Work Text:
Things to Do in the Medium Place
(fandom: The Good Place)
The train stopped in what Eleanor presumed was The Medium Place. It looked…dull. Featureless. And really, really empty.
“I think there might be something over there?” Tahani said, doubtfully, pointing at the horizon. “Maybe we should…walk?” She looked faintly horrified.
“I suppose we don’t have any other forking option,” Eleanor said, then scowled. “You mean I can’t forking swear here either? Ugh.”
“I wish Janet had been able to come with us,” Tahani said, as they started walking. Janet had set the train off but refused to come with them, saying something horrifying about her feelings for Jason which Eleanor had no intention of engaging with on any level. “And Chidi and Jason, I feel so terrible about leaving them.”
“Yeah, well, you know Chidi. Indecisive is his middle name. Actually it’s pretty much all of his names. Indecisive Chidi Indecisive Anagonye Indecisive.” That had sounded better in Eleanor’s head. Whatever.
“Mm, but perhaps…” Tahani fretted.
“Perhaps we should have hung around and gotten caught along with them? Nu-uh. Save yourself. That’s my policy.” Eleanor wondered, for a second, whether she should have been thinking differently about this if she was trying to be a good person. But maybe in the circumstances, trying to be a good person was a waste of effort. Currently she was a person who wasn’t being tortured in The Bad Place, and that would do her just fine.
When they finally reached the little building Tahani had seen, the front door was ajar, but there was no one home.
“Co-ee!” Tahani called, to a resounding lack of response. “I thought Janet said someone called Mindy lived here? Do you think we should…or maybe not, I mean, perhaps she’s just asleep…”
Eleanor rolled her eyes, pushed past Tahani, and stomped inside. There was a note on the kitchen table.
“Can’t face seeing you bozos yet again. Gone away for a bit. Leave my cocaine in the kitchen if you brought it, which I very much doubt you did. Watch the tape,” she read aloud. “Again? What the fork?”
Absent any other obvious course of action, they watched the tape. A demon and an angel explained the concept of The Medium Place. Then the tape staticed for a minute, and a dark-haired woman in a skirt suit and a weird lacey collared shirt came on.
“So, I don’t know which of you showed up this time, but just so you know, this isn’t the first time you’ve been here. It’s the twelfth, which to be honest is twelve times too many. Blah blah Bad Place blah blah Good Place blah blah Michael. Whatever, I am so done with this, especially since you never bring me my cocaine like you promised. Help yourself to, you know, the house and stuff. Don’t break anything.”
The tape stopped. Eleanor and Tahani looked at one another.
“What I really need right now,” Eleanor said, “is some forking alcohol.”
**
There was beer in the kitchen. Warm beer, which was kind of ick, but lots of it, so, eh, whatever. Eleanor was all for drinking it straight from the can, but Tahani was horrified and fussed around finding glasses.
“Honestly Eleanor. We can at least try to observe some kind of decorum here.”
Which was fine, whatever, except Eleanor slammed hers down too hard on the counter, it broke, and she both spilt the beer and cut her hand.
Tahani fussed around some more, looking for a first aid kit, and then, in the absence of that, some tissue, which she dabbed at Eleanor’s hand with. Being that close put Eleanor’s face in close proximity to Tahani’s cleavage, which was pretty stellar, not that Eleanor had noticed that before. (Of course she’d noticed it before. Stupid beautiful giraffe Tahani.)
Tahani finished dabbing, and pulled away, and Eleanor decided that she didn’t care whether or not Tahani caught her looking. It was much more important to get drinking.
**
“But what are we going to do,” Tahani asked, for the several millionth time, later on.
“Who the fork knows,” Eleanor said, slouching back even further on the sofa. “Hang out here forever? Yay. I wonder if the booze, like, magically replenishes, if we can’t call Janet.”
“You and me. Here.” Eleanor couldn’t quite read Tahani’s voice.
“Yeah. Tough luck, posh giraffe woman.”
“No, I didn’t…well. never mind. But really. I mean. Eternity? We can’t, though, can we? Won’t that Mindy woman come back?”
“So what? She’ll just have to put up with us living here too, I guess.” Eleanor was aware she didn’t sound particularly thrilled. She didn’t feel particularly thrilled. She was feeling a weird sensation in her chest which she had no intention of identifying. Something about Chidi, and Jason, and responsibility, and ethics…She filled her glass again. Drowning your feelings. Always the best option.
“She said we’d been here before,” she said out loud. “I suppose we always went away again. Maybe she’s counting on that. Shirtballs, why am I still thinking about this?”
“I really think there’s something else we should be doing,” Tahani fretted.
Eleanor burped, very loudly, and Tahani got distracted by making her disapproving face, which at least stopped her going on about how they should be doing something other than running away, when clearly running away was the only reasonable option. Ugh. An involuntary yawn followed the burp.
“We should go to sleep,” she announced. Sleeping through your feelings. Another solid choice.
**
The whole going-to-sleep process was derailed slightly when they found the bathroom.
“What the fork is that?”
Some kind of alarming electrical device with too many buttons was plugged in next to the sink.
“It’s a toothbrush, Eleanor,” Tahani said in her most patronising tones, appearing behind her almost as suddenly as Janet was prone to doing. “I have a very similar model, though of course mine has the optional MP3 player attachment to play soothing music while it brushes for you.”
“That is not a toothbrush,” Eleanor said. “Toothbrushes have, like, a brush part, and a bit that vibrates that you can take the brush part off for backup when your vibrator breaks and uh well anyway I’m not putting that in my mouth or anywhere else.”
“Well obviously not, it’s not yours,” Tahani said, looking horrified again. “But look, the other thing is, I just found out…”
Eleanor squirted toothpaste straight into her mouth, slugged some water from the faucet, and walked out again without waiting to hear what the other thing was.
She found out more or less immediately anyway.
“Only one bedroom?”
“Well, I think that other room is Mindy’s bedroom, but, as you can see…”
The door was locked. Thoroughly and comprehensively locked, with the sort of locks that you can’t pick with a paperclip.
“We could break it down,” Eleanor said, but it was going to be a lot of effort even if they could.
“I really don’t think that’s appropriate,” Tahani said, primly, and sighed. “We can toss a coin for who sleeps on the sofa, I suppose, although I am much taller than you and would hardly fit on that little sofa so really you ought to let me have the bed.”
“Ah-ah, no way,” Eleanor said. “I’m taking the bed. If you’re too chicken to share it with me, that’s your problem.” To shortcut further arguments, she got straight into bed, clothes and all, and clutched the quilt firmly around her. “Shirt, I didn’t bring any PJs. Oh well.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Tahani sighed. “Being stuck with this kind of ridiculous situation…oh fine, I simply refuse to sleep on the sofa just because you’re being this selfish. I hope you don’t snore.”
“Pretty sure I do,” Eleanor said, smugly.
Lying next to Tahani, after they’d put the light out, she began to slightly regret this. Tahani, even after several of those beers, still smelt…nice. And whilst she couldn’t see Tahani’s cleavage right now, she’d gotten a pretty decent look at it earlier, and the image kept popping right back into her head. Which would have been fine — it was a very nice image — except for Tahani herself being a foot away on the same mattress.
“I suppose, if this is all a trick,” Tahani said, out of nowhere, “then Jason isn’t my soulmate after all.” She sounded a lot more upset than Eleanor would have expected her to be at that piece of information.
“No kidding,” Eleanor said. “Which really ought to have been pretty forking obvious, right? I mean, first he was, like, a silent monk, when you talk all the darn time so obviously that’s a terrible fit, and then we found out he was really a dumb-as-rocks Florida dirtbag, when you’re, like, smart and cultured and stuff. I mean, we should have realised the soul mates was bullshirt just from you being so far out of his league.” Dammit, she hadn’t meant to say that last bit.
“Oh well, I suppose you’re right,” Tahani said, sounding slightly more cheerful for the ego boost. “But I thought…I mean, I died so young, and I never…” the cheer had gone again now, “and I thought, at least I get to find someone, you know, to be with now, in the afterlife, and I don’t have to go on any more dates and have any more breakups. Except that was a lie too and I’ll just never…”
To Eleanor’s absolute surprise, Tahani burst into tears.
“Uh,” Eleanor said. “I mean.”
“I’m never going to have anyone!” Tahani wailed.
Eleanor, feeling a complicated set of feelings that she had no intention of thinking about further, turned over and tugged Tahani into an awkward hug. It felt like the least she could do. “Uh. There there. I’m sure…” She trailed off. What the hell did she know about this stuff? “I’m sure once we work out what to do next and…uh, right, anyway, it’s eternity, yeah? Sooner or later you’ll find someone to bump bits with, am I right?” Unless it was just her and Tahani here in the Medium Place for ever…She could actually feel Tahani’s breasts, now, pressing up against her. Maybe this was some kind of karmic payback for the hug, but whether a positive or a negative one she had no idea.
“Of course I will, I’ve never lacked for sexual partners,” Tahani said, managing to sound smug even whilst crying, which was a neat trick. “But I mean, a soulmate, someone who actually understands me.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe that too. I mean, sexy smart giraffe, right, surely you can have anyone?”
“My longest ever relationship, back on Earth, was three months,” Tahani said. “I might not lack for partners, but none of them stay.”
“Shirt, really? Well that’s just stupid of them,” Eleanor said. “Mind you, you’re beating me on relationship length by, like, a couple of months.”
Tahani made a sniffling laugh sound into her shoulder.
“Also, Jason and I never…you know. And I really…”
“You want to do the dirty,” Eleanor said. “I hear you, lady. Tell you what. Go fetch the weird toothbrush thing, and I’ll go sit in the other room.” She paused. “Just for a while, right. I’m not sleeping in there.”
“Alternatively…” Tahani said, sounding suddenly determined; and moved, and Eleanor suddenly found Tahani’s mouth on hers.
It was tentative; she had plenty of room to back away if she wanted to. She briefly considered whether she was going to go with this; but yeah, who the hell was she kidding, of course she would. Who wouldn’t hit that? She kissed back, with enthusiasm, and in short order Tahani was kissing down the side of her neck, and she had one hand down the front of Tahani’s fancy dress and on Tahani’s really very nice breast through what felt like a very fancy bra.
“We could be wearing fewer clothes, you know,” Tahani said. “And please be careful with my bra, it’s Lise Charmel.”
“Excellent idea,” Eleanor said, ignoring the bit about the bra. “Good thinking that woman.”
Tahani’s breasts were even nicer out of the designer bra, and Eleanor revelled in the acres of Tahani’s lovely smooth skin under her hands. And Tahani had certainly been paying attention with all those lovers she was claiming to have had, because she was damn good at this. She licked slowly around Eleanor’s nipples, gently teasing, while her other hand crept down to run a finger lightly across Eleanor’s clit.
“Like that?” she murmured. “Or do you like harder?”
“Like that is good,” Eleanor said, breathlessly. “Oh! Yeah, really like that.”
“I prefer a little harder myself,” Tahani said. “If you were wondering.”
Eleanor was too busy grabbing at Tahani’s shoulders and gasping at that precise moment to take the hint immediately. “I’ll bear it in mind,” she managed. “Oh fork yes, keep doing that as much as you like.”
She managed to get her leg between Tahani’s thighs and push upwards, and a hand in Tahani’s gorgeous long hair, at the nape of her neck, and pull, and Tahani made a low noise in the back of her throat and ground fiercely onto Eleanor’s leg as she nipped not entirely gently at Eleanor’s breast. After that it all became a haze of skin and touch. Tahani’s fingers slid into Eleanor’s cunt, and Eleanor found herself at just the right place to suck one of Tahani’s nipples into her mouth. Tahani shuddered against her and came, and Eleanor, who normally took forever to come, followed her only a couple of moments afterwards.
They lay next to one another, recovering their breathing.
“Whew,” Eleanor said. “Well, that was something.”
“We have to go back, tomorrow,” Tahani said. It should have been a non-sequitur, but it wasn’t, really.
“Yeah,” Eleanor said. “Yeah, we do.” She paused. “That’s tomorrow, though, right? I mean…”
“…there’s still quite a lot of tonight left before we have to go anywhere?” Tahani said. She laughed, and Eleanor felt it up her whole body. “I quite agree. Did you have plans, then?”
“Oh, I might be able to think of a few,” Eleanor said, and rolled over to find Tahani’s mouth again with hers. Tomorrow, she felt, could look after itself. Right now she was busy.