Rating:

Teen

Category:

F/F

Fandom:

The Good Place

Relationship:

Eleanor/Tahani

Tags:

college/university, no death au, yuletide, yuletide 2018

Stats:

Posted on:

2018-12-18

Words:

2,490

It was cooler than normal, which wasn’t saying much, since it was fucking Arizona and sweat was still sliding down Eleanor’s elbows anyway. The scone between her fingers was way too hot for her palms, but she hadn’t had lunch yet and she really wasn’t a breakfast person, so she was going to take what she could get.

Besides, it was free. Not that Eleanor knew what this whole table of pseudo-breakfast foods was doing out here in the park, but the card propped up on the blue checkered blanket said FREE FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT. All Eleanor saw was FREE before she was grabbing a scone from a basket on the table, too hungry to drop it even once she felt how hot it was.

She had been planning on just taking the scone and leaving; but being cooler than usual, and doing a double glance around the park it was evident that this—whatever this thing was—had attracted more hot people than usual. It’d been a while since she’d gotten laid (a while meaning two weeks) and maybe she could bribe whoever she slept with to take her midterm tomorrow. Plus, if she stuck around, she could get more free scones.

Grabbing a napkin, Eleanor did her cursory examination of the place, as if she were at a club and not at a family-friendly park in the middle of the day. She took an absent bite of her scone, before the syrup hit her taste buds and the texture sunk into her teeth.

It was criminal how good the scone was. Eleanor forgot her quest to get laid and quickly finished it off before rushing back to get more, grabbing plenty of napkins along the way. No one would mind if she stuffed about five more of these into her purse, right? The sign did say it was free, and it’d been a while since Eleanor had eaten something that wasn’t chips or microwave dinners.

She had put three napkin-covered scones into her purse and was trying to figure out if she should take out her sunglasses case so there would be more room, when someone tapped at her shoulder and said, “Excuse me, but do you actually need that many napkins?”

Eleanor swiveled around. Standing behind her was a tall, dark-skinned girl, who could certainly uphold ASU’s reputation of having hot girls, if she looked like she even went to ASU. Or if ASU girls had formed a habit of wearing delicately tailored sundresses and silky gloves.

“Uh, duh,” Eleanor said, securing a napkin around another scone before dropping it into her purse.

The girl frowned. “You do see that this is a fundraiser for paper preservation and saving the trees, right?”

Eleanor actually had not seen that. She hadn’t seen the sign earlier, the one that stood in the middle of the park and said SAVE THE PLANET: WE NEED TREES, AND TREES NEED US. “Whatever,” she said. “I’m not some tree hugging hippie, and these napkins aren’t trees anymore, so I’m actually not wasting anything.”

“That’s not how preservation works,” the girl said.

“But that’s how I fit as many weird British croissants as I possibly can into my purse.”

“Scones are nothing like croissants!” The girl (whose accent was British, Eleanor noted) sounded deeply offended.

“Yeah, yeah, tell that to someone who cares,” Eleanor said, waving her off and shoving another napkin-covered scone into her purse.

The girl started, “I—” but was cut off by a guy who appeared at her side and said, “Tahani, do you need help with anything?”

The girl—presumably Tahani—said, “Yes! This young woman is taking all my scones, and doesn’t even appear to be here for the actual intent of this fundraising event.”

Eleanor whipped back around. “All your scones?” she scoffed. “It’s not like you made them.”

“Actually,” said Tahani, who was so tall that Eleanor had to crane her neck to look her in the eye, “I did.”

Eleanor didn’t know what to say to that. “Well—well,” she sputtered. “They’re not that great anyway!” She glanced around the table and picked up the first thing she saw. “I like this pie more!” she said, wrapping it in a napkin and shoving it into her purse just for show.

“I made those too,” Tahani said.

The guy beside her was looking at them with bemusement. “Should I escort her away?” he asked Tahani nervously.

“Oh, I could take you on any day, you weird hippie Benedict Cumberbatch,” Eleanor scoffed. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if I’m taking all of them, because this sign says they’re free .” She pointed. “See?”

“I mean,” said hippie Benedict Cumberbatch. “It’s pretty common etiquette, if something says that it’s free, to take one each and no more than two.”

In a grand display of maturity, Eleanor rolled her eyes and said, “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Do you actually have no class?” said the Tahani girl. “You can’t just waltz right into my fundraiser and take all this food and leave .”

“Well, I can,” Eleanor said, putting the last scone in her purse and smiling up at her smugly, “and I did. And I have plenty of class, for your information. I just don’t waste it at pretentious fundraising things like this.”

“Raising money to help the environment is not pretentious!”

“Anyone who pretends to care about the environment is pretentious.”

“Anyone who cares about the environment,” hippie Benedict Cumberbatch interjected, “probably actually cares about the environment.”

“No one asked you, knockoff Jesse Eisenberg,” Eleanor sneered.

Tahani’s pretty lips curved into a deeper frown than before. “I can’t have you talking to my associates like that,” she scolded Eleanor. “Please leave the premises, immediately.” She pointed out into the street.

Eleanor hiked her purse up higher onto her shoulder. “Gladly,” she shot back.

She resolved not to turn around, even when Tahani called after her, “And enjoy the scones that I baked!”

*

Eleanor had moved out of her parents’ house when she was 16, graduated high school with honors because she had nothing else to do with her life at the time, and had become an off-again on-again college student by the time she was 26, when she realized she’d take a crappy apartment living by herself over a nice apartment with bitches as roommates, which turned out to be every roommate she’d ever had in the past. Including her parents.

She was back on-again at ASU, which she was already regretting halfway through the semester because sometimes a degree was not worth taking a two-hour midterm on macroeconomics. The only good thing about this week was that she was treating herself to the clubs on Friday, since it was her birthday and she wouldn’t have to pretend to find the bartender attractive to get free margaritas. Eleanor wished there were more lady bartenders.

It was a slow night. The only interesting thing was that Kamilah Al-Jamil was for some reason visiting Tempe, and was sitting in the VIP section of the club, surrounded by pretty friends. Even though Eleanor didn’t like her very much, Kamilah was hot and she would resort to sleeping with her if she had to. It would still be a semi-decent birthday present to herself.

Eleanor had her elbow propped on the bar counter, sipping her drink and zoning out, when she heard a familiar British accent shouting, “This is ridiculous! I demand to speak to your manager.”

A few barstools down stood that Tahani girl from the fundraising thing, the one who allegedly made those atrociously good scones. It was hard to see the color of her dress in the bar light, but Eleanor was sure it was gorgeous and overly expensive. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at the bartender, who looked bored.

“Sorry ma’am, but we don’t have any other types of VIP booths than the ones that are there. Why don’t you try the nearby castle?” the bartender said drily.

Tahani huffed. “Very funny,” she said. “How do you live with yourself? Subjecting your patron to sticky booths, and horrid music, and whatever a chimichanga is supposed to be—”

“It’s called Arizona, princess, get used to it.” Eleanor sidled up to Tahani, whose eyes widened briefly before narrowing in recognition.

“I suppose I’m not surprised to see you here.”

“Hey, not all of us are British, and—and host fundraisers, okay.” Eleanor tilted her head to the side. “What are you doing here, anyway? I’m guessing this isn’t much of your scene if you’re complaining about chimichangas.”

Tahani looked resigned. “Well, if you must know,” she said, with an emphasis that Eleanor thought was wholly unnecessary, “my sister is attending her friend’s birthday party, and I thought that I’d—I’d have some fun.”

“Have some fun,” Eleanor repeated.

“Well, you know,” Tahani said, like she didn’t even know what she was talking about. “Dancing, and drinking, and having lots of meaningless sex. Whatever it is you Americans do.”

“You got me there. That is what we Americans do.” Eleanor took a sip of her drink, considering. Yeah, she’d sleep with Tahani too. And find that stick up her ass, while she was at it.

Both their conversation and her thoughts were interrupted when the crowd got considerably more quiet, and a voice called, “Tahani!” Eleanor turned around while Tahani’s lips formed a line as she turned to the sound of her name.

Kamilah Al-Jamil called, from the booth she was lounging in, “Mind getting us drinks, darling? Since you’re there already and all.”

“Do I look like a waitress to you?” Tahani retorted.

Kamilah’s eyebrows went up, and she eyed Tahani’s dress. “Well I can’t honestly say no, with that on.”

The club returned to its regular volume level as Tahani let out a frustrated, “Ugh!” and shoved her face into her palms. Meanwhile Eleanor stared at her, because—

“Your sister is Kamilah Al-Jamil?”

“Yes, yes, now you know,” Tahani grumbled, rubbing at her eyelids. “I suppose now you want an autograph, or want me to introduce her to you, or—”

“No way, unless I want all of Kamilah’s fans to put a hit on me.” Eleanor held her hands up. “No offense, but your sister’s kind of full of herself.”

Tahani lifted her head up. An inexplicable expression was on her face—she looked like she didn’t know whether to be confused or delighted. “Yes, she is, isn’t she?” she agreed.

“I didn’t say you were any better.” Eleanor took a sip of her drink. “Although I knew who she was and didn’t know who you were, so I guess that’s saying something.”

Tahani looked confused. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

Eleanor shrugged. “I’m just saying, sometimes it’s better to be less successful than others.”

When she looked at Tahani again, she seemed to be observing Eleanor carefully. “You certainly are a different type of creature,” she said thoughtfully. “And I don’t think I’ve gotten your name yet.”

“It’s Eleanor, and it’s not my fault that my goal in life isn’t to prove that I’m better than everyone else,” Eleanor said, putting her glass down. “Not that everyone else is better than me. I just don’t need to pretend to care about environment or draw some shapes on a canvas to prove it.”

“No, you just steal baked goods from non-profit organizations instead,” Tahani agreed.

“Hey, it’s not stealing if it’s free.” Eleanor downed the rest of her glass. “Speaking of, it’s my birthday today, and I’m not sitting over there with your sister and her significantly less hotter friends, so you wanna buy another drink for me?”

“You’re very forward,” said Tahani.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I’ve been called worse.”

To her surprise, though, Tahani did call the bartender over, who looked disgruntled until Tahani stuck her credit card out. “What she’s having,” she said, pointing at Eleanor.

Eleanor blinked at her. “I was kidding,” she said, even though she wasn’t; it was just rare that someone followed through with one of her careless requests.

“Well, it’s your birthday, so I suppose I was going to let you go easy,” Tahani said. “And I know it’s not saying much, but you’re much better company than my sister and her friends.”

At this, Eleanor threw her head back and laughed. “Okay, I’ve definitely been called worse than that.”

“I’m not trying to insult you,” Tahani said, puzzled.

“Oh, I know.” Eleanor grinned.

She leaned into Tahani. There was a pleasant buzzing around her ears, and Tahani seemed taller than usual, and you don’t see girls who look like Tahani in Arizona every day. Or at all, really.

“Ever kissed a girl before?” she said in a low voice.

Tahani backed up at this, looking like a deer caught in headlights. “I, um.”

“I’ll take that as a no.” Eleanor put her new glass down, and inched closer to Tahani. “Want to try? Tell me you haven’t noticed all the sexual tension between us since you saw me at your little ‘save the earth’ thing.”

“I mean, not particularly,” Tahani said. “Though you are very attractive and I—um—”

“Yeah?” Eleanor’s nose was nearly touching hers. God, it had been so long since she’d done something with another girl, and this girl—it was like she’d stepped out of a fairytale, it was nearly unreal. A fairytale Eleanor thought she’d never have, when she was younger.

Tahani whispered, “I don’t want you to feel like it’s a mistake tomorrow morning.”

Eleanor stepped back, snorting. “You think I’d go home with you?”

“I mean.” Tahani looked flustered now. “If you wanted to kiss me—”

“Well, then let’s kiss first, and figure out where to go from there,” Eleanor said, stepping back into her space. “And don’t worry, I kinda wanted to bang you the first time I saw you, so I don’t think I’ll think it’s a mistake in the morning.”

“Is that what you do with your sexual tension, then?” Tahani said. “Pick fights with people you’re attracted to before making them kiss you?”

Eleanor’s hand was on Tahani’s shoulder at this point, and she arched up, pulling Tahani down. Tahani’s lips were soft and tasted like wine, which Eleanor never really liked before but could definitely get used to on the tip of Tahani’s tongue. Tahani seemed shy in the kiss, but not reluctant, pressing back, fingers threading through Eleanor’s hair and shivering when Eleanor ran her fingers down her collarbone. Eleanor pulled her mouth away by centimeters, seeing Tahani’s eyes still closed, head still leaning forward, seeking for more.

Eleanor smirked, and whispered, “Is it working?”