

“Yeah, because you’re all over me,” Roier responds. He lightly pinches Cellbit’s side. “I know what we’re doing when we get back inside.”

Cellbit whines, sagging in Roier’s arms. He loves his husband, but he does not love showering with him; Roier takes so long under the water that it’s running cold by the time it’s Cellbit’s turn, and his shampoo smells so strongly that it makes Cellbit have an asthma attack. 

Cellbit doesn’t even have asthma!

What Cellbit does have is an unfortunately-acute sense of hearing. It’s a blessing at times, and it’s a curse. 

His eyebrow twitches in annoyance as he hears the absolute faintest of sounds: the crunching of grass beneath clumsy feet, and the overworking of machinery as it tries to figure out how to laugh.

At the same time, Roier gasps, “Mira, mira!”

But Cellbit doesn’t look. Why should he? He’s having a good time. He doesn’t need some… some… some things ruining it. 

“Ay,” Roier insists, poking Cellbit between his ribs once. “Gatinho, mira.” 

Another poke. “Mira.” 

Another poke. “Cellbit.” 

(Poke.) “Cellbo.”

Cellbit’s eyes squeeze shut. He presses a kiss to the crook of Roier’s neck to try and appease him, but Roier just pokes him again. With determination. 

“Stop ignoring me!” he huffs. “Unless… you hate me? You want a divorce?”

At that, Cellbit’s head snaps up in a panic. 

“Não!” he shouts. Why would Roier ever…

Lips twitching into a semblance of a smile, Roier grabs Cellbit’s face with one hand- squeezing his cheeks together and making him feel a bit like a fish- and turns it to the side. 

…right. If there’s one thing Roier is, it’s a fucking asshole. (And a handsome one at that.)

Cellbit’s shoulders sag in relief, but said relief quickly melts back into annoyance as he’s forced to look at the Mini-Mes and their… well. It isn’t dancing, that’s for certain. 

Pulgoier has taken the lead, just like Roier has. It’s holding ?’s little hands and rocking from side-to-side: left, right. Left, right. Left, right. It doesn’t move from its spot other than a small amount of shuffling as it tries pulling at ?’s hands in an attempt to get it to actually move. 

? is still. It’s staring directly into Pulgoier’s beady little eyes, absolutely frozen. If it could blush, Cellbit is sure that it would be doing so. 

Cellbit inadvertently copies it, stiffening against Roier’s body and stopping any and all movements. He doesn’t mean to- he wants to keep dancing, to keep ignoring the Mini-Mes and their bastardized attempt at “romance”, but… 

“Look,” Roier quietly says, sounding almost awed. 

He lets go of Cellbit’s face so he can press his cheek against Cellbit’s. 

Cellbit feels Roier’s jaw work against his as he concludes, “It’s us.”

Because… it is. It is, somehow, in such a fundamental way that Cellbit can’t really identify it as anything but Cellbit-And-Roier. 

“Oh,” says Cellbit, voice hardly above a whisper. 

He watches as Pulgoier tugs on ?’s arms, and as ?’s legs start to shake under it. 

Cellbit doesn’t actually remember a lot of his wedding reception; between the explosions and the alcohol, it’s all just a lot of blurry faces and the feeling of Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier. 

What he does remember is being ushered into the center of the dance floor along with Roier and freezing. The world faded from around him, and all he could think about was Roier’s smile as he took Cellbit into his arms; Roier’s warm hands on his body; Roier’s alcohol-laced breath across his face. His body was a stranger. 

He remembers thinking, ‘Shit. I don’t know how to dance.’  Because he didn’t, and he still doesn’t, because he never had a chance to learn how. It just never came up in his life, and then, suddenly, he was supposed to dance. At his wedding. In front of the entire island. And everyone he knew.

And he remembers the way Roier’s face softened as he picked up on Cellbit’s anxiety. His hands slid from Cellbit’s back, up to his shoulders, down the lengths of his arms, and to his hands. He tangled their fingers together, took a step back, and winked. 

Pulgoier physically can’t wink, but it otherwise does exactly what Roier did all those months ago: it takes a step back, and it just starts spinning. 

? can’t shout like Cellbit did back then, but it otherwise does what he did all those months ago: it gets pulled along, forced to spin along with its partner, stumbling over its own feet and flailing about like a doll caught in the wind. 

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Cellbit mutters. 

“I can,” Roier replies. “He’s your Mini-Me, of course he can’t dance for shit.”

He yelps out a laugh as Cellbit indignantly steps on his foot. 

Roier’s right, though; Cellbit can’t dance for shit. And neither can ?, being Cellbit’s shitty little clone. 

The night of the wedding, it took Cellbit a good solid minute to get his feet back under him. He felt himself smiling, and, maybe it was the wine in his system, but he found himself tugging Roier in a spin in the opposite direction. He was dizzy as Hell, but it made Roier laugh when he did it, so he just… kept doing it. Eventually, the spin led into a proper attempt at a slow dance that failed so miserably that the two of them gave up and jumped onto the stage for another round of karaoke.

Tonight, ? picks up on things a bit quicker than Cellbit had. It stabilizes, nods to itself, and starts pulling Pulgoier into its own spin. Almost immediately, they’re attempting a proper waltz, and Cellbit… 

Cellbit doesn’t get it. 

At first, Cellbit wasn’t sure what the end goal of the Mini-Mes was. Then, he realized that they’re little soldiers. Robotic supersoldiers capable of self-multiplication and growth, literal war machines. 

But then… why do they look like the islanders? Why does Pulgoier have the same dark circles as Roier? Why does ? have the same scar across its chest that Cellbit does? What’s the point? The Federation doesn’t do anything without a purpose, so why do the Mini-Mes have to look like their owners if they’re meant to grow up and kill them? 

Why can they dance? 

“What’s the point?” he murmurs. Roier hums in acknowledgement, and Cellbit takes that as a sign to continue: “Of copying us?”

“Because we’re sexy,” Roier responds. 

Cellbit rolls his eyes. “True. But, think about it, what purpose does any of…” (He waves his hand in the MIni-Mes’ general direction.) “...this serve?”

“I don’t know, but… look at them.”

Cellbit looks. He doesn’t understand. Something uncomfortable rises in his throat. 

? twirls Pulgoier, leading it into a dip. Pulgoier raises its head and presses its painted mouth against ?’s. 

Chest clenching, Cellbit tries to tear his eyes away, but he just… can’t. He can’t. Not when they’re right there, not when they’re-

“You think they’re learning from us, right?” Roier asks. “So… maybe they aren’t learning how to kill us. Maybe they’re learning to be us.”

Cellbit gives him a flat look. “Isn’t that just as bad?”

Roier shrugs, still watching the little monsters. 

“Maybe,” he replies. “I’m not a scientist. But… isn’t it kinda crazy that we taught robots how to love?”

But robots can’t love. They can’t. But. 

Roier’s arms tighten around Cellbit’s body. His smile is just as forced as it has been since the eggs all vanished, but his eyes are surprisingly soft as he watches the Mini-Mes tumble into the grass from the force of their silent, impossible laughter. 

“They’re just copying us,” Cellbit weakly says. “It isn’t actually real.”

“Maybe,” Roier hums. One hand travels up to cup the back of Cellbit’s head, gently pulling it against his chest. Cellbit listens to Roier’s heartbeat and wills his own heart to match its pace. 

“Or,” he continues, “maybe it is. We found our reasons. Maybe they found theirs.”

They watch the Mini-Mes, and the Mini-Mes don’t notice. 

The song changes, and Roier starts leading Cellbit into another dance. 

Cellbit’s eyes slip shut, and he lets himself get swept away by Roier’s movements. 

(Bagi would call Cellbit a monster, but Cellbit found love in the end. So maybe, just maybe, ? could have done the same.)

[metalabada]

Isn’t this a fuckin meme somewhere else on this site?

Sonic is stuck in the death egg. He has no clue how long he's been there, or what kind of torture Infinite is going to employ next, but-

Suddenly, the lights flick on. Infinite is floating next to a projector.

"It's pride month, Sonic. I can't torture you during pride month. That would be homophobic."

Sonic is lifted by the Phantom Ruby and forced into a seat, where he is chained.

"Instead, I've thought of something better."

The projector cuts on. It's a slide show, with the title slide reading, "Top Sonadow Moments: Clips and Fics"

"I'm going to share my favorite Sonadow moments with you! We can even reneact some together! Isn't that great?"

Sonic wishes Infinite would go back to physical torture.

[ancharan]

oh my god the other anon bringing up “the baby is you” suddenly makes everything click into place. the shock the horror the abject curiosity the inability to put it down like watching car crash videos and yet the admiration for the amount of skill that went into the bit. love it

this is about the keyhole stuff btw. the coffee maker porn just made me horny

<3 <3 <3

[susandsnell]

What are your top five horror movies?

<3 thanks so much for sending this Mira! while some of my answers may appear a bit obvious in hindsight, narrowing it down to my top 5 was a lot more challenging than I thought!

Top Five Horror Movies!

Under the cut because I can be a wordy bastard!

5. Noroi: The Curse (2005), dir. Kōji Shiraishi: Ultimately, it came down to Noroi for me over Blair Witch because the mockumentary style lends it a lot more cohesion as a narrative and a very polished feel. Some cheesy effects notwithstanding, Noroi hits the platonic ideal of found footage in that it utilizes its multimedia elements and medium to craft a classic ghost story grounded and entrenched in modernity. I'm obsessed with the role of the archivist/the use of documentation in horror (as I've talked about many times, and as is the appeal of Dracula and countless other works), and that's on full display here with the pieces of the mystery coming together through reality television clips, talking head interviews, and a video-within-a-video archiving a ritual gone very wrong. The storytelling is methodical, spreading out the scares sparingly yet threading them together with such a crushing sense of dread. Like other works of Japanese horror, the thematic battle between the mythic and modernity, the consequences of modern alienation over the collective, and urbanization encroaching on the natural are at the forefront of the film, but the found footage conventions imbue it with such a subtlety you're too focused on the characters and their plight to even catch onto this on first viewing. (Should the spiritual be trifled with? Should the natural world give way to modern development? Should the outcast or the outstanding be made a spectacle of by those more integrated into society?) On that note, you grow an attachment to every single one of the characters and are right there with them trying to solve the mystery and hoping against hope they will prevail. And the atmosphere makes this one an absolute must for October watches; shades of analog horror used sparingly and delightfully, all the wanderings of Blair Witch, the supernatural desperation of Ringu/The Ring, and something that's just all its own. Some argue that found footage horror is stylistically limiting, but Noroi showcases what it can be at its best - that is, the bare-bones terror of stumbling on something horrific in broad daylight, and catching it on tape.

4. American Psycho (2000), dir. Mary Harron: The best horror comedy out there to date! This satirical send-up of yuppie culture and consumerism's lending itself to the desensitization and dehumanization of oneself and others in the quest for meaning in a society where it all comes down to capital is beloved with good reason. Genuinely hysterical kills and endlessly quotable scenes aside, the use of music in this piece is a masterstroke that many other films utilizing needle drops have only barely tried to imitate, and it remains one of the most effective presentations/deconstructions of misogyny put to film. Christian Bale is at his best here, leading a whole cast who's at the top of their game; each scare is played to perfection, and I even love the ambiguity of the controversial ending - it serves to drive home the futility and meaninglessness the whole film slowly but surely draws back the curtain on as the underbelly of the life of the hyper-successful during the era. The final conversation being about Reagan drives it all home in a way that plays as a bit on the nose today, but like with the more provocative or controversial moments, is so delightfully so you can't help but dance along to Huey Lewis. 3. The Fly (1986), dir. David Cronenberg: Cronenberg's masterpiece! A guttingly romantic Kafkaesque tale of illness horror, reflective of the time's anxieties around the AIDS crisis but also classic horror themes of scientific hubris and shades of Faust and of course, Cronenberg's preoccupation with abjection of the body, this film is truly one-of-a-kind. The fear of intimacy and fear of illness, the destruction of your lover (all contextualized with deeper tragedy by the era in which the film was made) are woven together so deftly in a film that uses classic B-movie conventions to strike upon deeper truths while also remaining hilariously funny. Cronenberg is by no means subtle, but in an age where every horror film feels the need to not only be About Something but announce it's About Something and hamfistedness is the name of the game, I really do appreciate the elegance in the commentary on gender politics, relying on symbolism and the characters' relationship dynamics to convey ideas of toxic masculinity and female autonomy and queerness and alienation. It's sexy, it's wrenchingly sad, it's the absolute best.

2. Hereditary (2018), dir. Ari Aster: Aster's nearly-instant popularity has lent all his films greater scrutiny, but this film blew me away the first time I saw it. Toni Colette gives a tour de force (and frankly, Oscar-snubbed) lead performance as a disturbed grieving mother seemingly unable to escape the patterns of fear and abuse that make the 'family curse' that is the subject of this film take on dimensions all its own. The portrayal of grief as horror is something that speaks to me very personally, and this gorgeously shot work presents this concept at its most poignant. Everyone and their mother (please imagine Toni Colette barking the word with pure venom) has talked about the end of the first act 'twist', but the execution rocked me to my core upon first viewing. I will never forget the way the pit of my stomach dropped out watching the lingering shot of Peter's empty, frozen face drag out for over a full minute. Gore and jumpscares abound as is an Ari Aster mainstay, but they're used effectively here; what takes centre stage is the characters and their relationships, performed to pitch perfection by every single actor. Alex Wolff deserves a particular shout-out, balancing teenage ne'er-do-well impassiveness with the warmth of a genuinely caring big brother until the great tragedy and the slow, encroaching terrors of its aftermath slowly but surely push him into a regressive, childlike state of terror. It's about grief, it's about the family curse and family secrets, it's about becoming your parent, your grandparent, your sibling, it's about mental illness (and how it's not taken seriously in women), but mostly it's about the joys of a nice family dinner.

1. Carrie (1976), dir. Brian de Palma: You all knew this one was coming, but I can never run out of good things to say about it. While there are perhaps films that boast greater spectacles, feats of special effects, tighter editing, more profound themes or more abstract/debatable symbolism, Brian de Palma's Carrie is the horror film I will always rank as my favourite. Stephen King's inverted Cinderella storyof the hellscape that is adolescence is granted operatic tragedy grandeur by a perfect cast, an unforgettable score, mind-blowing setpieces and imagery that I am happy to say will stay burned in my brain forever. The use of tension and buildup through the entire Prom sequence needs to be taught in schools, particularly with how it leaves you laughing one moment, moved to tears the next, then gripping the edge of your seat. Each scene is given either a dreamy or nightmarish tone that makes it instantly iconic. The sensuality of blossoming sexual awakening contrasted with the gutting mundane horrors of bullying and abuse played relentlessly set up perfectly for the tonal shifts later in the story between the romantic haze of prom and the hellscape made by Carrie's act of vengeance. The camp moments of the film heighten the jarring scares of the final act, and the forays into 70s teen comedy (yes, even with the goofy split-screens and fast-forwards) ground it in a relatability that makes it the horror classic. Every adaptational change from the book is either for the better for storytelling flow, or is at least impossible to imagine the film without. (As sad as I am that we don't get the book ending with this Carrie and Sue having their moment of connection, there's something so shatteringly tragic of Carrie in her final moments sheltering in the prayer closet that was her prison, clinging to the body of the mother who tormented her for comfort, and the cutting to the angry painted eyes of Saint Sebastian is an instantly unforgettable horror image). The denomination/sect of Christianity followed by the White family is unclear from the book, but the choice of de Palma to make them offshoot Catholics allows for so much integration of art history and its frightening images -- the use of the Last Supper behind Carrie and Margaret's dinner scene! don't know if it's the absolute first horror film to employ the Final Jumpscare, but certainly, it's one of the earliest and most memorable examples. Sissy Spacek in the titular role is an absolute revelation and maybe my favourite performance in all of horror media. Much has been said about her study of Catholic martyr art to end every scene in the pose of a person being stoned to death, but she runs the full gamut of emotion, of teenage suffering, of victimhood and villainy, and you are with her for the entire ride. The Catholic martyr art is apt, because her expressions evoke Falconetti as Joan of Arc, and Carrie is nothing if not a subverted Joan. Many say she's far too conventionally beautiful to play Carrie, and while it's true Hollywood is going to Hollywood, no actress has so successfully embodied the aching sweetness, the haunting disturbance, the yearning for love and the burning divine retribution that make her at once one of horror's most memorable monsters and one of its tragic heroines. Piper Laurie is terrifying and campy and hilarious as Margaret White, our villain for the evening, Nancy Allen is delightfully loathsome as Chris, Betty Buckley gives Ms. Collins some real good-natured toughness (questionable methods of handling teens notwithstanding), and Amy Irving lends Sue the exact groundedness and good intent you get from her book counterpart. Carrie has been the refuge for many a queer and/or outcast teenager, and it will likely remain that way for years to come. Thanks so much for this!!

[arthropod-concoctions]

And here's a treat i wrote for @oshawottarchive, inspired by @greenix' fantastic artwork "The statue queen and her knight!" very happy i managed to finish this one in time for the @mcytrecursive exchange.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Major Character Death

Category: Gen

Fandom: Secret Life SMP

Relationships: Ethoslab & ZombieCleo, Grian & EthosLab

Characters: ZombieCleo, EthosLab, Grian

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, kind of; theres monsters at least, Weeping Angels - Freeform, EthosLab (Video Blogging RPF) is a Weeping Angel (Doctor Who), Gorgon ZombieCleo (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travel, petrifcation

Summary: What happens when two monsters that can't kill each other cross paths?

Fic below the cut!

Deep in the labyrinthine halls of an abandoned temple that only the exceedingly reckless dared enter, a gorgon stood next to a petrified warrior, trying on his armor.

Cleo fastened the clasps of the breastplate, but quickly unclasped them after seeing how poorly it fit. She sighed as she put the armor back onto the warrior's body. She was getting a bit tired of the dress she was wearing, but none of her recent victims had anything that fit her. It's because female warriors are going out of fashion again, she thought, and no civilians ever enter this temple anymore. Maybe she should try going out into their settlements again. That didn't end too well for her last time, but honestly, she was starting to get bored all alone in here...

“ˈiːθəʊ?” a voice suddenly called out. “hɛˈləʊ?” Cleo froze in place, almost like one of her own victims, trying to determine the source of the call. It was clearly a human, but that wasn't a word in any human language she knew. she also heard footsteps now, seemingly getting closer.

The same words were called out again, and the footsteps grew louder. Maybe this was some fool from foreign lands, who hadn't understood the locals' warnings about this place. That would be a nice opportunity. Cleo began to move towards the sound.

A man with unusually light hair turned the corner, and Cleo watched the expression on his face go from concern to relief to horror within a second. He screamed, first wordlessly in terror, then again in some unknown language. “ wɒt ɑː juː-”

Cleo lifted her veil, and the scream died on stone lips.

“An honour to meet you too.” Cleo said. She moved over to inspect her newest statue, but she could already tell it was going to be a good one. Most of her recent work didn't show abject terror like this one, they were too prepared for her presence. And the clothing-

Huh. The clothing wasn't like anything she'd seen before. The man wore tight-fitting trousers that were almost as grey as his skin now was, made of a material she could not identify. By contrast, the garment he wore over his torso was as red as blood, and very soft- soft enough to make Cleo gasp slightly as she ran her finger over it. it didn't fit the man's form in the slightest, almost as if it'd been made for somebody else. Fortunately, that meant it might fit her as well.

“I'll be taking this... whatever it is, thank you,” they said as they lifted the garment off of the statue, and chuckled. Who were you, oblivious wanderer? She found herself wondering. Where did you come from?

– – –

Etho stalked restlessly through the overgrown stone building. He'd picked this spot to camp out, hoping he'd easily blend in with the statues all around, but that was days ago, and he hadn't seen a single human since. And he was getting hungry. He was beginning to suspect humans purposely avoided this place. Maybe they did that because of the statues? He'd heard once that some humans were scared by statues. Which was stupid; why would they make statues if they were scared of them? These couldn't possibly all be his fellows either. He froze in place, which told him that there was somebody seeing him. Finally, he thought. He couldn't see anybody, which meant they must be behind him. He could hear footsteps, and then, a voice.

“...You're new,” the voice said, and then the human it belonged to stepped into Etho's view-

Nevermind. Etho was quite certain humans didn't usually have snakes emerging from their heads. The not-human woman was wearing several layers of mismatched, brightly coloured clothes, and a veil covering the top half of their face. They circled around him, hands clasped behind their back, almost as if they were inspecting him. Infuriatingly enough, Etho saw them blink, but couldn't regain his mobility; the eyes of the snakes watched him too, not leaving him unobserved for a moment.

“I didn't even know i could catch other monsters,” they said, and Etho felt them touch one of his wings. He wasn't sure how he felt about that statement. “You're definitely getting a place of honor... but first, I'm gonna try on that mask.”

Then they did something Etho definitely did not like: they reached towards his mask, aiming to take it off. That would nullify his only trump card, unless he played it now.

“Please don't,” he said. The woman stopped.

“What!?” they yelled out, then took several steps backwards. “How are you talking?” they demanded. The snakes on their head seemed surprised by their sharp voice, which was good for Etho; it meant they at least didn't consciously control two dozen eyes.

“You're not technically looking at my mouth. The mask covers it,” Etho replied. It was a trick that most of his fellows knew, but few ever used it. The mask just got in the way unless you liked talking to your victims, like he did.

“That's not how this...” the woman trailed off, flabbergasted. “Oh, whatever. Monsters petrify by different rules, i guess.”

“Monster? Oh, come on now. I'm just a regular human. Who turns to stone when you look at him. Something which you are used to, apparently,” Etho rambled. If he had an organic body, he would be sweating right now. Normally he'd be having these kinds of conversations with regular people, and he'd be able to move about two percent of the time, leaving him comfortably in control. With this creepy snake lady his mobility was reduced to zero percent, which was a whole different story.

They just chuckled at his remark. “And has wings. Can't forget about that.” They briefly placed their hand on a wing again, then took it off. “What's your name?”

“Etho.”

They turned their head sharply at that. “How long have you been in this temple, Etho?”

“...Two, three days?”

“Well now that can't be true,” they said, eyes narrowing, “because I've been getting confused wanderers walking in here calling out your name for at a century.”

Ah. He figured this had to come up eventually. “...It's complicated. Let's just say, those people haven't entered the temple yet.”

They grunted. “Traveling through time, then? Doesn't seem that complicated to me.

“Well, Etho, I am the gorgon Cleo. I'm the scourge of this temple, as they say, so I'm supposed to chase out or kill anyone who dares enter, but...” a small smile quirked their lips. “Well, clearly I can't get rid of you, because you have to be around in the future to send these people to me. So it looks like I'll have to... tolerate your presence near me.” Despite their words expressing disappointment, Cleo's voice didn't sound disappointed at all. They sounded happy about it, even.

“...Thank you?” Etho replied. He decided to keep to himself the fact that he was unlikely to stay here for much longer if there really were barely any people. Unfortunately, they did have a point; causality dictates that he would have to hunt here at some point in time, and it didn't seem like he would ever be able to get to Cleo, given the amount of eyes they had. So, it would be better to keep them happy for now.

“You're welcome,” Cleo replied, still smiling. “So, I understand you can't move as long as I'm looking at you?”

“Maybe,” Etho replied. “Maybe I'm just standing really still for fun, though.”

they laughed at that. “Right. Well, I can't keep you here forever, so I suppose I'll get out of your way for now. Until we meet again, angel Etho.”

With that, Cleo turned around and walked back the way they came. Before turning the corner, they looked back to see Etho still standing where he was; some of the snakes on their head had been lookng in his general direction still. They waved at Etho.

Then they turned, and as soon as Etho was removed from all their lines of sight, he was gone. That was by far the strangest conversation he'd ever had. It looked like he would have to abandon this hunting ground, which was a shame-- it really would have been a fun one, had it not already been occupied. Although, the gorgon didn't seem to mind sharing the space with him. they seemed happy about it, even. That was the weirdest thing; never before had he ended a conversation with someone on good terms. They always ended with one person hunting the other-- but he could never hunt Cleo, and they could never hunt him, so instead they were... friendly with each other. Fascinating.

Maybe he'd give the temple another shot after all.

_ _ _

This is it, Grian thought to himself as he took a deep breath, then stepped through the gate-like shape of the rubble, into the gate filled with statues. His head swiveled around, looking for one that seemed out of place. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect-- well, no. He knew exactly what to expect: a talking statue. That's what this ruin was known for, after all. He just didn't know the details; what did the statue look like? Did it move as well as talk? This place didn't have as much documentation as other monsters' domains in the area, which is exactly why Grian was drawn to it.

“Hello, weary traveler!” A voice suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. Grian turned around to see the answer to his questions: a stone statue of a winged figure, wearing a scarf across his face. He was standing with his hands on his hips. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Oh. You, mostly,” Grian replied. Honestly, he wasn't expecting his exploration to be over so soon. Did the statue really have to come right to him?

“Aww, me? You shouldn't have. I'm just a humble tour guide.” Grian never saw the angel move, but every time he blinked he had a different stance- and was standing slightly closer to Grian. “There's so many beautiful statues here. Don't you want to take a look at them?”

Grian shrugged. He might as well make the most of this trip. “Sure. Lead the way.”

“Great!” the angel responded, and didn't move. Grian blinked, and he moved about a foot, then stopped again. “Uh, maybe you following me isn't the most efficient way to do this. Just wander around, and I'll provide the commentary.”

Grian snorted, then followed the angel's advice and started looking around the yard. The first thing he noticed was that all the statues-- apart from the angel-- were naked. Some of them were holding what looked like weapons and shields, but they were rotting, not sculpted from stone like the bodies. And most of them were striking thoroughly unimpressive poses. The whole thing weirded Grian out a little. The statues didn't look anything like what he would call art, realistic though they were. “Do you have any idea who made these?” he asked the angel.

“An old friend of mine,” he replied. Then he asked: “So, I'm famous, huh?”

“Yeah, kind of.” Grian turned around and searched the room for the angel, and saw that he was standing between some sculptures, filling a gap in the rows. He fit there weirdly well. “Everyone knows this as the ruin with the talking statue. Uh- do you have a name, by the way?”

“Etho.”

Grian hummed. It was a surprisingly... modern name. “My name's Grian,” he replied, then continued looking at the statues. He'd noticed some of them were covered in some weird dust, which he figured might be the remains of fabric clothing. Whoever made these statues had apparently decided to dress them in actual clothes, instead of simply sculpting them clothed. In order to avoid looking at what the decayed clothing was failing to cover, Grian now focused on the faces of the sculptures. Some of them-- mostly the ones holding decayed weaponry-- had an expression of noble determination on their face, but the majority of the statues looked scared. And they were incredibly detailed; to the point it gave Grian the creeps. “Your friend had some... interesting artistic visions,” he said.

The angel-- Etho-- chuckled. “Isn't it great?” he asked. Grian decided his honest answer to that might not be what Etho wanted to hear, so he didn't respond.

Etho spoke up again. “'The ruin with the talking statue', you say... is that all this place is known for?”

“...I think so, yeah. Why?”

“No stories about, like... people who go inside and never return?”

That did not help with Grian's creeps in the slightest. “Why would you ask that!?” he asked, spinning around to face Etho.

“Oh, no reason. Hey, have you seen that statue there yet?” he replied, moving with a blink to point somewhere behind Grian.

Grian hesitated to turn around, suddenly worried what Etho might do behind his back. This feels like a trap, he thought; but at the same time, he was very curious what the angel was getting at. He took a few steps backwards, ensuring that Etho didn't get too close to him-- then he turned around. Behind him was another statue with face and limbs contorted in apparent terror- A very familiar face, actually. The face Grian saw every time he looked into the mirror. Grian's blood ran cold. There was a statue of him in this ruin. Why the hell was there a statue of him? Was this some kind of elaborate prank someone pulled on him? The statue's moles lined up exactly with his own. No, it couldn't be a prank, he hadn't brought anybody with him on this trip. He was alone in this ruin with Etho- Etho! Grian whirled around to face the angel, but couldn't find him. He'd only been turned around for a few seconds, where could he have gone?

“Oh, wonderful!” Grian heard a voice behind him, and spun around again to find Etho's face inches from his own, his hand reaching towards the scarf around his neck. “Looks like you get to meet my old friend!”

Grian backed away, breathing deeply. He looked at Etho, avoiding blinking as long as possible- but it wasn't long enough. The second his eyes closed, he heard an indescribable static noise and felt a horrible squeezing sensation around his entire body... And then it was over, and Grian was still in the ruin, and he felt fine. Except... was he still in the ruin? The sun was coming from a different angle, the place looked less decrepit than it did before, and there were significantly less statues. There was no sign of Etho.

“What in the... Etho?” Grian called out, his terror having mostly changed into confusion. “Hello?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[note: the bits in IPA read "Etho?" "Hello?" and "What are you-" respectively.]

[aquietwritingcorner]

Nothing Left to do to Save You

Title: Nothing Left to do to Save You     Fandom: TMNT 2003 Word Count: 1529  Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl Rating:  M Characters: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, April O’Neil Warning: Major Character Death, SAINW Summary: Mike had always wondered what had happened to Donatello. But never in his darkest or most twisted of thoughts had he thought this was a possibility.    Notes: Once again playing around with Peter Laird’s SAINW ideas. This time, it’s what if Leo, Raph, and Mike lived, but they found Donatello dead and taxidermized. Yeah, once again I am telling you, this is not a pretty thing! It is disturbing. And I honestly can’t tell you if it ends well or not. But it sure doesn’t begin well, I can tell you that.   ff.net || AO3

______________________________

Nothing Left to do to Save You

Mike dropped to his knees even as he stared in abject horror and disbelief at what he saw in front of him. He thought that he’d seen all of the cruelty and the twistedness that the Shredder had to offer when he had watched public videos of torture, when he’d seen the desecrated bodies of Resistance members, when he’d watched the Shredder cruelly kill children and babies just because they were important to an enemy.

But he was wrong. He was so wrong.

Behind him Raph let out a guttural scream of rage and pain and horror and anger. It echoed off of the ceiling and the walls, bouncing around for longer than it probably should have. It was quickly followed by the sounds of destruction and more rage.

“No… no, no, no, no, no, no—”

A shaky litany of unending denial and disbelief fell from Leo’s lips, his eldest brother somewhere behind him. It grew louder and louder, and his voice sounded more and more destabilized as he spoke, his breathing growing more and more ragged as if he was finally cracking.

He heard April quickly move, and then fall to her knees. Mike had no idea why. But then he heard the sound of her retching, the splash of whatever she managed to have in her stomach hitting the floor, and the following heaving, and he understood.

He felt like he was hyperventilating as he stared at the taxidermized and posed body of his brother, Donatello, the echoes of his fear still clear under the carefully arranged face.

Mike let out a sob.

Raph’s destruction came to an end, although Mike was sure it wasn’t because his rage was over. Instead, he returned to where the small group was, and Mike could hear the leather on his sais creaking from where he held them tightly.

“He’s… young, isn’t he?” Leo said, his voice shaking as he shifted closer, almost parallel with Mike, and Mike remembered his brother’s visual impairment. Details were not as clear far away. But if Leo didn’t want to get close to this, Mike couldn’t blame him.

“Yeah,” Raph said bitterly. “He doesn’t look a day over seventeen.” Mike could practically hear Raph shaking from rage. “The death Shredder got was too good for him,” Raph said, his voice raising with his emotions. “He should have suffered more, longer!”

There was more shifting behind him, and Mike realized that April was getting to her feet. “We need—” her voice was already cracking with tears. “—We need to… to figure out how to give a p-proper… burial—” Her voice broke and choked off, and Mike could hear the soft sob that followed it.

And yet Mike couldn’t take his eyes off of Donnie. Off of his perfectly preserved and maintained dead brother.

A cold, hard rage started to replace the sick feeling he had, latching into place and spreading throughout him. “I want the person who did this,” he said, his voice rough, hardened.

“Mike—Shredder’s already dead!” Raph snapped.

“No!” Mike cut him off, cut anybody who was going to speak off. “No—Shredder ordered it, but he didn’t do it himself. And whoever did it, that person had to know that our brother was a person, not just some animal.” Mike grit his teeth and pushed up, getting off his knees. “I want him,” he growled out. “And I want him to die in terror, like Donnie did.”

There was a pause, and then Mike heard April take in a deep breath, as if she were re-centering herself. “I’ll have all of the records and archives scoured for any information, even if I have to do it myself,” she said. “We’ll find who did this to Don.”

Mike nodded, even without looking away from Donnie. This would not go unanswered. This would not go unpunished. And for the second time in years, he could feel his brothers ready to work together.

“…at least Sensei didn’t see this,” Leo said, and Mike could agree that was the only good thing about this whole situation.

They laid Don to rest beside Splinter. It was painful in more than one way. Not only was the knowledge of how their brother had died devastating, but it was quickly clear that the pose he was in was meant to be the pose he stayed in. Trying to rearrange him had resulted in discovering just exactly what their brother’s skin was mounted on and how he had been stitched back together. It had been gruesome and terrible, and none of them had been able to get through it without some sort of breakdown.

They had managed, though, to get it done, to get a proper headstone for both Splinter and Don, and to do the appropriate rites over them.

“I hope your spirit can rest, bro,” Raph said. “I… you deserve it.”

“You and Sensei look after each other,” Leo said quietly. “One day, we’ll see you again.”

“…we’ll make sure the person who did this goes down,” Mikey said. “And then you can truly rest.”

“I’ll look after them for you,” April said. “I’ll do the best I can.”

April’s people were good, but they were also just a few and not as experienced as they could have been. The Utroms were a great help, going through and the information from Shredder’s databases quickly.  April was smart, though. She hadn’t told them that she wanted the information so that the brothers could take revenge. Instead, she had said that she was looking for information on people who had been complicit in dealing with Shredder’s enemies so that she could find the people and bring them to justice, as closure for the families of Shredder’s victims.

Mike wasn’t entirely sure that the Utroms completely believed her, but they did it anyway, and he wasn’t going to question it.  It only took a couple of weeks before they had a name. Dr. Drake Thurgood. He had been a renowned taxidermist before Shredder’s takeover, although there had always been rumors about him taking on endangered and illegally hunted animals, too. It turned out that he was already in custody.

It only took a small clerical error and a few bits of misdirection to get him released.

It took less time for the brothers to find him.

It took even less time for him to realize what was about to happen to him.

It took quite some time for a heavily desecrated body to turn up in the middle of the city, with the label of murderer and a video of him confessing to his crimes attached to him.

No one felt remorse when what was left of his body was dumped in a mass grave and forgotten.

Mike looked at the graves of his brother and father. He fell heavily to his knees in front of them, reaching out his hand to brush the headstones. Sorrow and sadness filled him, grief finally beginning to take the place of all of the rage and anger he’d held onto for so long. He’d thought it was protecting him all those years, and maybe it had been. But it wasn’t anymore.

Somewhere behind him, Raph shifted, and then sat on his knees. Mike could hear how shaky his breathing was, but this time there was a hitching to it, as if his brother was finally, finally crying. It sounded louder to Mike than it was, but Mike still ignored it.

“Sensei... Ototo…”

Behind him, Mike also heard Leo settle on the ground, quietly speaking in Japanese. Mike didn’t concentrate on the words, but he caught a few. Leo was honoring their father and brother, thanking them and expressing how much they were missed.

April sat down, too, and Mike could hear her openly crying, not even trying to hide it. She sobbed, although it was a controlled sobbing, not loud or hysterical. Just sobbing for what was lost, expressing her emotions.

Mike let out a sob of his own.

There was shifting behind him, and Mike suddenly found Leo next to him, his brother’s eyes also on the graves. And then, Leo reached over and put his arm across Mike’s shell, drawing him in.

There was more shifting, and then Raph was there, too, on Mike’s other side, his face wet from the tears he was shedding, his remaining eye red and irritated from it. But he was firm and strong at Mike’s side.

He heard April get up, and soon she was leaning against his shell, her arms reaching out to hook around Leo and Raph, respectively, holding all of them close to her.

Just a few short months ago, Mike would have shoved his brothers off of him. He would have kept his distance from April. He would have refused to let any of his remaining family comfort him, especially not after they had abandoned him.

But now? Here with them, knowing, finally, what had happened to Don, sharing in the horror in a way that only all of them could, Mike shuddered within their closeness, let out another sob, and finally, finally, grieved together with his family.

[fairytales-and-folklore]

Fate, Feelings, and Other Forked-Up Nonsense

The Good Place » Cheleanor

Title: Fate, Feelings, and Other Forked-Up Nonsense

Author: fairytalesandfolklore

Fandom: The Good Place (Masterlist)

Relationship: Chidi Anagonye x Eleanor Shellstrop

AO3 Rating: Mature (a complete collection of author's notes, inspiration credits, content warnings and tags can be found on AO3)

Summary: Eleanor wrestles with her feelings for Chidi and whether or not she should tell him about the tape. One fateful afternoon, the decision is made for her, when Chidi walks in right as Eleanor finally decides to watch it.

And that's when she hears the sound of her front door opening. That's when she remembers that she'd given Chidi a key. "Eleanor," Chidi calls from the hallway, his voice laced with anguish and concern. "Eleanor, I don't like the way we left things before. Could we just…" He sighs heavily, pockets his keys, and paces toward the living room. "Could we maybe talk about it? Get some frozen yogurt, and just— oh— oh my god!" "OH MY GOD," Eleanor screams back at him as he rounds the corner, eyes wide in abject horror as he stares at the moving figures on her television screen.

Read On AO3 | Read On Tumblr:

The tape sits at the bottom of a bookshelf in Eleanor's creepy, clown-clad living room, shoved under a stack of ethics and morality textbooks and Better Homes and Gardens magazines that Chidi had taken to leaving there. 

No one will ever want to watch Cannonball Run 2, she thinks. It's perfectly safe in that battered old VHS sleeve.

Irony, thou art a heartless bench.

A couple of days later, in the middle of one of Chidi's lectures, Jason picks up the tape and starts playing with it, absentmindedly sliding the cassette in and out of its sleeve, far too easily amused by the loud thwacking sound it makes every time the flimsy plastic collides with its worn paper casing. 

Eleanor looks up from jotting down a few bullet points in her notebook and freezes as she catches sight of it, eyes growing wide when she notices a little white label slapped across the side of the tape that reads Eleanor & Chidi Doin' The Nasty written in bright green sharpie, just barely visible as it peeks out from the top of the case. 

"Whatcha got there, buddy?" Eleanor whispers as cheerily and casually as she can manage, nudging Jason in the ribs. Jason looks down at the little rectangular box and gasps in surprise, only just realizing what he'd been holding.

"Oh dip, I didn't know you had Cannonball Run 2!" he exclaims, and bless him, he sounds genuinely excited. "I never saw the first one, but I heard it was pretty good…and I passed out halfway through the second one because me and Pillboi did too many jello shots at one of Acid Cat's house parties."

His face lights up with a gleeful expression as he giggles at the memory.

"Uh huh," Eleanor says with an enthusiastic nod, eyes glued to the tape.

"I kinda want to see how it ends," Jason says thoughtfully, twirling the movie case between his fingertips. "But the Xbox in my bud-hole only plays DVDs. Do you think maybe Janet has a VCR we could use? I should ask her. Hey, Jan—"

"Nope!" Eleanor shouts as she makes a mad grab for the video tape, swiping it out of Jason's hands and promptly sitting on it, for lack of a better hiding place. 

Eleanor looks up, flustered, and realizes that everyone in the room has heard their little squabble, eyes all swiveled in her direction; Michael, sporting his usual impatient grimace; Tahani, looking positively scandalized by the interruption; Chidi, standing at the chalkboard, lips poised around a word he'd lost track of mid-sentence, looking thoroughly confused and a little crestfallen.

Eleanor barks out a nervous laugh and playfully punches Jason in the arm as he attempts, yet again, to reach for the tape.

"Hey man," she says in a half-assed attempt at a reprimand. "Chidi works really hard to teach us all how to be good people, so we're not gonna watch some dumb 80's movie in the middle of one of his lectures, got it?"

The forced cheerful smile that Eleanor painfully grits at Jason scares him more than the horrible clown paintings, and so, after a few more minutes of dramatic pleading and complaining that he's bored out of his mind, Jason sighs in defeat, settling into a childish pout as he slides down the couch cushions, picks up his notebook, and resumes doodling penguins dressed in bowties. 

Eleanor breathes a sigh of relief as Tahani and Michael nod in agreement and turn back around to face Chidi, who blinks a few times in surprise and then shoots Eleanor an appreciative smile, before picking up his chalk and finishing his Venn-Diagram.

Eleanor's face flushes hotter than a sunburn in hell, uncomfortably aware of the sharp corners of the plastic VHS tape digging into her thighs. That night, she moves the tape to the bottom drawer of her dresser, and buries it under a mountain of questionable-smelling laundry.

• • •

That forking tape is haunting her. 

It keeps popping up everywhere, like it's just begging for her to watch it. But she isn't going to watch it. Because she doesn't want to know. Every time she even thinks about watching it, she moves it to another location. 

The bottom drawer of her bedside table, hidden under a stack of magazines.

The back of the closet. 

The washing machine. 

The oven. 

Underneath the couch cushions, tucked away amidst a collection of moldy pennies and half-melted sticks of gum. 

The very back corner of the tallest cabinet in her kitchen, hidden behind a couple of boxes of expired bowtie pasta. 

At the back of the freezer, next to a pint-sized container of freezer-burned pistachio frozen yogurt, and…forking hell, how did she ever think this was the Good Place?

But no matter where she moves it, she always ends up waking up in the middle of the night, digging it out, and staring at it, and she has no idea why. 

She really should just forget about it. Pretend it never happened. 

Why would she even want to watch something that happened like a hundred-something reboots ago, and will probably definitely never happen again? 

What does it even matter? It's not like they're going to like…end up together or anything. 

Eleanor allows herself hardly more than a second to picture it; her hands skimming across his bare chest, blankets curled around their naked, entwined bodies, the curve of his lips as he'd settled into a blissful, sleepy smile, the way he'd stared into her eyes with pure adoration, holding nothing back.

I don't know what's going to happen to us, but I need to tell you something—

A shiver runs down Eleanor's spine that makes her feel like she's just swallowed ice. She shakes her head, quickly dismissing that particular train of thought. Best not to waste time thinking about something she can never have…

Not that she wants him, or anything. Just, you know, hypothetically speaking.

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that it would never actually work between them. They're just too different.

Except…what's that saying about how opposites attract?

But even so, this version of Chidi clearly has no romantic interest in her.

Except…sometimes she thinks maybe he does? 

It's hard to tell. The guy's an enigma wrapped in indecision and an ugly sweater vest. But sometimes, she thinks…maybe?

It's little things. 

Like the way his eyes always seem to flicker toward her whenever he speaks. The way he loses his train of thought and stumbles over his words whenever she gives him an encouraging smile. The way his entire face lights up every time she challenges one of his theories, and engages her in a heated discussion that leaves the rest of the group groaning and rolling their eyes. 

The fact that he always stays late after every class, idling to tidy up the kitchen or to straighten his already perfectly aligned book stacks as everyone else rushes out the door. 

The way he keeps making up excuses to take Eleanor out to dinner or brunch or for frozen yogurt to celebrate some random new achievement he clearly just made up on the spot, just so they can spend a little more time together.

Or maybe she's just imagining it. 

Yeah, she's probably just imagining it. 

Because someone like Chidi…someone as kind and selfless and amazing as Chidi…would never want someone like her. And that's totally fine. Good, even.

It's not like Eleanor cares either way. It's not like she has feelings for him or anything. It's not like she gets lost in thought standing in line at the frozen yogurt shop, heart leaping into her throat every time Chidi's hands accidentally brush against hers.

Nor does she catch herself staring at his hands as he gesticulates wildly, sweeping them across the chalkboard at whirlwind speed as another avenue of thought overtakes him. 

She doesn't think about what his hands might feel like, curled around her hips, laced through her hair, gently cradling her face. 

She doesn't find his passion for his studies endearing, or smile to herself whenever he gets carried away and nerds out like that. 

The word adorable totally doesn't pop into her head. 

She doesn't feel a spark of adrenaline jolt through her chest every time he catches her staring (because she's totally not staring,) and she absolutely does not blush fifty different shades of red as she quickly looks away and pretends she was taking notes. 

Her eyes don't involuntarily find their way to his, or linger on his lips as he speaks, wondering if they taste like his morning coffee or his afternoon tea, absentmindedly counting all the ways she could put that quick-witted tongue of his to good use. 

She doesn't wake from dreams of stolen kisses and tangled sheets, calling out his name in a strangled cry and wishing that the space beside her didn't feel so cold.

And she isn't the least bit curious about what's on that tape.

Nope, not even a little bit.

• • •

Exactly one month after the fake reboot, Vicky decides to throw the entire neighborhood a One Month-Iversary Party to celebrate the day that all three hundred and twenty two of them first arrived in the Good Place. To say that the evening hadn't gone exactly as planned would be an understatement.

"This is an absolute nightmare," Chidi whimpers, frantically pacing back and forth across the length of Eleanor's tiny living room. "I don't know how I could have ever possibly thought that siding with an actual demon to take down a whole bunch of other demons was a good idea. I am literally working with the enemy."

"Thanks a lot, jackash," Michael spits furiously, fixing Chidi with a pointed glare. "But last night's fork-up wasn't exactly my fault."

If looks could kill…well, it's a good thing Chidi's already dead. 

"Let's review, shall we?" Michael says, his tone dripping with condescension. "You all agreed to work with me, and I agreed to let you keep your little memories this time around, as long as you keep pretending you have no idea you're not actually in the Good Place."

"I gave each of you one job at Vicky's party last night, and you all blew it," he complains. "Eleanor was supposed to get drunk and smuggle out as much cake as she could carry. Chidi was supposed to be all nervous and jittery and embarrassed by his fake soul mate's crude behavior. Tahani, still reeling from that epic party planning failure a few weeks back, was supposed to be a little resentful, a little haughty, but still the very picture of elegance and grace. Jason was supposed to be silent and inconspicuous."

"And what ended up happening instead?" Michael asks, angrily pacing the room as he ticks off each of their names on his fingers. 

"Instead, Tahani is the one who gets drunk, and starts smashing away on the grand piano to a really, just truly awful rendition of one of her sister's songs. Jianyu breaks his vow of silence in order to cheer her on, and then, of all the asinine things, starts breakdancing in the living room to one of Bach's cello suites, kicks a couple of people in the face, and permanently lodges one of Antonio's testicles right up into his body. Eleanor is sober, fists and pockets and bra completely cake-free. And Chidi, who's normally wound so tight you could shove a lump of coal up his ash and in two weeks, you'd have a diamond…which, pro tip, is an excellent Bad Place torture method…"

Michael lets out an impish little giggle in spite of himself, but when he looks around the room and sees that no one is laughing along with him, he heaves a disgruntled sigh, and his anger returns with gusto.

"Out of the four of you, I would have at least expected Chidi to not break character," he grumbles. "I mean, the guy's so predictable, you could set your watch to his stomach aches. But nooooo. Last night? Swing and a forking miss. Instead, Chidi is so relaxed, he looks like the poster child for Ativan."

"To make matters worse, he and Eleanor spend half the night with these stupid, slack-jawed expressions on their faces, whispering God knows what to each other, giggling away like idiots at the bar. Meanwhile, Vicky is up my ash every two minutes, threatening to tell Shawn that I have forked up a grand total of eight hundred and two times now, when he thinks we're still on version two," Michael finishes, an edge of panic flaring up around the slow-simmering anger.

"And now they're onto us," Chidi groans in exasperation, resuming his panicked pacing. "They're going to figure out that Michael didn't actually erase our memories, and then they're going to torture us for all eternity. And I, for one, really don't want to find out what four-headed bears, bees with teeth, and butthole spiders are like."

"See, this is what I was talking about," Michael complains as he gestures toward the blur that was once a frantically pacing Chidi. "Why couldn't you have been this panicked and sweaty last night?"

"Oh come now, last night wasn't a complete disaster," Tahani chirrups encouragingly, one hand on her hip as she sashays about in a pretty floral sundress like she's on a Parisian runway. "At any rate, I still looked marvelous."

"Are you forking kidding me?" Michael rages at her, a bulbous blue vein throbbing in his temple. "You made a complete fool of yourself! I mean, really, did you honestly think that you could ever sound half as good as Kamilah?"

Tahani freezes, eyes growing wide as she dips her head downward in shame.

"Well, perhaps I'm…not handling the finer details of my death as well as I thought I—" she mumbles quietly.

"Hey man, lay off Tahani," Jason says indignantly. He frowns rather than glares at Michael, like a tiny puppy sizing up a polar bear. "I think she looked real dope on that piano. And I wasn't breakdancing to some old dude playing the guitar. I was breakdancing to Tahani's song. You sounded real good, homie."

Tahani perks up in surprise, blinking several times before responding.

"Well, I…thank you, Jason. That was very…" she says quietly, humbled by the sincerity of his words, naïve though they might be. 

No one has ever jumped to her defense like that before, and it's left her feeling equal parts elated and embarrassed. She offers Jason a small, appreciative smile, which he returns in full; a big, goofy grin that lights up every inch of his face. 

Michael catches sight of this little display and recoils in revulsion, wondering what the hell happened between those two to make them so chummy all of a sudden. Then, he remembers that human emotions are stupid, and that he doesn't give a five-headed flying rat's ass.

"You four," Michael admonishes, pointing a threatening finger at each of them in turn. "Had better get your forking shirt together. Do you have any idea how much damage control and ash-kissing I'm going to have to do? I can only use the humans are forking morons excuse so many times before I—"

"You know what, bro?" Eleanor seethes, crossing her arms as she turns toward Michael. "I don't even want to hear it after the stunt you pulled at Gunnar's birthday party. You have some nerve getting on our case when you nearly blew our cover a few weeks back."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't have spiraled into that stupid little existential crisis if the human rain cloud over there hadn't forced me to think about retirement," Michael retorts, glaring daggers at Chidi.

"Your hurt feelings are not Chidi's responsibility," Eleanor argues hotly. "He was just trying to get you to understand what it's like to be human, so that maybe you would finally start taking his classes a little more seriously. All he's ever done is try to help you, and you've been nothing but ungrateful."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever. Thanks for the lecture, mom," Michael grits through clenched teeth.

"Don't call me mom," Eleanor scoffs. "Chidi and I are not your parents, dude."

"Well, you certainly act like an old married couple," Tahani mumbles under her breath, just loud enough for Eleanor to hear.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eleanor snaps, rounding on Tahani instead.

"Oh please, the two of you are downright insufferable," Tahani groans dramatically. "Whispering away in secret and cackling like hens at some stupid inside joke about John Rawls, constantly dominating the conversation during Chidi's lectures while the rest of us struggle to keep up—"

"Well maybe if you actually showed up to class once in a while—" Eleanor retorts.

"Because you're so perfect, Miss I Once Had An Emotional Breakdown In The Middle Of A Bed, Bath, And Beyond Over A Family Pack Of Toothbrushes!"

"You suck at keeping secrets!" Eleanor whines, genuinely hurt by Tahani's betrayal.

"Oh God. Oh God. Oh God," Chidi panics, resuming his frantic pacing.

For lack of nothing better to do, Jason starts making a series of loud, unintelligible noises like vroom vroom and beep beep just so he can feel like he's part of the conversation. 

Michael rolls his eyes at the four of them, mumbling something about stupid, useless human emotions. 

After that, it doesn't take long before everyone is at each other's throats, insults flying as they all attempt to blame one another for the evening's atrocities.

"Wait a minute," Jason exclaims amidst all the shouting, eyes sliding in and out of focus as he attempts to piece everything together. "You guys, I think this might be the Bad Place!"

Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Michael all turn to look at him, stunned to silence.

"Are…are you serious right now?" Chidi asks, head tilted to the side in genuine concern. 

Jason merely shrugs, the corners of his mouth twisted into a frown.

"I thought you guys were supposed to be friends," he says simply. "And friends don't fight like this, or blame bad stuff on each other, or call each other mean names like you guys are doing. So there's no way that this is the Good Place."

Eleanor sighs heavily, kicks off her shoes, and slides down the opposing wall, sinking to the floor as she tucks her head between her knees and covers her face with her hands. Chidi closes his eyes and rubs his temples with the tips of his fingers.

"As much as it pains me to say this, Jason is right," Chidi admits begrudgingly. "Arguing and blaming each other isn't going to accomplish anything. We're supposed to be a team. Team Cockroach, remember? What we need to do is buckle down and work together to come up with a better plan."

"But we've already tried a bunch of different plans, and they've all failed," Eleanor groans, raking her fingers through her hair. "Last night, we failed so hard that we couldn't even manage to pretend to be ourselves. Let's face it! We're just a bunch of dumb, dead humans who thought they could go up against actual hellfire demons with Men in Black mind-erasy powers. I mean, we're talking about three hundred and eighteen immortal motherforkers who stuck us with a clam chowder fountain and a restaurant called the Hokey Gnocchi. These nut-jobs are pure evil."

"I think you're forgetting about the fact that we've managed to outsmart Michaelover eight hundred times now," Tahani reminds them all with a radiant smile. "No matter how many times he kept rebooting this little afterlife torture sequence of his, we kept figuring it out. That's got to count for something."

"Well, fork you too, Tahani," Michael says bitterly.

"What I meant," Tahani amends with an air of impatience. "Is that if we can outsmart Michael, then tricking Vicky should be easy-peasy."

"Eleanor, actually," Chidi corrects her, his expression thoughtful. "Eleanor kept figuring it out. Every. Single. Time. That's…incredibly impressive, when you think about it."

Tahani mumbles something unintelligible and turns her back to hide an exhaustive eye roll. 

"I know that what we're trying to undertake here seems impossible, and it's easy to get carried away with anger and anxiety," Chidi adds with a self-deprecating little smile. "But I think that as long as we've got Eleanor, we have a fighting chance." 

Eleanor's lips twitch into a small smile in spite of herself, face growing hot under Chidi's intense, unwavering gaze. Even in moments of complete chaos, when everything seems hopeless, Chidi always tries to look on the bright side. He's her flashlight.

A series of resounding groans and retches of nausea snap Eleanor out of her reverie, and when she whips around to face Michael and Tahani, she's surprised to find them scoffing and rolling their eyes at her.

"What the fork is your problem?" Eleanor hisses, anger flaring up anew. 

"Look, I'm sorry you're still upset about the whole me figuring out your stupid little torture plan thing," she says, eyes narrowing as she glares back and forth between Michael and Tahani. "And I'm sorry you're still salty about the fact that the Arizona dirtbag figured it out before you did, but that doesn't mean you can just—"

"No, no, it's not that," Tahani sighs, waving a hand dismissively. "It's you two."

She points one perfectly-manicured, accusatory finger between Eleanor and Chidi.

"What," Chidi stutters as he leans back against the blackboard and casually rests his elbow in a pile of chalk dust. "What do you mean us two?"

"You and Eleanor," Tahani says, rolling her eyes like it should be obvious. "The secret glances, the simpering little smiles, the longing looks. You think the rest of us don't notice, but we do. You're not exactly subtle."

Chidi looks like someone just slapped him across the face.

"I don't…um…underst—" he flounders, his face growing hot under Tahani's scrutinizing gaze.

"Just fork each other already," Michael practically shouts, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. "Clearly you both want to. You can smell the pheromones from a mile away. Literally."

Michael pinches the bridge of his nose and mimes vomiting.

"Excuse me?" Eleanor and Chidi shout in unison, looking positively scandalized. They turn to face one another, lips curving upward in twin smirks, Eleanor on the verge of shouting, Jinx! You owe me a soda! before they remember the intensely awkward situation at hand, and their eyes widen in horror, cheeks blushing an identical shade of crimson.

"You see what I mean?" Tahani says conspiratorially, nudging Michael in the ribs. "Completely insufferable."

"I couldn't agree more," Michael says, sneering at the pair of them.

"Old married couple, just like I said. They've even started mirroring one another. It's very unsettling," Tahani says, adding in a disgusted little shiver for dramatic effect.

"Yeah, whatever, crazy lady," Eleanor dismisses with a nervous laugh.

"Me and Eleanor?" Chidi agrees, his voice shrill and a little hysterical. "The very idea is preposterous."

Eleanor's fake smile falters for the tiniest fraction of a second, heart dropping down into the pit of her stomach. She steals a glance up at Chidi, waiting for him to take it back.

"Uh huh, yeah, sure," Michael chides, rolling his eyes. "Look, I get that humans have limited eyesight and can't see in all the same dimensions that an all-powerful immortal being like myself can see, but trust me, the human colloquialism you could cut the sexual tension with a knife is applicable here. And it's disgusting."

Michael grimaces as he wafts his hands through the air, batting away an invisible cloud of sexual tension. 

Eleanor slips further down the wall until she's practically lying on the floor, splayed out like a ragdoll, and covers her face with her hands. 

Chidi looks like he's just swallowed a lemon.

"What we mean to say," Tahani amends in what she imagines is a sage, soothing tone. "Though perhaps not as ineloquently as Michael has just phrased it…is that whatever this thing is that's transpiring between the two of you…it's proving incredibly disruptive to our classes. And anything that delays my one-way ticket to the actual Good Place is a complication that must be snuffed out. So please, for the sake of our sanity and your own, spare us all another month of having to deal with the…in Michael's case, literal…suffocating sexual tension that pollutes the air every time the pair of you are in a room together."

"Yeah, not only is it disrupting ethics classes," Michael chimes in. "But it's bleeding into the way you two interact when you're out in public together. Instead of hating each other's guts, you're mooning about making doe-eyes at each other, and it's starting to make everyone suspicious."

"We're not doing anything—" Eleanor protests, but Michael cuts her off.

"I just don't get how you two can't see it," he says thoughtfully, his tone softening a little. "I mean, it's glaringly obvious to the rest of us. Heck, they're a bunch of idiotic demons who don't know their ash from their elbow, and even they can see that you two have got it bad for each other. So just…do something about it, will you? Get it all out of your system so you can stop inflicting this will they, won't they garbage on the rest of us."

Chidi makes a short succession of high-pitched choking sounds, mouth hanging open in shock as Michael crosses his arms and giggles wickedly, only just realizing how uncomfortable he's made the two of them.

"On that note," Tahani trills happily, looping an arm through Jason's and dragging him toward the front door. "I think we ought to leave these two alone to…chat, as it were. Michael, would you care to join us for brunch? I hear they're serving savory cheesecake at The Good Plates."

Michael sighs and begrudgingly agrees, shooting one last pointed glare at Eleanor and Chidi, and mouthing get your shit together before whipping out the door after Jason and Tahani. 

• • •

The silence that settles into the air is stifling, and Eleanor can say with absolute certainty that she has never felt so uncomfortable in her entire life. Every inch of her body feels like it's on fire. Even her teeth are itchy. 

The seconds tick by at an agonizing crawl, the only sound punctuating their panicked breathing the fake cheerful birdsong playing on a loop outside of Eleanor's kitchen window. After a few moments of unbearable awkwardness, Eleanor chances a peek through her fingers and glances up at Chidi, who looks like he's on the verge of having a heart attack. 

"So that was—" Eleanor starts, not entirely sure how she wants that sentence to end. She falters, battling the instinctual urge to beat down her feelings and write the moment off as a joke. She studies Chidi's expression, trying to gauge his reaction. 

"Interesting," she says, decidedly neutral.

"Yeah, that was…something," Chidi agrees, pushing his glasses all the way up his forehead until they're perched on top of his hair, before realizing that he can't actually see without them, and then slapping them back down onto the bridge of his nose.

"I mean, it's crazy, right? You and me…together," Chidi lilts, and Eleanor could almost swear she hears a note of hope in his voice. Like he's asking her to prove him wrong. 

Instead, the words yeah, crazy tumble out of her mouth before she can swallow them back, followed by a heavy, defeated sigh.

"Cool," Chidi says softly, his voice betraying the tiniest hint of pain as he scrambles for an excuse, any excuse, to get as far away from Eleanor's tiny, cramped living room as he possibly can, before the all-consuming tension between them threatens to swallow him whole. 

Feed his cat. Water his plants. 

Except, he doesn't actually have a cat. Or plants.

Well, maybe he can ask Janet for one or the other. That way, it won't be a lie, whichever excuse he chooses. 

Sure, that seems reasonable. He'll just get a cat. Ethical dilemma solved.

"Cool," he says slowly, making his mind up. "Hey, you know what? I…uh…actually have to get going. Gotta head back to my apartment, because…I just realized…that I...forgot…to…water my cat."

Well…gold star for effort.

"But you don't have a cat," Eleanor says, head tilted to the side in confusion.

"Feed my plants, water my cat…it's one of those two," Chidi chokes out around a manic laugh. Without further word or warning, he sprints toward the front door and sweeps from the room before Eleanor has a chance to say anything else.

Yeah, she thinks to herself. Crazy.

• • •

She's not entirely sure how much time she spends sprawled out on the floor, staring at her front door, willing Chidi to walk back in and say…something. But the minutes tick past until she's lost all feeling in her toes and the muscles in her back have started to cramp horribly. And so, with a heavy sigh, Eleanor eases herself up off the floor and begins pacing the living room in a very Chidi-esque manner, wracking her brain to try to figure out what the hell just happened.

Married couple. Secret smiles. Longing looks. Pfft.

They're wrong, obviously, Michael and Tahani. They're way off the mark. Chidi even said it himself…the very idea of the two of them together is just ridiculous. If that's not confirmation enough, then—

But the hurt in his eyes when you agreed with him, Eleanor's brain chimes in, and her heart does a summersault in her chest.

"Nope!" Eleanor shouts into the silent void that is her living room. 

"This is stupid. Feelings are stupid," she says, repeating it like a mantra as she paces the length of her living room.

She absolutely doesn't have feelings for Chidi. Sure, she likes him well enough…as a friend. And why wouldn't she? He's a great person. He's kind, and he's patient, and he's selfless to a fault. But that's all. Their relationship is strictly platonic, that of a student and a teacher. And yeah, it's not like she's against the whole sleeping with her professor thing, but this is Chidi we're talking about. 

Chidi, with his stupid Clark Kent glasses and his extensive turtleneck collection. Chidi, with his obnoxious whining and his exhaustive indecisiveness. Chidi, who always gets a stomach ache at the slightest hint of stress. There's way more stuff that she hates about him than likes about him. For instance…

The way he drones on and on about his favorite philosophers, timing out at a two-hour monologue about John Rawls. (Granted, he did laugh and kinda make fun of himself after he found out she'd been timing him. It was actually a pretty nice moment. But still.) 

The way he twitches his eyebrows whenever he says absolutism. The way he says cleanliness is next to godliness as he chastises her for leaving piles of dishes and dirty laundry all over the house. 

The way his irritatingly superior way of talking to her always makes her feel like everything he says is a backhanded compliment. (And yeah, she knows he doesn't mean to come off that way, and he always apologizes whenever he accidentally does, and he never, ever makes fun of her, even when she sounds like an ignorant garbage person, which is nice.) But that doesn't mean that she's in love with him or anything. 

Would she go so far as to say that he's attractive? Sure. Chidi's not bad to look at. He's actually kind of cute…but in like an incredibly nerdy, Super-Dork Jones kind of way. And he's surprisingly jacked (which she found out by accident that one time when a bee flew into his shirt and he flipped out and stripped down to his skivvies. It was hilarious.) 

But Eleanor can't think about him like that, because he's Chidi. Best friend slash afterlife savior slash weird annoying teacher that she hates Chidi.

Chidi, with his stupid, adorable face that lights up every time he sees her. Chidi, with his annoyingly infectious laughter that makes her feel like she's just downed a mug of steaming hot coffee laced with caramel and a shot of bourbon on a cold winter morning. 

Chidi forking Anagonye, with a smile like actual motherforking sunshine that melts the ice and barbed wire around her cold, dead heart, warming every bit of her from the inside out. Chidi, with his kind, dark eyes that pierce hers with such a fervid intensity that she's worried one lingering glance will give her away, and—

Oh fork, she's in love with Chidi.

And with that, the floodgates burst open, and suddenly she's drowning in a cascade of daydreams she's tried so hard to fight against. 

The two of them, staying late after one of his classes, locked a heated argument that sparks bold confessions and surprised gasps. 

The two of them, caught in the middle of a thunderstorm, giggling and shouting as they run to seek shelter, stolen kisses and breathless laughter, hands grasping at each other's rainsoaked clothes as Chidi pulls her into his side to keep her warm. 

The two of them, wrapped up in a sea of blankets, Eleanor's head resting against his chest as Chidi's fingertips trace constellations in the freckles that dapple her skin. All the things she wants, but knows she can never have.

But you did have it, that little voice at the back of her mind whispers. Once.

Twenty times, actually, Eleanor retorts with a smug smile.

"Fork it," she sighs, dashing to her bedroom and digging out the battered old copy of Cannonball Run 2, hidden at the bottom of her underwear drawer. 

Because she's tired of wondering. Tired of guessing. Tired of filling in the blanks and building it up into something more than it probably was. Tired of letting her imagination run wild, because she's willing to bet that the real thing isn't even half as good as all the stuff she's been imagining. 

She's fed up and frustrated, and so over dealing with this emotional rollercoaster of what-ifs and maybes, so she might as well just get it over with and watch the damn thing. 

• • •

Janet pops into the living room the moment Eleanor calls her name, which all but gives Eleanor a mini heart attack. After reassuring her nearly a dozen times that no one but the two of them can view Eleanor's search history, Janet promptly installs a VCR adapter into Eleanor's television, and disappears the moment Eleanor thanks her.

Eleanor double-checks the lock on her front door, closes all the blinds, and makes absolutely certain that she's alone, before popping the tape into the VCR. She holds her breath as it starts up, and watches it in little increments, pausing and un-pausing like she's anticipating a jump-scare in a horror film. 

It starts with the two of them arguing, because of course it does. They've locked themselves in Mindy's guest bedroom, and are fighting about how best to take down Michael. Eleanor keeps suggesting that they somehow throw Tahani under the bus ("Maybe we throw her a little bit harder…maybe under a bigger bus!") and Chidi is rolling his eyes and calling her impossible. He's yelling at her, she's yelling at him, and things are getting pretty heated as they bicker like an old married cou— nope! 

Normally, Eleanor is the ballsy, shameless one when it comes to seduction, which is why she's shocked when Chidi makes the first move. Both versions of Eleanor let out a surprised gasp that quickly turns into a contented sigh, because even in his passionate spontaneity, Chidi is gentle, careful, and sweet. 

He cradles her face in the palms of his hands and kisses her softly, slowly, straddling that fine line between fervent and tame so effortlessly, and damn he looks good when he closes his eyes and weaves his hands through the length of her hair, urging her closer until she's pressed right up against his chest. She's never seen him like this before. This isn't the Chidi she's used to. He's all fire and confidence, and it's…actually kinda sexy. 

And then he pulls back and fixes her with this frightened, shamefaced expression and immediately starts apologizing (and there's the Chidi she knows.)

"Oh my god, Eleanor, I am so sorry," he says in a panicked rush. "I…I don't know why I did that, I just…didn't know what else to do…you kept interrupting me and talking over me, and I was just so overcome with this urge to just—"

On-screen Eleanor interrupts him again, but this time it's with a kiss of her own. Her style is a little rougher, a little more self-assured as she tugs him closer by the collar of his button-down shirt, delighting in the way it elicits a soft, low moan from the back of his throat.

"Guess I interrupted you again," she teases, drawing back from him with a cheeky little smirk. "What are you gonna do about it?"

And Chidi…honest to God smiles. It's equal parts exasperated and amused, and…maybe a little flirty? At least, that's what she thinks Chidi would look like if he ever tried to flirt.

Things move pretty quickly from there. 

There's a whole lot of kissing, and then they're taking each other's clothes off, and all the while, Chidi is repeatedly asking her if this is okay, if she's sure she wants to do this with him. Eleanor punctuates each enthusiastic yes with a kiss, winding her way down the length of his neck and all across his chest and shoulders. 

And then he's kissing her all over, taking his time as he teases her, slowly, languidly. Then she's got him pinned to the bed, propped up on his elbows, staring up at her like she's a work of art. 

And then she's prowling up the length of him, straddling his hips and positioning herself just so until she's hovering teasingly above him. For one split-second of a moment, the world is still, and then—

Oh.

And that's when she hears the sound of her front door opening. 

That's when she remembers that she'd given Chidi a key.

"Eleanor," Chidi calls from the hallway, his voice laced with anguish and concern. "Eleanor, I don't like the way we left things before. Could we just…"

He sighs heavily, pockets his keys, and paces toward the living room.

"Could we maybe talk about it? Get some frozen yogurt, and just— oh— oh my god!"

"OH MY GOD," Eleanor screams back at him as he rounds the corner, eyes wide in abject horror as he stares at the moving figures on her television screen. 

Eleanor smashes the off button, but only succeeds in hitting the up arrow for the volume, making it louder and louder until the only ambience left in the room is the sound of their breathless moans, calling out each other's names as the squeak of Mindy's guest bed hums along in a steady rhythm, the sheer volume of their on-screen dalliance all but shaking the house as it reverberates off the living room walls.

"Help me turn it off!" Eleanor shouts at him frantically, jumping up and down on the couch cushions. 

Chidi shakes his head as if coming out of a daydream, tears his eyes away from the screen, and grabs the remote out of Eleanor's flailing hands. With one simple click, the screen disappears, and they're left with a resounding silence that fills their ears with a deafening ringing.

"Oh my god," Eleanor whines, drawing out the syllables with a strangled cry as she plunks down onto the couch cushions and covers her face with her hands, wondering idly if it's possible to die from embarrassment when you're already dead. 

"So, um," she says after a few moments of unbearable silence, tossing him a sheepish smile. "You were saying something about fro-yo?"

Chidi purses his lips into a very thin line, closes his eyes, and shakes his head.

"Eleanor," he chokes out, his voice breaking an octave higher than it usually is. "What the actual fork did I just see?"

"It's…uh…" Eleanor flounders, desperately grasping at any excuse she can use to avoid actually having to tell him the truth. 

For fuck's sake, she hasn't had nearly enough time to process it herself, let alone sit down and have a conversation about a sex tape that neither of them remember starring in with the man she — apparently — is in love with. Was in love with? She's not quite sure how this whole reboot thing actually works. 

In any case, she's absolutely mortified, and her brain is screaming abort! abort! but she knows there's no way in hell she'd ever get away with lying about it. Not with Chidi, the morality-happy human lie detector. 

Besides, there's not enough brain bleach in the universe to wash away the lurid images he'd just burned into his retinas, so Eleanor sighs in defeat, and begrudgingly tells him the short and sweet version of what happened when they went to the Medium Place to visit Mindy a little over a month ago, leaving out as many dirty little details as humanly possible. By the end of her story, Chidi is staring at her with pure, unbridled shock.

"If this is some kind of weird, twisted joke you're playing on me, Eleanor, it's not funny," he says, pacing back and forth across the living room in a perfect imitation of how he'd looked just a few hours prior.

"I'm not forking with you, I swear," Eleanor insists, fiddling with a loose string on one of her throw pillows and looking anywhere but directly at him.

"So...what, we just...I mean, you and I, we…" he quavers, swallowing thickly. "How?"

Eleanor's eyes grow wide.

"Oh come on, dude, please tell me I'm not gonna have to have the birds and the bees talk with you," she scoffs. "You're a nerd, sure, but it's not like you're not attractive or anything. You're actually kinda hot, and surprisingly ripped. There's no way that you died a virg—"

"No," Chidi interjects, closing his eyes and rubbing at his temples. "No, no. I've had sex before. I can assure you that I know exactly what I'm doing when it comes to…that…it's just…I didn't think that we would ever—"

"You're tellin' me, buddy. And twenty-something times, no less," Eleanor says with a small shake of her head, vehemently trying not to think about the fact that Chidi apparently knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to—

"TWENTY TIMES?!" Chidi shouts, quieting down immediately when Eleanor shushes him and waves emphatically at the nosy neighbors in the house next to hers. 

"We had...I mean, you and I, we...twenty times?" Chidi asks, exasperated.

"Could've been more, I don't know," Eleanor guesses. "That's only accounting for what Mindy The Pervert kept track of. Twenty times over the span of eight different days."

"That's an average of 2.5 times per day!" Chidi exclaims, and Eleanor can't help but snort in amusement. Of course he would be thinking about math at a time like this.

"But how?" Chidi insists, raking his hands through his hair. "It's just so unbelievable."

And, okay, that hurt a little more than she thought it would. It's not like she's hideous or anything.

"We were paired off as soul mates," Eleanor says defensively. "It's not that huge of a shocker."

"Yes, but from what I can gather, we always slept together after we had already figured out that the whole thing was a set-up," Chidi reasons. "It wasn't something we did out of obligation, because we actually thought that we had found our one true soul mate. In fact, in some of the reboots, we weren't paired up with one another, and were therefore technically cheating on our soul mates with each other." 

"And yes, I know that none of it was real and they were all demons in disguise, so there really isn't an ethical dilemma there, but still," he says. "That means that over the course of eight hundred and two different timelines, in a seemingly perfect afterlife containing three hundred and twenty other people, you and I somehow managed to not only keep finding one another, but kept ending up romantically entangled."

"Think about how remarkable that is," he adds with an air of excitement, slipping into full-blown professor mode as he dissects the logistics of their interactions and subsequent feelings, finding comfort in the abstract and the theoretical. And they say romance is dead, Eleanor muses.

"This impossible, serendipitous phenomenon happened, over and over again in a multitude of different ways, across eight hundred and two different timelines," Chidi says. "Against all odds, we kept seeking each other out. Something kept drawing us together…but what and why?"

A million and one different ways to ruin the moment run through Eleanor's mind, threatening to break through that flimsy filter. She opens her mouth, poised on the edge of a terrible joke, but Chidi barrels past the interruption, far too caught up in his ideological rambling.

"When you really think about it," he says, pacing the living room in a dizzying blur. "It begs the question of one of the oldest philosophical arguments ever posed…the existence of fate, destiny, and free will."

Chidi pauses mid-pace and chances a glance over at Eleanor. His expression softens.

"I'll admit," he says, the faintest hint of a smile flickering across his face. "When Michael first told me that I had a soul mate, I was…cautiously optimistic. The hope of finding true companionship, well…it seemed too good to be true. And it was…or so I thought."

"Now, I have to wonder if the concept of soul mates isn't just idyllic hokum, yet another torture tactic dreamt up by Michael and his minions to toy with our emotions," he says. "Perhaps I do have a soul mate after all…and maybe that's why, no matter how many times we're forced to forget one another, against all odds, we keep finding our way back to one another."

Eleanor's heart thunders in her chest, taking in the gravity of what he'd just said. Back on earth, her two basic instincts were either to bolt or make a bad joke whenever someone tried to get all srs bsns about emotions with her. And right now, she's fighting harder than she ever has to keep both of those reactions at bay.

"We knew that we weren't actually supposed to be together right from the off, yet we still ended up wanting each other," Chidi continues, a self-satisfied little smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "So in that sense, we do have free will, because we chose each other. And we kept choosing each other, over and over again, in spite of the fact that our very environment was so vehemently against us doing so. The question is: why? Why were we drawn to one another, over and over again?"

"Hate sex?" Eleanor ventures with a sardonic smile, her resolve shattering as she vies for the latter defensive tactic, and the words come tumbling out of her mouth before she can think them through. 

"Maybe you were talking way too much like you are right now and I jumped your bones just to get you to shut up. Or maybe you stopped questioning every little detail long enough to notice that I'm a hot piece of ash and you couldn't keep your hands off of me."

"Be serious, Eleanor," Chidi sighs wearily, the hopeful little smile fading from his lips.

"Oh come on, are you honestly suggesting that we might actually be soul mates?" Eleanor asks shrilly, genuinely terrified that it might actually be true.

"I—" Chidi falters, considering her. "I don't know. Maybe? It's hard to identify what our motivations were, given that our memories kept getting erased." 

"Were there deeper feelings involved, or was it purely physical?" he theorizes. "Perhaps there's some truth to your jesting. After all, it's not hard to imagine that from a biological standpoint, we would be drawn to one another. As you've stated on several occasions, you're not opposed to my physique. And you are conventionally beautiful, and charming in a weird, quirky kind of way that makes my stomach flip…sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way…"

Eleanor's head spins as she takes this all in, trying her damnedest not to latch onto the fact that Chidi said she was beautiful, or that sometimes, she makes his stomach flip in a good way.

"So it's not implausible," Chidi presses on with a slight frown. "To think that it was merely physical…some carnal, animal instinct born out of tension and heightened emotions…and maybe, in some of the reboots, it was as simple as that."

"However, the sheer volume at which it kept happening," he counter-argues, lips quirking upward into an unmistakably smug smile. "And the fact that we were repeatedly drawn to one another, despite our dramatic differences and constant quarreling, leads me to believe that there was something more at play, something deeper…some mysterious, magnetic pull, driving us toward one another on an unconscious level."

As Chidi slows to the end of his speech, his voice is barely above a whisper, soft and soothing, and despite Eleanor's pounding heart, the gentle sound of his voice keeps her calm, steady, focused. And fuck, this guy must really be worth it, because Eleanor has never fought this hard to suppress her natural instincts before. 

Every nerve ending in her body is lit up like a live wire, adrenaline swimming through her veins, screaming at her to run, because feelings are stupid and love is weakness, but all she can think about is the way she looked on that tape when she confessed to Chidi that she loved him. Happy, relaxed, secure. 

And even now, when she looks into Chidi's bright, hopeful eyes, there's no pang of guilt because someone fell harder for her than she did for them, no wave of nausea at the thought of having to open up and talk about her feelings, no desire to just bounce without so much as a cursory breakup text. 

When she looks at Chidi, she sees a man who's fighting just as hard against his own insecurities and instincts, because he honestly believes that what they've got is something real, something worth fighting for. That Eleanor is someone worth fighting for….which is something Chidi has proven to her, time and time again in a multitude of different ways…and she can't believe it's taken her this long to realize it.

"Maybe…" she sighs heavily, heart leaping into her throat as she glances up at him. "Maybe you were onto something with that whole deeper feelings thing." 

Chidi seems to struggle with an internal battle for which emotion gets control of his facial features. In the end, cautious curiosity wins.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" he asks, dragging out the words with slow uncertainty, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"Oh god, um…okay. So there's something kinda important that I forgot to tell you about that tape," she says shakily, anxiety ramping up to full capacity as she realizes what she's about to admit. 

"And I need you to not freak out, okay? Because if you freak out, then I'm gonna start freaking out, because I've never actually said this before and meant it, so it's kind of a big deal, and I—"

"Eleanor," Chidi says softly, and she could swear she's never heard her name sound so sweet. "It's okay. Just tell me."

"Okay, here goes," Eleanor sighs. "At the very end, after we—"

Eleanor falters, and Chidi quickly changes his expectant expression to an understanding nod, for which Eleanor is immensely grateful, because right now, she feels like a blushing teenager in high school sex ed.

"We were cuddling," she admits hesitantly, because even that is a foreign concept to her. "And talking about what was going to happen to us if our memories got erased again, and I…I told you that I love you…and you said it back."

Something ever so subtle shifts in Chidi's expression, a sense of wonder mingled with cautious disbelief that tugs the corners of his lips up into a tentative smile. They stare at one another for what feels like ages, willing themselves to remember some small sliver of those stolen intimate moments. And then—

"Show me," Chidi says suddenly, his tone uncharacteristically confident, decisive. 

Eleanor blinks rapidly, startled back to reality.

"What?" she asks, a little sharper than she'd meant.

"Show me the tape," he says simply.

Eleanor's eyebrows rise so high they're practically straddling her hairline.

"You…uh…you want to see us having—"

"No, no," Chidi assures her with a nervous chuckle. "No, I mean…show me the part at the end, where we…where we said—"

"Oh," Eleanor sighs in relief.

"I mean no offense to you," Chidi explains, worried that he's somehow upset her. "But I can't just take your word for it. I need to see it for myself…hear myself saying those words."

"Yeah," Eleanor agrees with a small nod. "Yeah, that makes sense."

Chidi holds out a hand for Eleanor to take, and gently pulls her to her feet. For the smallest span of seconds, she feels the hastened thrum of his heart against hers, reverberating against her ribcage as she's pressed right up against him, his lips a mere few inches from hers. 

With a regretful sigh, she draws back from him and grabs the remote off the top of the bookcase where Chidi had left it. She clicks the button to turn it on, fast-forwards a little, and watches as a miniature version of herself from a hundred alternate realities ago drapes an arm across Chidi's chest, nuzzling in under his chin as he curls an arm around her side and gently caresses her shoulders.

I don't know what's gonna happen to us, but I need to tell you something. I love you…and you don't need to respond, because I know you have trouble saying how you feel—

I love you, too.

The Chidi on-screen smiles down at her warmly, before leaning forward and pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her forehead. A few seconds later, the tape cuts out, and the screen goes blank. Eleanor and Chidi turn to face one another.

"See? I wasn't lying," Eleanor jokes, but it comes across a little more defensive than she'd meant it to.

"I never thought you were," Chidi assures her. "It's just so…unbelievable."

Eleanor makes a sound like a wounded kitten, and Chidi's eyes grow wide.

"No, no," he says apologetically, reaching for her hand and gently encompassing it between his own. "I don't mean that the idea of someone loving you is unbelievable, trust me, it's just that—"

Chidi sighs heavily, trying to compose himself.

"I've never admitted feelings like that without hesitation before," he explains, looking slightly chagrined. "Even on the rare occasion where I did finally say it to someone, I was never really certain if I ever actually meant it, or if I had simply said it out of a sense of guilt or obligation." 

"Regardless of the reason, it never truly felt genuine," he says. "From that point on, and in fact, until well after the relationship had ended, I constantly questioned it. Sometimes aloud, while I was with them. It drove all of my ex-girlfriends crazy, and quite frankly, I don't blame them for resenting me because of it. Looking back, it was probably the driving factor that ruined the majority of my adult relationships. They were always the first to say it, and I just…paused…and stared at them blankly."

Eleanor quirks an eyebrow, fighting back a self-satisfied little smile at the idea that Chidi — or at least, some version of him — had loved her more than any of his exes.

"But on that tape, with you, all those lifetimes ago," he says softly, his voice like honey. "I told you that I loved you with such unequivocal conviction that I almost didn't recognize myself. And maybe that means that somewhere along the line, you began to have just as much of a positive effect on me as I did on you…that you taught me how to be a more decisive person, to be true to myself and to what I wanted, rather than just relying on what I thought was morally right. And in that timeline, I wanted you."

And this, this is exactly what Eleanor means when she says that Chidi's smile is like actual sunshine, because the look he gives her is so bright, so warm, so full of pride, that it melts her heart. 

Somehow, this turtleneck-wearing, ethics-obsessed, indecisive nerd with a penchant for unapologetic candor and tedious rigidity has found a way to inject more poetic heart and soul into one string of words than all the cheesy love songs, cliché rom coms, and trashy romance novels Eleanor has ever tried to escape into. 

Eleanor can't help but smile, lips poised to respond with something she hopes is just as sweet and sincere, when—

"Of course, the exact opposite might be true," Chidi counters, killing the moment with a swift dose of cynicism. "There is the terrifying possibility that none of this is real…that we're all just pawns in Michael's game…that everything on that tape, the Medium Place, Mindy St. Clair, even Michael defecting to our side…is all a lie."

And just like that, Eleanor's smile disappears. Dark clouds roll over the sun, and an aching emptiness that she doesn't quite understand settles into the pit of her stomach. Their memories have been rebooted so many times, and they've been teased and tortured and forked around by a team of hellish demons whose second nature is to lie between their teeth and make it sound like a kiss, that it's hard to tell what's real anymore, or who she can trust. 

She looks up into Chidi's eyes, expecting them to reflect the same hurt and confusion that she feels, but his expression is nothing short of calm, assured, and genuine. And in that moment, she instantly knows.

Chidi.

Chidi is real.

That flutter in her chest when he holds her hand. That's real.

And that's good enough for her.

"Or," Chidi says softly, giving her hand an affectionate squeeze. "It could be real." 

He smiles down at her encouragingly, coaxing her to follow suit.

"You see, there are certain things that you just can't fake, regardless of how powerful an immortal entity you are," he says with a casual roll of his eyes. 

"True, Michael has been erasing our minds, but what about the residual effects our actions and experiences have had on our bodies? What about muscle memory? What about all the little details that can't be accounted for? Dreams about places we've never been…familiar faces we could swear we've never met…the way our hearts race when we look at someone and can't quite figure out why a perfect stranger could have such a strong impact on us," he says, tilting his head forward to emphasize that he means her, and Eleanor can't help but bark out a nervous laugh.

"Even though we can't remember it, it all still happened," Chidi presses on. "So, if we truly were together as many times as Mindy said we were, then at some point, we would have started to pick up on each other's preferences and idiosyncrasies. I, for one, would have memorized the way your lips felt against mine…the way you liked to be touched."

A shot of adrenaline prickles the back of Eleanor's neck, sending shivers down her spine at the images he's just conjured. She bites her bottom lip to hide a smile, delighting in the way it makes Chidi falter for a moment, lost for words.

"Certain details," he says, eyes fixed on the curve of her lips. "Instinctual reactions, learned habits and routines…can't be so easily unlearned. Some part of us, in some small way, might be able to remember…even if it's not quite in the way that we expect."

Eleanor tilts her head to the side, trying to reason out what he'd just said.

"So, what, our bodies might remember what our brains forgot?" she asks curiously.

"It's a working theory," Chidi says with a surreptitious smile.

"Out of curiosity," he adds. "How many times did we say that to one another?"

"Just the once, according to Mindy," Eleanor replies. 

Chidi hums thoughtfully.

"Okay," he says with a small, decisive nod. "Well, that doesn't mean that those feelings weren't still there, all those other times. Theoretically speaking, in various alternate reboots, one or both of us could have fallen for the other, and just never worked up the nerve to say anything."

Eleanor smirks.

"An emotionally constipated narcissist who bottles up all of her feelings and a tortured academic who can't make up his mind about how he feels? Yeah, that checks out," she says, and Chidi lets out a breathless chuckle.

"So, given that line of logic…you could argue that there is a very real possibility that one or both of us…is doing that right now?" he asks slowly, tentatively, urging her to read between the lines. 

Eleanor pauses, considering him.

"Cheedster," she says, because she still can't help but ruin the moment just a little bit. Hey, she's not perfect, but she's working on it. "Are you trying to tell me that you have a crush on me?"

Chidi honest to God laughs, and Eleanor could swear she sees the faintest hint of a blush curl across the curves of his cheekbones.

"I might have been developing certain romantically inclined feelings toward you over the past few weeks," Chidi admits, and Eleanor can't help but laugh at his calculated, overtly logical sincerity.

"Okay," she says, taking a deep, shaky breath, because hey, maybe feelings aren't exactly stupid, but they're still hard to say aloud. "So yeah, maybe I have too."

They stand there for a moment, staring up at one another with big, goofy grins plastered across their faces, when a sudden thought occurs to Eleanor.

"So, wait, if you like me too, then why did you bolt earlier? I mean, Michael and Tahani outed us big time. That would have been the perfect moment to…you know…make a move," Eleanor says, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "So why didn't you?"

"Honestly?" Chidi says with a heavy sigh. "Nerves…and doubt…not about my own feelings, just…major doubt that you would ever feel the same way about me as I do about you. And, as you're probably painfully aware, I don't work well under pressure. I got too deep inside my own head, imagining all possible avenues of failure and rejection, and I just…panicked."

Eleanor offers him a sympathetic smile, because, well, she's been there.

"I actually ran back to my apartment," Chidi admits with a self-depreciating chuckle. "Good to know my exercise-induced asthma still kicks in in the afterlife, by the way."

"Oh, you poor thing," Eleanor frowns, running her free hand up the length of his arm in a comforting gesture.

"I was kicking myself all afternoon," he confesses. "Eventually, I made the decision to just go over to your house and…well, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, to be honest. I just knew that I had to see you, and going out for frozen yogurt was the first thing that popped into my head. I figured it would give us time to talk, and I could gauge your reaction and see if you felt the same way that I did…but then, of course, I got distracted by the sight of us having sex on your giant television…in graphic, vivid detail, I might add."

"But I mean…it looked pretty good, didn't it?" Eleanor giggles, nudging him playfully.

"It certainly sounded like we were both enjoying it," Chidi agrees, a note of pride in his voice. Eleanor's smile grows even wider.

"So this…how we feel right now, that's…that's real?" Eleanor asks hesitantly, because she has to make absolutely certain that she isn't just assuming here.

"It feels real," he says softly, eyes alight with hope.

"And it's mutual?" Eleanor asks, needing that extra little bit of reassurance. "None of this unrequited pining bullshirt?"

Chidi laughs, and even though Eleanor knows it's kind of at her expense, it's still the best sound in the world.

"Yes, Eleanor," he says, smiling brightly. "It's mutual."

"So, that means…that means that what we said on the tape…that was real, too," Eleanor says softly.

"Well," Chidi sighs, reaching for Eleanor's other hand and lacing his fingers with hers. "There's only one way to find out for sure."

He closes the distance between them in one swift stride, slipping one of his hands out of hers to gently cup her face. He leans in slowly, eyes fluttering closed as Eleanor gasps in surprise and starts to mirror him, but the delicate sound makes him skittish and he wavers for a moment, like his brain is two steps behind his body and he's only just realized how bold of a move he's just made. 

He reaches forward to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear, eyes meeting hers with panicked uncertainty, almost as if he's silently asking her, Is this okay? In lieu of an answer, Eleanor laces her arms around his shoulders and presses her lips against his, more delicately than she's ever kissed anyone before. 

It's simple, and it's sweet, and it lasts barely more than a few seconds, but that's all the time she needs to know how she feels. When Eleanor pulls away, Chidi is gazing into her eyes like she's just told him that magic is real.

"Wow," he says with a breathless chuckle. He starts to smile, but pauses midway when he sees the confused, slightly frustrated look on Eleanor's face.

"Is something wrong?" Chidi asks, starting to worry.

"You've got to be forking kidding me," Eleanor says with a small shake of her head, but to Chidi's immense relief, her tone is light and playful. 

"I really am in love with a nerd," she laughs, a brilliant smile spreading across her face as she looks up at Chidi, and before he has a chance to let those words truly sink in, she's pulled him back toward her by the collar of his button-down shirt, and captured him in another kiss. 

More confident this time, Chidi responds in kind, arms wrapping around her waist, one hand placed firmly against the small of her back to keep her steady, like they're slow-dancing. 

Led as if by instinct, they make their way back to Eleanor's bedroom, giggling as they trip over the stupid non-stairs, pausing only for a moment when Chidi lifts her up and gently places her on the ledge, edging between her legs and kissing her with fervor.

When they finally make it past the ledge and through her sliding bedroom doors, Eleanor wastes no time unbuttoning Chidi's shirt and gliding her hands across the canvas of his chest, reveling in the way his smooth, taut muscles feel beneath her fingertips. 

Chidi shrugs off his shirt with a casual roll of his shoulders, and Eleanor bites her lower lip, eyes roving the length of him with pure admiration. She meets his eyes and curves her eyebrows suggestively, and Chidi can't help but laugh, face growing hot as he pulls her flush against him. Ever so carefully, he slips his hands underneath the hem of her shirt and slides it off of her in one swift, fluid motion. 

Light as a whisper, he presses his lips against the back of her neck, taking pleasure in the way it makes her hair stand on end, sending shivers down her spine as he trails kisses across her collarbones, and is rewarded with a soft, low moan as Eleanor dips back onto the bed, winding her arms around his shoulders and gently pulling him down onto her. She's just reaching for the loop of his belt when one of his hands comes up to stop her.

"Eleanor, I just want to make absolutely sure…is this—" he says around a breathless moan as her fingertips tease the growing bulge in his trousers. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I mean…with me?" he clarifies in an echo of the way he'd sounded on the tape, uncertainty overtaking him. Eleanor shimmies up the length of the bed and props herself up on her elbows until she's eye-level with him.

"Do you want to?" she challenges, worrying for a moment that he somehow feels obligated to—

"Yes," he answers without missing a beat, followed by a quiet little chuckle in surprise at his own eagerness. "Yes, I definitely do."

His heart skips in his chest at the sight of her elated smile.

"Okay, then," Eleanor giggles, hands pressed against the curves of his chest as she skirts back down underneath him and makes quick work of the buttons of his trousers. "Shut up and help me get your pants off."

She's met with an exasperated laugh and an amused eye roll as Chidi slowly peels off the rest of his clothes, feeling the prickle of a blush across the apples of her cheeks as she takes in the sight of him, lips parted in surprise. 

Chidi offers her a sheepish smile, biting his lower lip as he kneels before her, easing her out of her jeans, and taking his time as he slides that last little bit of sheer, lacy fabric down over her hips, before burying his lips into the curves of her thighs, spurred on by a series of dulcet moans and gasps as Eleanor tips her head back and her eyes flutter closed.

He brings her teasingly, torturously close to the edge, and then pauses, winding a trail of kisses along the edge of her hip bones, smirking his way up the length of her torso as she giggles and writhes beneath him, noting every ticklish patch of skin he finds and pocketing those vital details for future teasing. 

As he reaches the soft, pink pout of her lips, he captures her in a slow, languid kiss, pouring every ounce of affection and longing into their gentle embrace as he settles his hips between the delicate curves of hers. 

Eleanor presses her forehead against his and closes her eyes, feeling the weight of his chest against hers, the thrum of his heart as it matches hers beat for beat, breathing in the comforting scent of him and burning every detail of him into her memory, not wanting to forget a single second of this. 

Because they might be in hell, but Eleanor is pretty damn sure that this is the closest to heaven she's ever been.

• • •

"Eleanor?" Chidi asks softly as they lay there sometime later in the evening, chests rising and falling in a steady rhythm, a mountain of blankets pulled up around their shoulders. 

Eleanor hums as a way of response, fingertips skating across the length of Chidi's finely-chiseled chest, smiling to herself as she replays a highlight reel of the last few hours, lost in her own little world.

"I love you," he whispers, and how he manages to evoke such heartfelt intensity into those three little words will never cease to amaze her. 

She jumps at the chance to say it back, overwhelmed by the unfamiliar need aching in her chest, when that last little nettlesome pang of doubt creeps into the back of her mind, and she pauses. 

"Are you sure?" she asks tentatively, easing herself up off of his chest and fixing him with a quizzical look. "Because I don't want you to feel like you have to say it, or—"

"Eleanor," he says softly, leaning forward and placing a swift, sweet kiss to the top of her forehead. "I have never been more certain of anything in my entire life."

Eleanor bites her lower lip to keep a ridiculously goofy grin from forming as she snuggles back down and rests her head against his chest.

"I love you, too," she whispers, pressing a series of kisses across the curves of his torso. 

They lay there like that for a little while longer, soaking in the serenity of the moment as Chidi grazes his hand along the arc of Eleanor's shoulders. In a world unfamiliar, Eleanor has never felt so at home.

"What do you think is going to happen to us?" she asks as she worries her lower lip, echoing the same fear shared by a not-so-different version of herself from a hundred lifetimes ago. "What if our big deception plan fails, and they send us all to the real Bad Place? I don't want to have to forget you again."

Chidi ponders that for a moment, tensing ever so slightly and then uncoiling, all within the span of a few seconds. He wraps his arm around Eleanor's side, pulling her closer and holding her tight as he presses his lips against her temple.

"Then we'll just have to keep finding one another," he says, far calmer and more confident than he's ever sounded before. "I have a feeling we always will."

He laces his fingers with hers, giving her an affectionate, reassuring squeeze. 

He makes it feel like a promise.

[the-cooler-sidestep]

i've been watching this hour and fifteen minute video on this obscure laptop from like 2010 and i wish i could communicate to all of you how hadleycore this is

like. the reviewers abject horror about how the computer switches OS within 30 seconds. The fact that part of the firmware is called B.E.E.R. and P.A.R.T.I.E.S. It's so much. heres the video if you wanna watch

[theshadowsingersraven]

"I wish that people who are inclined to crusade against "dangerous books" or "abusive ships" would try to think about fantasy in a way that's less literal and more psychological."

A notable quote from Contrapoints' thorough, well-researched, and psychologically robust video Twilight. A video many people in this fanbase are overdue in watching. But it's quite long, so I'll get the main point across:

. . : : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Dines claimed "Fifty Shades glamorized and eroticized violence against women and rebranded it as romance." She describes going to see the movie in a theater full of "young women with cocktails," and watching in abject horror quote "a film that depicted, in unbearable detail, how to lure a lonely, isolated child into 'consenting' to sexual abuse. Watching a seasoned predator toy with his immature prey, you are left with a knot in the pit of your stomach that won't go away, no matter how many cocktails you down."

Gail, it's "Twilight" fanfiction. When I watch "Fifty Shades", I don't feel like I'm watching a seasoned predator. I feel like I'm watching a woman's fantasy. Because I am.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : :

And if people like Gail Dines are too obtuse to notice the difference, that's kind of their problem. I've been holding this in for 10 years, and I'm gonna say it. I am begging these people to learn to think psychologically instead of literally, so that they're not constantly baffled and traumatized upon encountering literally the most common type of sexual fantasy that people have. I guess when your only analytic tool is a sledgehammer, you see every problem as an author whose legs aren't hobbled yet."

[lasesmed]

ever since i watched the tom nicholas video about youtubers refusing to put down their microphones, its becomes incredibly aggravating to me anytime i watch a youtuber doing it, much akin to living in blissful ignorance before learning fire codes, and then living in abject horror anytime youre inside a public building afterwards

[lonespektr]

OCTOBER 22 & 23 HORROR WATCH

Make ups

Red Rose 1x1, 1x2, 1x3

Smart House dependent can't turn on her own lights by hand

As soon as her mom comes home she jumps???

Apparently they sign shirts over there

One brown person nobody likes ... Alright

Everyone got an invite to Beckys except this one

Whop turns out becks is being nice she didn't invite her because there's a cover charge and she knows she po

Lol where is the music coming from???

Our protag has wandered away from the party and been linked - via becks

A vid/game!!!

Of red rose

Masquerading as a beauty filter app

This guy old enough to play a dad now??

The other one they all hate is south asian

And apparently the gonnies aren't cool

This is what's wrong with children these days

It's targeting lonely people that's pretty foul

Hanging out in the graveyard ...with???

Those meter things in the UK for electricity are predatory as shit as soon as the power goes out the phone bugs her this like big data

And boom three wishes the power comes back on

Do they like a drain on society???? 🧐🧐

Do they look like they want to speak to the manager???

Not climate change 🤣🤣

Lol wtf

It told her build a fire

It's recording and accessing her apps

Here it is again they keep showing the kids of ghost of themselves

The kids appear to be fighting about literally nothing

Oh that's her mom

Figured that was her dad because the other dad was also mid thirties

All them little friends is broke but i guess shes food stamp pantry broke

The other one was rich so why target her

She's not wondering why the phone knows ger friends name

OH SHIT

She declined to do a thing the phone told her to do it hacked the tv and put up shame video standing in the food pantry line

And it's been texting her friends and sending her fake texts

Wild

Phone to her to kiss the guy her friend was seeing and that's on the tv now??

Ohhh now it's sending live vids of her little sisters she left at home

She told each twin they are in charge of the other one , which if they are both responsible girls is smart 🤣🤣

1x2

The lights are out at the house again what happened to that 100$ credit??

Can't believe Americans don't have that shit system

The girls are safe but they were hiding in the cubbord

They said someone was in the garden

The electronics are going in and out but she doesn't have a smart house so the phone can't do that

The phone keeps showing her her dead mom in partial silhouette haunting the house

She deletes the app

Mental illness/suicide

The app obvs did not delete

Gross now the phone is using her dead moms voice

Absolutely foul

This is just abject cruelty

She used her common sense and didn't message her she wrote a letter

They may but they are so shit at communicating thru didn't resolve anything

Literally no reason to carry the phone though

Okay well she wanted to show her the thing but before and afterwards you should have taken the battery out

Twins and dad are off to visit family

Unclear why dark black hair hates new guy

It's just random children stuff as soon as the two indian kids made a decent joke they are now legit

Apparently

Mam are you googling exorcisms on the posessed phone?

Church got bose blue tooth surround sound

Phone does not want to be exercised and something is sneaking up behind her (in the camera)

Keep throwing holy water at it

It stopped.

The kids have crowd sourced that the phone is the common denominator and new south adian kid says it doesn't really matter if it's not real because she's having a shit go

Dude they saw the phone deconstructed on the floor right???

Then they are saying she posted something

The phone is on the floor ??? The windows open

One kick

It's a flimsy lock

You could say it's cause their house is shitty but it could also be cause they already had to break that door down once

folks remember that suicides and family deaths is an increased high risk for suicide of their loved ones

That is a cheap ass casket they are dirt poor or the UK regular folk do not bury dead like the US

That was short of a pine box by two gold handles and some laquer

Sis don't download it baby

Bro you hiding behind the closet

AI hacker stalker

How he not see it, it was right there???

Panopticon see 👀👀👀

Now other apps are doing stuff WTF???

The overarching thing is poverty and not great parents or unavailable parents due to poverty

They all jumped to ghosts instead of just a hacker

She's

[maryellencarter]

There's this little cottage industry of far-right Christian films that are mostly direct to video -- commonly cheap animation for kids, like VeggieTales (one of the least right-wing of the bunch, which probably contributed to its wider popularity), but there's a subset that are live action for adult audiences.

That subset are pretty much always made by frustrated auteurs who would have flunked out of film school if they hadn't been prevented from going by fears of the woke left, and they're... bad. Very bad. Heavy-handed message writing, incomprehensibly artsy cutting and pacing, absolutely no humor to distract from the self-importance -- and occasionally one manages to wrangle a limited theater release, and people of the correct religio-political stripe parrot the advertising about how *this* one will Reach The Unchurched (okay, we were Catholic, we didn't actually say "unchurched", but the attitude was exactly that) and drag their large bundles of kids to sit through the show in a form of activism that's supposed to Show Support and win the film a legitimate wide release.

(I have no idea if you can actually get an art film to wide release by having enough ticket sales. Obviously none of these would have gotten there even if that's how it works. I am... dubious though.)

Anyway! Point is! There was this Catholic-specific one, a life of St Thérèse of Lisieux, and it turned out that its particular auteur was a frustrated *horror* director. It would have been fairly meh direct-to-video horror in a tame way -- ominous, creepy, vignette lighting on the flashbacks. Thérèse was a sickly child and the only interesting thing to do with her childhood is lean on the fever hallucinations. (Even written lives of St Thérèse go heavy on the fever hallucinations.) Which would have been just another crappy movie to sit through and I wouldn't remember it so vividly, but then at the end when she's dying of the tuberculosis -- you're supposed to go a bit inspiration-porn, right? The audience knows she's going to heaven, get some nobility of suffering in there, get the swelling string instruments, a couple of dainty coughs and let her "pass away in the odor of sanctity".

(Look, I didn't make up the phrase. She's legitimately supposed to have been surrounded by the miraculous and unexplained smell of roses when she died. It's a saint thing.)

Noooooope. Time for a graphic scene of coughing herself to death as her lungs fill with blood, like a *real* tuberculosis patient. No string instruments, just uncomfortably extended suffering for suffering's sake.

So the reason it stands out as the worst movie I've ever seen is that it actually changed my stance on assisted suicide. Previously, I was opposed to it in all circumstances, like a good little Catholic. But -- we know she's going to heaven, *God* knows she's going to heaven, her soul doesn't need further purification from getting the absolute last dribs and drabs of suffering available, just let her fucking die already!

Which is not at all what the movie actually wanted people to come away thinking. So it was the worst movie I've seen in the sense of the most abject failure to do anything it was aiming to do.

(A movie that did religious torture-porn on purpose and did it extremely well was "The Passion of the Christ", the movie associated with Mel Gibson in some way I don't remember now. When you actually have professionals, funding, and skilled editors working on a religious piece, it can be well made. Would I call it "good"? You'd need a clear definition of good. I wouldn't call it a movie most people should *watch*. But by god, it did what it was trying to do.)

What would you guys consider the worst movie you've ever seen? Not something that's fun to make fun of, nothing you ironically enjoyed, I mean just an absolutely miserable moviegoing experience that you paid for, hated every second, and wish you had walked out of and asked for a refund.

For me, no joke, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. It did not even feel like a real movie to me. It made me see red! I was SEETHING with anger and annoyance throughout the entire thing, and I cannot for the life of me articulate why. I saw it once in 2012 when I was 15, I remember almost nothing about it now, but it struck a nerve with me like no other movie ever has before or since.

Tell me in the tags, which movie makes you disproportionately angry just thinking about it?

[nongnaos]

Rules: 🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) 🎶

Right before I read this I got a notification from youtube to say that its done me a "winter recap" playlist which I guess is stuff I've watched a lot over the last few months. Hilarious to me is the fact that number 1 is an 8 year old video for Got7's Magnetic dance practice.

Bobby's Cherry Blossom.

Ten's Birthday.

The Boyz' Roar.

Jimin's Set Me Free.

In case you detest kpop:

Hozier's Eat Your Young. Its so good. I stare at the wall in abject horror for half an hour afterwards every time. Thanks Hozi.

Christopher Tin's Waloyo Yamoni.

Ben Howard's cover of Call Me Maybe. ICONIC.

Show-Go's You're Gone.

Stromae's L'enfer.

Anyway, thank you for this, hopefully you maybe find something you like!

[moonbeamwritings]

Hitoshi has known Denki for long enough to know that receiving a TikTok link from him at 3AM is never a good thing, especially not when it’s accompanied by a text that reads “ayooo i wish you’d look at me like that” followed by a dozen drooling, weeping, and woozy emojis.

Squinting tired eyes at the screen, Hitoshi reluctantly taps the link. He’s already more than a little sleep deprived; what’s another minute wasted watching some stupid video? Except, Hitoshi’s heart quickens, his eyes widening when he sees himself onscreen, decked out in his hero costume.

It’s a video from a week ago, taken shortly after a villain attack. It was minor, no major injuries or destruction, but you both had lingered on scene until everyone was properly taken care of. In it, you and him are standing practically shoulder to shoulder, eyes scanning over something offscreen. Hitoshi watches with rapt attention as you giggle, dropping your hand to his elbow and staring up at him with a friendly smile. He can’t remember what he’d said that afternoon to make you smile like that, but warmth floods his cheeks as he recalls the feeling of your body so close to his and the sweet sound of your laugh. 

Whoever took the video lingers on his face long enough to catch the moment Shinsou’s expression shifts when you finally look away. No longer under your scrutiny, Hitoshi has the freedom to stare unabashedly, gaze shifting along the line of your side profile, a smirk tugging at his lips all the while. Before the video cuts away, Shinsou straightens his back and crosses his arms, widening his stance. The smirk doesn’t drop, though he has the decency to tuck it behind his binding scarf.

It loops and loops as Hitoshi’s mouth drops open in abject horror. Over and over again he comes face to face with the feelings he’d been trying, and apparently spectacularly failing, to hide. The video already has thousands upon thousands of likes and just as many favorites. The comments share Denki’s sentiments, ranting about how hot Shinsou is, how pretty and how lucky you are. How obvious the tension between you two is. Shit.

He falls down a comment thread filled with speculations that the two of you are already dating or that you’re hooking up, though some naysayers prefer to ship you with Deku or Dynamight. Nope, he thinks to himself when one commenter suggests you’ve been dating since high school. Just hopelessly pining. And Hitoshi’s face feels much too hot as he presses it into his pillow to muffle a long, embarrassed groan.

It feels weird, almost invasive, to see himself through someone else’s eyes, and sure, the conversation had happened on the sidewalk in broad daylight, but Hitoshi can’t fight the feeling of discomfort that lingers beneath his skin. He’s always been pretty reserved, quiet or pensive where other heroes may be more outgoing, so the video, and it’s climbing view count, leave him feeling put on the spot. Curse his dreams of becoming a pro-hero.

When he flips to press his back into the mattress and stare at the ceiling, he only hopes you haven’t seen it, lest you witness his crush on you on repeat (with an incessant pop song in the background). He texts Denki a few eye roll emojis and surrenders himself to the rapid beat of his heart and another sleepless night.

[troublcmakcrs]

   Actually, there is an even simpler explanation, and it is… doomscrolling.  The algorithm showed him one anatomy video, he watched it in abject horror, then it started feeding him others, and the cycle continued.  He has long abandoned his smartphone (too trackable), which is probably for the best.  Sometimes, he misses it, worried about not receiving some important piece of world news, but at the same time, it would only give the radio that has been following him around since he was thirteen more to chatter about.

   “Oh, fuck!” Tweek exclaims, quickly twisting his whole body around, wide, panicked eyes fixed on the ground.  He doesn’t know why he didn’t expect Kenny to do it or for it to be so visceral.  “Oh, Jesus, man!  You couldn’t warn me or something?”  Technically, Kenny had said he was going to ‘just pop it back in,’ but a countdown from three would have been nice.

   Groaning, Tweek pulls himself mostly upright again.  Cautiously, he looks over at Kenny who, thankfully, appears to be mostly unharmed by the ordeal, save for a spot of blood on his bottom lip.  He sweeps a hand through his thin, blond hair and sighs, telling himself that the worst of it is over.

   “I’m—I’m gonna be completely honest.  I di-didn’t expect that to work.”  He laughs unsteadily, half triumph and half alarm.  The teeth he is missing, he lost to decay, so there was never any hope of replanting them, no reason to try it for himself.  Even if it doesn’t make sense, he regularly takes whatever he sees on the Internet as true and rattles it off without thinking.

   “I p-p-probably should’ve told you that first, that I wasn’t… sure…”

@troublcmakcrs

   "D-di-did you know that if your tooth f-falls out, you can just... p-put it back?" Tweek gestures to the bloody premolar in Kenny's palm, then up into his own mouth, pantomiming slotting a tooth back into his red gum where his right central incisor rotted away a couple years ago. "If the roots are intact, it'll--it'll h-heal itself. Only if you g-get it knocked out... It d-doesn't work if you--nh--lose it fr-from decay 'n' shit."    There is a pronounced pause while he idly picks at what's left of his right eyebrow. "...Everything I've learned about the human body has been en-entirely against my will."

... what the fuck? how would he know that? -- well, the obvious answer was someone sucker punched a tooth out of him, but... he couldn't imagine anyone that really had beef with tweek. much less anyone who would get violent with him.

" .. hmph." he looks back down at the tooth that he had knocked out of him, and he considers what he was just told. hell, maybe tweek was onto something. knew something that kenny didn't. " -- so i just pop it back in?" another second or so of contemplation and he does just that, tilts his head up and presses the tooth into his mouth with a muffled shout of exploitatives. " -- SHIT!" he spits the blood that was pooling in his mouth and does what he can not to give in and press his tongue against the premolar. "... mhm.. i think it fits."