quollstar

[quollstar]

Devil in Disguise; ch1

michael (the good place) x reader

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

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

You were pretty sure the Architect was a demon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I beg your pardon?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm sorry, hundreds of times–?"

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

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

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

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

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why–"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end of chapter one!

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

[quollstar]

Like Animals; ch1

billy butcher (the boys) x reader

warnings: this fic makes use of the sex pollen trope later on, as well as including some the boys-typical violence/language. i'm not going to post the whole thing here because to be honest i really don't know tumblr's layout or rules that well so i'll drop the first chapter and then a link to the whole thing on my ao3 if anyone is interested!

notes: reader/you is a member of the team, an ex-vought supe introduced by annie. now you work with them to take down any supe you can (this is somewhere in between szn2 and szn3!)

The job was simple– well, as simple as it gets when you take down superpowered assholes for a living. Hughie had given your group the green light to take out some low-level supe after he gave a speech at an animal rights event. According to your digging, the supposed animal liberator was actually as fake as the rest, dealing in black market pelt and meat trading on the down-low and peddling the 'vegan, fish are friends, save all the creatures' story to the public the whole while. He got shipments of V to his zoos disguised as animal feed, then presumably used it on the animals in question, the 'why' of that was unclear. What was really fucked about it was the guy could understand and speak to animals. You weren't a crunchy vegan yourself, but damn, that was cold.

It was you, Butcher and MM in the field, while Frenchie and Kimiko did surveillance in the van a few blocks away; close enough that they could come in if things went sideways and you needed another supe. So far it didn't seem like you'd be needing them, but you never know. Butcher and MM spread out through the crowd, taking care to avoid the cameras above the outside venue so they wouldn't get tagged. You, on the other hand, were fairly new to the job, and thus hadn't had your face put up on any of the criminal databases yet, and since you were a rather unknown supe there was little chance of someone recognizing you. You got to claim front row seats. Hooray.

The event itself was cheesy. You were surprised at how many people showed up, considering how bland and boring it had been so far, but you figured any big event with Vought tied to the name was bound to attract a crowd, even if the main speaker- your target- had less charisma than the longhorn bull he was on stage with. You weren't sure which of the pair smelled worse. Internally, you cursed the fact that you were essentially untraceable, because you would have loved to be in the back like Butcher.

Subtly, you looked over your shoulder to find him in the crowd. He was already looking your way, and when you met his eyes you rolled yours, glaring. He sent you one of his patented cocksure grins and gestured back towards the stage.

"Keep your eye on the prize, love," came his accented voice through your earpiece (disguised to look like a regular hearing aid). "They'll be bringing the monkeys out next, ain't that exciting?"

As quietly as you could, you snarked back: "I'm thrilled." When all this was done, you were going to tear into him for insisting you showed up for the whole show, when you could have gotten in for the last 10 minutes and then done your damn job.

His responding chuckle sounded in your right ear and something in your lower gut twisted not-unpleasantly.

You just couldn't help it. The man was attractive, and his deep voice didn't help. When you'd first joined up with the boys, introduced to their movement by Annie, he'd gotten on your nerves immensely. Actually, he still did (all the damn time) but he was a lot more bearable after getting to know him. You realized that his rudeness was usually just a way to deflect positive attention off himself and that, while he called the boys 'cunts' every other day, he would do anything to keep them safe in the field. When you felt those feelings stirring in you the first time, you swore you wouldn't get attached, but it was no use. You really loved a misunderstood bad boy type.

Nowadays, when you caught yourself feeling things for him, you didn't try to tamp it down. You just reminded yourself that he was clearly not one for new commitments. He was torn up over his late wife and on a path of rage after what Homelander had done. He didn't need some 20-something d-lister supe pining after him on top of that. You were pretty sure he would be disgusted at the idea of the two of you together.

So you kept that shit to yourself. You were used to quiet pining, anyway, always being the single friend from the moment you realized you even cared about that. You could get over it. You could be content just to admire him from afar when he wasn't looking.

Your attention was drawn back to the gaudily decorated stage when, just as Butcher had said, they carted out some chimpanzees. You weren't even entirely sure what they were doing, having tuned out most of the things Monty Montgomery had been saying about his various animal guests up until this point. Your guess was some sort of informational show, but god was it bland, and you usually liked shit like this.

You checked your watch; 2:42. The show was set to end at 3:00, and then you'd follow Monty backstage and grill him on his sketchy side hustle before finally following Butcher's precise plan to take him out. You couldn't actually kill him- Hughie would have a fit- but knocking him out would be fun. You were considering giving him an extra kick in the nuts just for making you sit through this god awful stage show. Nearly 20 minutes left. Fuck.

The remaining time could not have gone slower, dragging on as the celebrity supe went on and on about how intelligent most animals actually were. Normally you'd find that to be a lovely sentiment, but knowing what Monty does after hours just made the whole presentation seem so fake. You weren't sad when it ended and you got swept up in the crowd of people leaving the clearing to wander around the booths or stand around in groups talking about whatever it was supe fans talked about. You made to follow the crowd, then broke off away from them at the last second to head towards the backstage area. Butcher and MM would be heading that way, too, and you could finally get to the fun part of your job.

You strutted past the security stationed outside the back of the stage, flashing them the ID badge you'd nicked from another guard earlier on in the day before sweeping past them into the much quieter halls of the building behind the stage. Nobody was around and you breathed a sigh of relief; standing among the throngs of chattering people for so long had left you socially exhausted. It was nice to have a moment of quiet.

Right on time, Butcher and MM entered through the door at the other end of the hall, spotting you and making their way over. You met them in the middle.

"You sure he's in?" you asked, placing your hands on your hips.

MM nodded. "We kept on eye on him after the show, he came right back to the room. You ready?"

You huffed. "Only been waiting for this for two hours, so yeah. Jesus, why did we have to watch the whole show?"

Butcher only grinned, amused at your annoyance. "What, you don't like animals, y/n? I'm surprised. I thought you were one of them sensitive blokes."

You bit your tongue to keep from getting pissed and saying something stupid. Your feet hurt, damnit, you were ready to go home. Exactly when you started seeing the dank cellar that was your base as 'home', you didn't know, but the dark concrete walls and suspiciously wet floors were sounding really welcoming about now.

Shutting your eyes, you dropped your hands from your hips and splayed your fingers out, using the dark and quiet to hone your supe ability. As powers went, it wasn't that amazing, but it was mighty useful for missions like this, where you didn't want to be seen. You felt out mentally, searching for cameras and anything else giving out an electronic pulse from behind the door marked "STAR". When you apprehended Monty, you didn't want it to be for an audience.

"Three cameras, and one shitty desktop computer- probably also has some sort of webcam on it. Plus his phone, I think," you muttered, eyes still closed.

"Fry 'em," Butcher said.

You clenched your fists. "Done." You opened your eyes in time to catch a look from Butcher that was almost, almost admiring. It could just have easily been mocking, but you'd like to let yourself believe for one minute that he found your powers useful. The prospect brought a little smile to your face.

MM leveled you with a knowing look, then took the lead, putting his ear up to the door for just a moment before throwing it in, catching the supe inside by surprise.

Monty Montgomery had been laying on a couch inside, worn out from talking for so long (you didn't blame him there; you were worn out from listening to him talk) but quickly shot up when the three of you rushed in, the guys holding their guns and you with your hands cockily stuffed in your jean pockets.

"What the fuck??" he sputtered, looking between the three of you angrily. "Who the fuck are you?"

Butcher smiled, taking a step forward, still pointing his gun at the supe. "We're your biggest fans, mate! We wanna ask you a few questions about your job- the other one. You ever feel bad sending your little buddies to their deaths so you can sell their hides on eBay or what have you?"

Monty balked. "I- I don't know what you're talking about, psycho. How did you get in here?"

While Butcher had his attention upwards, you noticed Monty's hand inching towards his back pocket. Whether it was a gun or a phone he was reaching for, you weren't having it. Your hand lifted calmly, and you pulled, the object ripping out of the target's pants and flying into your hand. A phone. Figures. He didn't know it was useless anyways after your powers got to it.

"Really? Who're you gonna call? You have an elephant on speed dial?" You glared, making a show of using your powers to crush his phone. It was overkill, but you liked the shocked look on his face. As it fell to the ground, Monty's eyes narrowed.

"What do you want from me?" He asked, tone guarded.

"Already said. We want to ask you about your side hustle, and what exactly you're doing with the Compound V you have sent to your place every month," Butcher said, gesturing towards the couch with his gun. "Now sit down."

end of chapter one!

please see here if you'd like to keep reading: