Chapter Text
Pitch-black. Adam couldn’t remember a time the world had ever been this dark.
If he wasn’t so deathly afraid of the implications, he would think it was almost peaceful.
Maybe his senses weren’t back yet. Adam thought hard, screwing his brain for any possible explanation. Did he blackout again? He couldn’t for the life of him remember if he was drinking last night but the suggestion seemed right. Was Scott just playing another prank on him by dumping his unconscious body in the bathroom again? And yeah, that made sense. His bathroom didn’t have any windows, not one source of natural light whatsoever.
But he wasn’t lying down. He didn’t feel the coldness of the tiles against his bare arms.
He couldn’t feel anything.
A soft light illuminated then, only getting brighter and brighter by the second. Black turned into red, red into orange, making Adam belatedly realize his eyes were closed.
The light turning blinding now, Adam opened his eyes to:
Welcome! Everything is fine . Huge, green print on the wall in front of him.
Adam leaned back in his seat out of confusion and reread the cheery text over and over, trying to make sense out of the words. He then got up and frantically looked around the rest of the room for any clue as to where he was. Because, what the actual fuck? Why was he in a waiting room all of a sudden? He had absolutely no memory of arriving here or even walking into the building. He didn’t even know what type of place this could be, like why they had to assure everyone that everything was going to be fine.
Before he could check his body for any fresh and unexplainable incisions to his skin, the door to his left clicked open and an older blonde woman in a white coat appeared.
“Adam?” The woman smiled, showing off her perfect white teeth. “Come on in,” She said, holding out her hand to him.
Adam’s eyes narrowed. He couldn’t tell if this was a trap.
The woman sighed, dropping her smile a little but Adam could still see the light shining in her eyes. She wasn’t mad at him. “If you’re looking for answers, they’ll be in here.”
Slightly less perturbed by her words, Adam tentatively followed her into the room and walking inside, he saw that it was a simple yet quaint office. The neutral toned walls that surrounded them were strategically decorated with picture frames, the pictures varying. Some of nature, others of motivational quotes and unexpectedly, several pig-themed headshots. With some measure of amusement, Adam also spotted a poster of a cat holding onto a pole, saying, hang in there!
Aside from the interesting choice of wall decor, the room was decorated cozily, fit for the blonde woman in front of him.
She settled into the mahogany desk at the forefront of the room and gestured for Adam to sit down in the chair across from her. When he did, she smiled once more and clasped her hands over the desk.
“Hi, Adam, I’m Jill. How are you today?”
Adam blinked. This reminded him of the beginning of a doctor's appointment.
“I’m good,” He answered honestly, if a little bit hesitantly. He didn’t feel any bad but that didn’t mean a thing really. He still had reservations about this entire situation.
“Hey, quick question?”
Jill nodded. “Fire away.”
“Where am I, who are you, and what’s going on?” He asked in record speed, making Jill chuckle.
“Eager, aren’t we?” She said, displaying her perfect teeth again. “Well, we encourage that here.” Adam looked at her, scrunching his face up in confusion.
“So, to answer some of your questions: You, Adam Faulkner-Stanheight, are dead. Your life on Earth has ended and you are now in the next and most exciting phase of your existence in the universe.”
Adam stilled in his seat, feeling his hands go cold. “Oh.”
“Don’t worry, you’re okay,” Jill quickly reassured him.
“Well, that’s great,” Adam responded, somewhat strained. “Um, I have a few more questions now.”
“I thought you might.”
“How did I die?” Oh god, oh god, oh god- he fucking died- “I don’t…seem to remember.”
Jill picked up a file in front of her, presumably his, and started flipping through the pages. “Yes, well, in extreme cases of traumatic, embarrassing, or sudden deaths, we erase the memory. We realize how upsetting it is when someone hears how they died.”
“Jesus, which one am I?” Adam asked out of panic and Jill frowned.
“Are you absolutely sure you want to know?” Adam nodded, leaning forward to take a closer look at his file as if he could read it himself from this angle.
“It looks like you were out partying with your childhood friend, Scott, and some others at a local club. Two hours in, you had seven shots back to back and then chugged a beer. This caused you to vomit on the club’s bathroom floor for a good minute.”
“Death by vomit?” Adam gasped. Jill shook her head.
“On the way towards a stall- you didn’t make it to the toilet before by the way- you then slipped on your own throw up and fell face first, hitting your head on the toilet seat. Your head had split open and you died in the 2nd floor bathroom, right next to a group of party-goers who were too drunk and stunned to react quickly enough.” Jill closed his file with a small wince.
Adam stared at her for a while. “Wow.”
“Yep.”
“That’s awful,” He mumbled.
“It’s not ideal, but if it makes you feel any better there have been over 900,000 more embarrassing deaths in history.”
Adam slumped back in his seat again. “That actually does make me feel better, thanks.”
“Anytime,” Jill offered with a wave of her hand.
Adam laughed then, feeling strangely light all of a sudden. Is this what a healthy dose of acceptance felt like? “I can’t even believe—” He began, shaking his head.
“So, I’m really dead, huh? All of it’s just sinking in right now.”
“Take your time, Adam.”
Adam eyed her again, figuring he should ask about the elephant in the room. “Does this mean that I’m in heaven? We’re in heaven right now?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but you’re close. Generally speaking, there is no “heaven” or “hell” in our universe. Instead, in the afterlife there’s a Good Place, and there’s a Bad Place.” Jill calmly explained. Adam clung on to her words, listening with rapt attention. “You’re—what we’re experiencing right now as you said it—in The Good Place. So, congratulations!”
She drummed her fingers on her desk in a flourish, grinning excitedly. All Adam could do was sit there in shock.
He never thought-
Sensing his disbelief, Jill sighed again and toned down her dramatics. “You did it, Adam. You’re okay, you’re in The Good Place.” She smiled warmly again and the room around him instantly seemed brighter. More solid, too. Vivid. Like his essence was finally settling into the plane.
Adam nodded, still stunned at the news but feeling happy now. Content, a feeling he’d sorely missed back on Earth.
“I get it now,” He said softly while fiddling with his hands in his lap.
“Well, I’m glad. It’s a pleasure being the one to guide you into- ‘the light’, if you will.” Ha, he saw what she did there. Before Adam could react to her little joke, Jill went on. “You know actually, you kind of worried us there for a bit. We had no idea if you’d ever arrive,” Jill laughed with a shake of her head as she stood up from her desk.
Adam stopped his movements, arching an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” He asked slowly.
“Orientation day for all of our residents was a month ago.” Jill revealed. She then reached her hand up and pulled on a string, bringing down a white projector screen. “But I should say a month here feels longer. Significantly longer. Time moves and feels different here, but you’ll learn what I mean by that soon.”
“And so you missed the mark by a little bit, it’s no worries, you’re here now!”
No worries? Adam couldn’t control the frown taking over his face. He missed the mark by a whole month. Just how many others were there and what made them so special that they arrived right on time?
Why was he the odd man out all of a sudden? What made him so different?
Jill cut out the lights with a snap of her fingers. “Usually I do this on the giant screen we have in the town square, where all 322 residents can be present.” 322! Adam wanted to flail his arms out of frustration. There was no fucking way he was dead last.
She readied her small projector and then turned it on with the remote in her palm. “But this works too. This way I can personally answer any questions you may have.” She shot him another beaming grin but all Adam could do was wince as the orientation video played before him.
An older, bald man appeared on the screen. There was nothing remarkable about him except for his style of goatee.
He looked ridiculous.
“So, you’re dead…” The man began and maybe Adam snorted in response.
——
After sitting through what might’ve been the longest presentation of his life (apparently they tailored the video to include everything that’s been going on in the neighborhood to get him up to speed, so very nice of them ), Jill decided it was time for Adam to experience it himself.
And what a neighborhood it was. Adam was shocked. Literally shocked that he landed in a place that was as cookie-cutter as it got. He was so used to slumming it in the city that he, honest to god, got culture shock when he stepped foot in a bakery that was spotless, where all the surfaces were clean and free of the sprinkling of rat droppings he always managed to find in the bakeshops back home. Every customer actually looked happy to be here, eating their one slice of cake for the day.
It was nice, to say the least. Walking around with Jill and having her show him around the neighborhood made Adam feel more at ease about everything again. Maybe Jill was right. So what he arrived later than everyone else? He still arrived in the end. Hell, he made their numbers even again. If that wasn’t a positive sign, then he didn’t know what was.
“Oh! Here we are!” Jill said, with a gleam in her eyes and gestured to the modern-looking one-story house in front of them.
Adam glanced over the exterior with a critical eye. It was all yellow—the nauseating kind of yellow too, bleh. And- were those garden gnomes?
“Whose house is this?” He asked, getting closer so he could get a better look at the creepy…white- puppets?
“Your house, silly. Don’t tell me you don’t recognize the house of your dreams,” Jill tsked and ushered him inside before he could get another word out.
The door slamming shut behind them made Adam jump, but Jill trucked on. She ventured into the living room, pulling him along with her by the hand. “You built this. This house came into existence because of the essence of who you are.”
Who he was? Adam slightly frowned to himself, this looked nothing like Bella Swan’s house.
“And as you can see, the interior has been decorated just as you like it, in the Scandinavian minimalist style,” She said.
The what now? He had no fucking idea what those words meant. Adam looked around the space in puzzlement and stopped short when he saw a disturbing sight;
An entire wall of paintings featuring those same sinister-looking puppets in the yard, like a goddamn shrine??
And okay…was this a fucking prank? He glanced at Jill again, waiting for her to start laughing because there was no way he’d have whatever the fuck this was in his dream house.
“You’ve got to be kidding…” Adam muttered out, drawing Jill’s attention to it.
“Aw, the puppet-themed nook you so dearly wanted!” She gushed. “The system clearly noticed your love for this little guy.”
Playing along, Adam pasted on a smile. “Well, I so do love him,” He said with fake enthusiasm.
“Exactly. If you loved trolls, these would be pictures of trolls instead.”
Adam tilted his head at her for a second, wondering why that would be another viable option.
Jill chuckled then, her bubbly personality not letting up for a moment. “This space is all yours of course. Your soulmate has their own place too. In the future, if you want to move in together, obviously you can—”
“Wait, soulmate?” Adam asked, immediately forgetting about the monstrosity of a nook he had. This was new information. This was very new information.
“Yes, soulmate,” Jill answered as if it was obvious. “We went over this during your orientation video. Remember?”
Fuck, he must have zoned out during that part.
“Go over that again for me?” Adam requested with a tiny ounce of urgency bleeding from his tone.
Jill smiled warmly at him. “Your soulmate, the one you’re destined to be with, lives here in the neighborhood.” Adam swallowed at hearing this information. “Every resident’s soulmate does and each pair of soulmates will spend eternity here together.”
It was official. The Good Place rocked. He shouldn’t be so surprised, it was in the name after all. And okay, he was backing down now. So what if he had a peculiar house…maybe Adam didn’t know himself all that well.
“So…my actual soulmate is here?” He asked, sounding so pathetic and hopeful.
“He is,” Jill said, making Adam’s eyes jump open on their own accord.
“He?” Adam whispered, blown away at this piece of information. He’d just assumed it’d be a woman, considering where they were (cookie-cutter lifestyle, right?) He didn’t dare let himself hope otherwise.
Jill nodded. “Would you like to know his name?” She asked, knowingly.
Adam cleared his throat and was quick to shake his head. “No. I-uh, can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually want to be surprised.”
“Understandable.”
Adam let her response hang in the air for a bit. Then, “have I told you that I love this place?” He blurted out causing Jill to laugh.
“Yeah, we get that a lot here,” She said, softly chuckling.
“I still can’t believe it, honestly.” Adam looked around the room—his house, again. It wasn’t how he’d personally like it, the decor was too simple, too nice for his tastes, but he could learn to love it. At least he didn’t have to live with cockroaches appearing out of the blue anymore. Hallelujah.
“Really just…hard to believe.” He never thought he led an amazing life, one that would land him here. Who knew The Good Place loved aspiring photographers?
“Don’t sell yourself short now. Our system is very selective, only the best of the very best get to be here,” Jill reiterated.
Adam nodded. “Yeah, the video said-”
“Most people aren’t so lucky. But you, Adam, you; a veterinarian, human and animal rights activist, loving son and brother…you’re special!”
Huh? Adam whipped his head back to stare at her again in confusion.
“The system never lies,” Jill told him and Adam could feel his heart slowly sinking with dread.
“Never?” He asked in a soft voice.
“It would be catastrophic if it did, wouldn’t you think?” Jill said, turning away from him. The second she did, Adam felt his face drop.
They’d messed up.
Oh fuck, he didn’t belong here.
The entire house made sense now. Shit, he knew it was too good to be true.
With another snap of her fingers, a digital screen appeared in front of them, the action successfully getting Adam’s attention again.
“What’s this?” He asked, distractedly, while futilely trying to rub the frown away from his face.
“Your very own video system. You can watch any event in history if you’d like, or…” With a maneuver of her hand, she went to the home screen menu. Scanning the screen, she then clicked on the Life And Memories tab. “You can also watch everything that happened in your life—”
Adam’s heart stopped, feeling his body lock in panic.
“—from your point of view, of course,” Jill finished, and Adam comically let out a sigh of relief. She then clicked on another tab. “Like your Human Rights mission to Ukraine. Ugh, I love this memory so much, just- the look of joy on all those kids’ faces when you personally delivered all those toys to them.” Jill brought her hand to her chest. “ You know, this got you a ton of points in the eyes of our system. It really put you in the top ten, I think.”
Adam let out a tense laugh. “Yeah, I bet. You don’t have to tell me…” He awkwardly said.
“What made you want to be an activist at such a young age?”
“Um, I,” Adam was searching his brain for an acceptable answer when an insistent knock sounded at his front door.
“Jill?” A man said, letting himself in.
Ohh, what now? Adam groaned inside his head, closing his eyes at the intrusion.
“I received this weird and rather ominous message from John this morning,” The man said, squinting down at a card in his hand. “Telling me to come to this address…do you know what this is about?”
Okay so, the intrusion (he was thinking more clearly now)…not a bad thing at all actually. This bought him some time to think things through, like the fact that he was an imposter who slipped through the cracks of the almighty Good Place’s system.
Nothing worth fretting too much about though, nope.
Sighing, Adam opened his eyes and glanced towards the man, only doing a slight double take when he noticed how handsome he was.
And tall. Adam liked tall. He let his eyes roam freely over the man, taking advantage of the fact that his attention was solely on Jill at the moment.
“Nice to see you again, Lawrence,” Jill greeted with a nod.
This Lawrence guy- softly chuckled. “Nice to see you too, Jill,” He responded back politely, making Adam snort.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen this soon but I guess now is as great a time as any,” Jill said, looking back and forth between them with a barely-contained grin taking over her face.
“John gave you that note for a reason. Lawrence, meet your soulmate, Adam.”