Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It's all dark.

A terrifying, all-consuming darkness. A lightness in his head and sinking feeling in his belly expands as he feels himself falling, falling, falling, until...

Whoosh. 

He opens his eyes. Hears the sounds of chimes and running water. Blinks. Blinks again, the image of a blurry room coming into focus. His vision clears, and he looks around the unfamiliar space, no chimes or fancy fountains to be seen despite the soft ringing in his ears.

On the wall in front of him are bright green letters that spell out, "Welcome! Everything is fine!" A little odd, but also comforting in a way he can't quite explain.

He looks to his side, and notices that he's sitting on a beige couch, the same exact color as the walls. In the corners of the room, flanking the sides of the encouraging mantra on the wall, are five foot pedestals, each with a potted plant on top. The rest of the room, whatever the room is, is completely plain, clean, and now utterly silent, aside from the left-behind ringing in his ears.

Suddenly, he hears a sound, like a deadbolt being unlocked. He looks to the other side of the room and notices a door. Wait, was that there before? It had to be. The handle is turning, twisting, and less than a second later, it opens halfway and a man steps into the room.

He's a ginger, shorter than Len, and he's wearing a ridiculous brown woolen trench coat and almost looks like he stepped out of a cowboy movie. He smiles, baby blue eyes crinkling up.

"Leonard?" he says, in a clippy British accent. "Come on in."

   
*

 
"Hello, Leonard," he says as he settles in the chair behind his desk. Len sits down in a chair on the other side and rests his hands on his thighs, perplexed by the man in front of him. Who is he, and how does he know who Len is?

"My name is Rip," the man says, and that answers that question. "How are you today?" he asks, and Len raises his eyebrows.

"Peachy," he says, and it's sort of the truth. He feels fine, better than fine, actually, but there's still a ringing in his ears and a fuzziness in his brain that make the empty space behind his eyes throb. He swallows, then continues. "One question."

Rip raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say a word. Len takes a deep breath.

"Where am I, who are you, and what's going on?"

Rip's eyebrows fall, and his face steadies into a more neutral, almost professional expression.

"Right," he begins. "So, you, Leonard Snart, are dead. Your life on earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe."

Len stares, unblinking, face neutral. The words tumble around in his head like dirty laundry, spinning and spinning until they finally stop and come to rest in that throbbing space right behind his eyes.

You, Leonard Snart, are dead. 

You are dead. 

Dead. 

Rip stares at him, undoubtedly waiting for a response. Len picks the only thing that comes to mind.

"Cool," he says, before repeating it once more, for good measure. "Cool."

A beat.

"I have some questions," he adds, and Rip chuckles.

"I thought you might," he says with a smile, looking at Len with a warm, friendly expression. Len's stomach twists. Nobody had ever looked at him in that way, not once in his entire life. A life that is now, apparently, over.

Because, you know. He's dead.

Damn.

"How did I die?" he asks, because it's the only thing he can think about right now. "I don't remember." It's true. The fuzzy feeling still plagues his brain, a tingling sensation just above his ears, like someone gave him an electric jolt just before waking up.

Rip grimaces a little before schooling his expression back to its friendly warmth.

"Yes, um, well, in cases of traumatic or embarrassing deaths, we erase the memory to allow for a peaceful transition. Are you sure you want to hear?"

Len nods. Of course he wants to hear. He's dead, and something happened that made him dead, and he'll be damned if he leaves this room, whatever sort of afterlife-adjacent room this is, without knowing exactly how it happened.

Rip grabs a clipboard from beside him on the desk and holds it up to his face.

"Alright," he says, then looks down at the papers in front of him. Len braces himself for the worst.

"You were in a grocery store parking lot, and you dropped a gallon of New Amsterdam vodka. When you leaned down to pick it up, a long column of shopping carts that were being returned to the shopping cart collection area rolled out of control and plowed right into you."

Len grits his teeth.

"Yikes," he says. "So that's how I died."

"Oh, there's more," Rip says, before immediately launching into the rest of the recap. "You were able to grab onto the front of the column of shopping carts, but it swept you right into the street, where you were struck and killed by a mobile billboard advertizing a..." Rip's voice trails off and he squints at the papers. He clears his throat, then continues.

"Uh, a mobile billboard advertising an erectile dysfunction pill called 'Engorge-ulate'."

Len stares at Rip, whose eyes are still fixed on the paper. When he looks up and the two men make eye contact, Len blows out a breath.

"OK, well, that's not...great," he says. Understatement of the freaking year. Rip nods, understanding, and sets the clipboard down on his desk.

Len takes a deep breath to steady himself. He's dead. Dead. It's starting to sink in, and it feels weird. 

"Anything else you'd like to know before we get started?"

Len nods.

"Who was right?" he asks, and Rip raises an eyebrow. "I mean, about all of this," he clarifies, gesturing around the room widely. "I mean, am I in... you know..." He swallows hard, nervously, and points towards the floor.

Rip smiles.

"Well, it's not the traditional 'heaven-or-hell' concept you were taught in your youth, but generally speaking, in the afterlife there's a Good Place and a Bad Place."

Rip pauses. Len stares, unblinking, secretly terrified of what he might say next.

"You're in the Good Place," Rip says, his tone full of reassurance. "You're OK, Leonard," he continues, repeating emphatically, "You're in the Good Place."

It's a good thing Len's a master at feigning indifference, because Rip's words clench so painfully in his gut that he nearly winces. Instead, he manages a grateful smile.

You're in the Good Place. 

"Any other questions before we get started?" Rip asks.

Len shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak, and Rip smiles.

"Good," he says, standing up from his chair. Len does the same, and follows Rip out of the room...and into the Good Place.

   
*

"The Good Place is divided into distinct neighborhoods," Rip says, as he and Len walk beside each other down a cobblestone street. "Each neighborhood is designed to meet the needs of its 322 residents, all of whom are perfectly selected to blend together in a blissful, harmonic balance."

Len nods, feeling the fresh breeze on his skin as they pass a series of shops, restaurants, and a large fountain as they approach what Len assumes is the town square. The whole place feels sanitized and suburban, not a single blade of grass out of place. 

Len fights against the instinct to kick down a trashcan, to see if its contents would spill onto the grass and pebbled walkway, or if it would simply right itself by magic. Maybe it'll just be empty.

"Do all the neighborhoods look like this?" he asks, carefully folding his fidgeting hands behind his back, and Rip shakes his head.

"No, every neighborhood is unique. Some have warm weather, some cold, some are cities, some farmland. But in each one, every blade of grass, every ladybug, every detail has been precisely designed and calibrated for its residents."

Len looks around and spots no less than three frozen yogurt shops within his immediate line of sight.

"That's a lot of frozen yogurt places," he says mildly, his face scrunching up in a slightly confused, slightly judgmental sort of way.

Rip looks around, then nodded.

"Yes," he says, then sighs. "That's the one thing we put in all the neighborhoods." He looks off into the distance, thoughtful. "People love frozen yogurt. I don't know what to tell you."

Len stares at Rip as he stares at nothing, before snapping back to reality, whatever "reality" this is.

He looks at Len and puts his hand on his shoulder. Len feels himself tense up, but quickly relaxes, the fight seeming to drain out of him. Physical contact with strangers always makes him uneasy, so why does he feel himself melting into Rip's gentle gesture? Why does he feel... comfortable and safe?

"You're going to have a million more questions, I know," Rip says. Len nods. "For right now," Rip continues, "you'd better grab a seat. Movie's about to begin."

Rip steers Len towards the town square, where rows and rows of chairs are set up facing an empty stage. Len takes his seat near the back, and as he does, a giant, floating screen appears above the stage. Rip himself, or rather Rip from whenever this video was recorded, saunters onto the screen.

"Hello everyone!" movie-Rip says with a chuckle. "And welcome to your first day in the afterlife!"

Len looks around at the other residents, all of whom appear transfixed on the floating screen.

"You were all, simply put, good people," movie-Rip continues, and Len's eyes flick back to the screen. "But, how do we know that you were good? How are we sure? During your time on earth, every one of your actions had a positive or a negative value, depending on how much good or bad that action put into the universe. Every sandwich you ate, every time you bought a magazine, every single thing you did had an effect that rippled out over time and ultimately created some amount of good or bad."

Len swallows hard, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He feels nauseous, somehow, even in paradise.

"You know how some people pull into the breakdown lane when there's traffic, and they think to themselves ah, who cares? No one's watching!" movie-Rip says, looking down his nose at the audience before him. "We were watching," he says. "Surprise!"

The crowd erupts into laughter, easy, secure in the knowledge that they've arrived, they made it.

Len laughs along with them, his chuckle forced and fake, his eyes fixed on the screen so as to not make eye contact with any of the other residents.

"Anyway," Rip continues, "when your time on earth has ended, we calculate the total value of your life, using our perfectly accurate measuring system. Only the people with the very highest scores, the true cream of the crop, get to come here, to The Good Place. What happens to everyone else, you ask?"

Len inhales sharply.

"Don't worry about it."

Oh. Alright.

"The point is, you're here because you lived one of the very best lives that could be lived. And, you won't be alone. Your true soulmate is here, too."

The crowd breaks into a cacophony of gasps and whispers.

"That's right," movie-Rip continues. "Soulmates are real. One of the other people in your neighborhood is your actual soulmate, and you will spend eternity together."

Len looks around at the other residents, scanning the crowd. His soulmate? He always thought that "soulmate" stuff was a bunch of hooey. Hmm. Guess it's not.

"So welcome to eternal happiness," movie-Rip says from the screen. "Welcome to The Good Place."

The audience applauds as the screen disappears into thin air.
   

*

   
Rip walks beside Len, only one step ahead as he leads his curious and confused charge along the concrete path and through the garden.

"So," Len starts, his head a jumbled mess. "Who's down in The Bad Place?"

Rip turns to look over his shoulder, perplexed.

"Like, who's there that I wouldn't expect?"

Rip's face shifts from confusion to thoughtfulness, and he turns his eyes back to the path as he formulated his answer.

"Well, Mozart, Picasso, Elvis, basically every artist ever. Uh, every US president except Lincoln..."

"What about Mother Teresa, or Gandhi?" Len says, citing two of the only textbook do-gooders he can think of at the moment.

"Nope," Rip says. "It was close, but no, they didn't make it."

"Wow," Len says, slowing his pace. Rip stops and turns to face him. "It's just so hard to believe that all those people, who did so much, all wound up..." His voice trails off and his eyes shift from Rip's face to the concrete path beneath them.

Rip puts his hands on Len's shoulders. Len flinches a little, but then feels himself relax, his usual anxieties gone and replaced with warmth and reassurance.
"It's an incredibly selective system," Rip says, his expression soft and comforting. "Most people don't make it here."

Len blows out a breath and along with it, his worries.

"But you," Rip says warmly, and Len can't help but smile back, just a little. "You, a human rights lawyer who fought to expose heinous crimes perpetuated against gay men in Chechnya, you're special, Leonard."

He releases his grip on Len's shoulders, and instantly, the worry is back. It zips back into his body and up his spine to the base of his skull, his head buzzing as he mulls over Rip's words.

A human rights lawyer who fought to expose heinous crimes perpetuated against gay men in Chechnya.

Oh, no.

They keep walking, and after a moment, Rip turns to his left and slows his pace.

"By the way," he says, gesturing to a building in front of them. "Welcome to your new home."

Len turns and follows Rip's gaze, and immediately cringes.

It's a tall, incredibly  narrow building, with four floors and a rooftop patio at the tippy-top. It's gray and plain, like a slab of concrete, with a bright red door and a giant, avant-garde sculpture in the front yard that takes Len's brain a second to fully register. It's the same color as the door, and appears to be made of some sort of metal, folded into the shape of a massive clown head.

Oh, no.

"Oh, it's perfect, isn't it?" Rip says with a satisfied sigh. "You see, in The Good Place, every person gets to live in a home that perfectly matches his or her true essence."

Len can only nod.

"C-cool," he stammers, brain still in processing mode. "So, I guess that's why I get to live in this, uh, sleek, modern townhouse, while other people might get houses that are...more like this!" He says, voice pitching up towards the end in nervous overcompensation. He gestures towards the house next door, beyond a well-trimmed hedge, which is an almost exact replica of the house from the "Home Alone" movies, in that it's huge, symmetrical, and made primarily of red brick. It's the kind of house his half-sister, Lisa, would have pinned on Pinterest, whatever that means, but he knows it fits some sort of suburban fantasy with its white columns and shuttered windows.

"Exactly!" Rip says, then sighs. "Oh, I'm so happy you get it."

   
*

   
The inside of the house is even more boring than the outside.

"As you can see, the interior has been decorated just as you like it."

Len raises an eyebrow in Rip's direction.

"In the extreme minimalistic style," he clarifies, and Len presses his lips together in a tight smile, nodding.

"Oh, oh!" Rip suddenly exclaims, jogging excitedly over to the far corner. "And of course, you love clowns, so..." He flips a switch on the wall and a floodlight illuminated one of the only pieces of actual decor in the entire house, a giant, Renaissance-style oil painting of a clown.

Ohhhhhh no.

Len swallows hard and forces a smile.

"I do love clowns," he says, teeth gritted, trying his best not to let the discomfort he feels inside of his body leak out into his facial expressions, or worse, his armpits. He's sweating like no tomorrow. He's in paradise, and he is sweating through his shirt.

"Now," Rip says, giving Len a pat on the back as he makes his way over to the couch, above which is just another empty wall. "Let me show you the video system here."

Rip waves his hand over the wall and a screen, identical to the one from the welcome video only smaller, materializes in front of them.

"You can review everything that happened in your life from your point of view."

On the screen, in large green letters, is his name: Leonard Michael Snart. Around his name are little gray bubbles with similar green lettering, too small to read until Rip waves his hand over the wall again, and the system zooms past his name and over to a group of bubbles, one of which says "Lapunov v. Russia". Rip waves his hand again, and the screen begins showing a video through Len's eyes, like a first person shooter game.

The video shows a group of people on the steps of what appears to be a courthouse, holding signs and shouting in a language Len doesn't understand but suspects might be Italian. The shouting continues, then the crowd goes silent when one man steps out from behind the heavy doors, yells a few words, and hurls his fist in the air. The crowd erupts with cheers and joyful exclamations, and a man with dark brown hair, pale skin, and tears in his eyes runs towards the camera, towards Len apparently, and throws his arms around him.

The video cuts out.

"Getting the European Court of Human Rights to rule in favor of a survivor of  Chechnya's 2017 anti-gay purge, that got you a ton of points, really put you over the top," Rip says, and Len smiles the same nervous, tight-lipped smile as before, nodding slowly and deliberately.

Suddenly, there's a knock on the front door.

"Barry?" Rip says, and Len turns around to see the front door open and a man about the same height as him step into the front room.

He has soft-looking brown hair, pale skin, and bright, excited hazel-green eyes, like a puppy about to be given a new toy. He's wearing bright red slacks that match the door and the sculpture in the front yard, and a cream-colored pinstripe button-down with the sleeves cuffed. He's smiling, and Rip gives him a wave.

"Come on in," Rip says, and Barry makes his way over to where they are standing in front of the screen, which is still playing the celebratory video on mute, only the image of waving rainbow flags and crying people projected on the wall.

"Leonard?" Barry says, and Len freezes in place. "I'm Barry Allen," he says, a massive smile spreading across his youthful face, "and I'm your soulmate."

Soulwhat? 

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

Len's brain sputters, then kicked into overdrive. The panic he feels fuels his need to make this situation as seamless and stress-free as possible, despite the cold twisting in his gut.

"Cool!" he says, his voice cracking a little over the second "o."

"Can I—Would it be OK if I hugged you?" Barry asks, hope shining in his eyes

Len grits his teeth. "Bring it in," he says, wondering if contact from someone other than Rip will be as painless, and Barry grins as they meet in the middle for a friendly embrace.

It isn't painless, but it is bizarre. He doesn't melt into it immediately like he did with Rip, but then again, this is a person. Rip is...well, he is whatever he is. An angel, God, whatever. This is another human being, or at least the anthropomorphized version of their souls, and the hug is warm but stiff, like hugging a relative you haven't seen in fifteen years.

They sway back and forth for a minute, and Len barely registers Rip's quick remark about having to attend to the other residents, and suddenly, they're alone. The door clicks shut and Len freezes again, panic setting in. Thankfully, Barry is the one to break the hug, leaning back from their embrace and putting his hand on Len's shoulder, guiding him gently to the ultra-modern couch that looks almost painful to sit on.

And look at that, it is.

They sit there on the hard, uncomfortable furniture for a second, and Len thinks to himself, what the hell? Maybe this guy knows what's going on. Maybe Len isn't the only one that is completely and utterly confused.

But Barry doesn't look confused. In fact, he looks thrilled, like all of his dreams are coming true on that stiff, unmovable couch.

Oh no.

"So where are you from, Barry?" Len asks, hands resting on his thighs.

"Well," Barry starts, "I was born and raised in Central City, Missouri, but my work took me all over the place. Australia, Paris, Dakar." He smiles, a wistful look in his eye, and matches Len's gaze. "What about you?" he asks, his tone full of genuine interest.

Len takes a deep breath.

"Uh, well, I was born in Central City, too. Lived there my whole life and never really left, so."

"Wow," Barry says, tone incredulous. "And to think, we probably crossed paths a thousand times on Earth and never even realized it."

Len seriously doubts that someone as squeaky cleans as Barry has ever spent that much time in the type of neighborhood Len grew up in, but he nods, tight-lipped, and a small jolt shoots up his arms when Barry, out of nowhere, reaches out and takes his hands in his, holding them against his knees.

"I have something I'd like to say," he says, and Len "mm-hmm's" with as much feigned excitement as he can muster.

"I spent my entire life learning as much as I could about love, and about purpose, and now... here we are. Soulmates, in The Good Place. And we have the rest of eternity to learn everything we can, only together. As soulmates!" He practically squeals out his last couple of words, smiling so wide Len is surprised his face doesn't crack in half. "It's overwhelming," Barry says after a few seconds of quiet amazement, then tilts his head to the side and sighs, looking at Len fondly.

Oh no. Ohhhhh no. It's too much. It's way too much. Len can't hold it in any longer.

"Barry," he says, voice as level as he can manage. "You'll stand by my side no matter what, right?"

Barry looks flabbergasted.

"Of course I will," he sputters.

"Promise me," Len says, the fear inside of him leaking out again, not through his pores but through his words, and he calms his voice. "Say 'I promise, I will never betray you for any reason.'"

Barry chuckles.

"Len," he says, his voice soft and overwhelmingly genuine. "I swear that I will never say or do anything to cause you any harm."

Len blows out a breath. Smiles. Nods.

"Good," he says plainly, before giving himself some wiggle room and letting a bit of the panic leak into his voice once again. He points to the screen. "Because those aren't my memories."

Barry looks at him, confused.

"I wasn't a lawyer. I've never been to Chechnya. I hate clowns...I think there's been a big mistake." He pauses, watching as Barry's confusion grows and twists into something akin to fear. Len swallows, then takes a deep breath.

"I'm not supposed to be here."

   
*

   
Barry stands in front of the wall, the video of another apparent legal victory playing silently behind him.

"Are you sure this isn't you?" he asks, his voice filled to the brim with skepticism.

"Yes," Len replies, walking over to stand beside Barry. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't some hotshot lawyer who fought for gay rights and loved clowns. They got my name right, but nothing else." He turns around and goes to sit down on one of the other couches, if they can even be called that.

"I mean, somebody royally forked up," he says.

Hang on.

"Somebody forked up," he tries again. His face twists up, confused. "Why can't I say fork?"  he asks, and Barry nods.

"If you're trying to curse, you can't here. I guess a lot of people in this neighborhood don't like it, so it's prohibited."

Len scoffs.

"That's bullshirt," he says, rolling his eyes at the PG-13 rated word that just came out of his mouth.

"So," Barry continues, still focused on the task at hand. "If you're not this person, then who are you?"

Len's face scrunches up.

"What did you do for a living?" Barry tries, and Len thinks back to his time on earth.

"I was in...uh...sales," he says, nodding definitively, and Barry raises a skeptical eyebrow in his direction.

The truth is, Len made virtually all of his money by fencing stolen goods. His idiot father made up schemes and broke into houses to, uh, "acquire" the items, but it was Len who handled the reselling, and maintained relationships with their regular buyers. He had a guy in every shop, on every dock, down in front of every 7/11. If you needed something stolen, or sold, or hidden, you came to Len. He didn't take sides, or pick battles. He didn't hurt anybody. He was there to exchange goods and services, no more, no less. What happened after he did his job was none of his concern.

Len thinks about his life on Earth, then thinks about Barry's speech about love and purpose, and for some reason, his gut twists up again. Stupid do-gooder has his stomach in knots. What a forking joke.

He gives Barry the basics, no more than he absolutely needs to know, intentionally leaving out the various casualties and travesties that occurred as a result of his shady behavior, figuring that he needs to dole out the truth in measured doses so as to not risk sending Barry into shock. Can you go into shock in the afterlife? In The Good Place? Len isn't sure, but he wants to be careful, just in case.

When he's done, Barry stands there, mouth hanging open.

"So," he says, clearing his throat. "Your job was to help criminals dispose of evidence, and to sell other people's belongings. Sorry, other people's stolen belongings."

Len nods, eyebrows raised.

"But I was very good at it," he says, a tad defensively, and a stupefied expression overtakes Barry's face.

"OK, but that's worse," he says, pointing a disapproving finger at Len before scrunching his hand up in a fist. "I mean, you do get how that's worse, right?"

Len squints.

This is going to be a loooooooong afterlife.

   
*

   
They sit below an open umbrella, the thick fabric blocking the sun as they eat their frozen yogurt.

"You know," Barry says, sticking his spoon back in his afternoon snack and leaning back against the chair. "Maybe it's a test."

Len rolls his eyes, but Barry continues.

"Maybe if you go to Rip and you tell him the truth, you'll pass the test, and you'll get to stay."

Len scoffs.

"No dice, kid. I can't risk going to The Bad Place." He takes another bite of his yogurt.

"OK, well, maybe it's not actually, like, all that bad," Barry says, leaning across the table. "Let's just get some information first." He sits up straight. "We'll ask Gideon. Gideon?"

"Hi there," a British accented voice says from right beside Len. In the same moment, a woman appears next to them, dressed in a purple button-down jumper and a patterned, billowy long-sleeved blouse. Her hair is chestnut brown, and her face is almost uncomfortably neutral and pleasant.

Her sudden appearance and vocalization makes Len jump involuntarily, sending him flying a few inches in the air and nearly spilling his yogurt all over his lap.

"Ahh!" he exclaims, steadying himself and his froyo.

"How can I help you?" she asks, her tone of voice as neutral and pleasant as her expression.

"What the fork?" Len exclaims. "Who are you?"

"I'm Gideon," the woman says. "I'm the informational assistant here in The Good Place."

Barry smiles.

"She's like this walking database," he says, beaming. "You can ask her about the creation of the universe, or history, or—"

Len turns to Gideon and cuts Barry off.

"Oh, OK, there's a guy that lived near the docks, Central City, around 2013. His name is Jake Simmons. Did he steal my cut of the..." He pauses, glancing over at Barry. "Profits?" he finishes, and Barry gives him a curious look.

"No," Gideon says plainly.

"Really?" Len says, genuinely surprised. "Huh. I guess my old man must've pocketed it."

"That's correct," Gideon says, and Len shrugs.

"Well, that's fine, I didn't really need that money anyway," he lies, sticking his spoon in his yogurt.

"Yes, you did," Gideon says, and Len shoots the woman-database-whatever a deadly glare.

"OK, Gideon," Barry says, steering the conversation back in its original intended direction. "I have a question. What is The Bad Place like?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Barry, that is the one topic I'm not allowed to tell you about. I can only play you a brief audio clip of what is happening there right now." Gideon points her finger in the air and smiles.

Out of nowhere, the air is filled with guttural screams, the sounds of shattering glass and various explosions, and the terrified shouts of tortured humans, one of which shrieks out, "The bear has two mouths!" before the horrific audio cuts out and is replaced with the peaceful sounds of the mid-afternoon hustle and bustle of the town square.

Barry and Len sit there, Len having gotten his answer to the "can you go into shock in heaven" question.

After a second of stunned silence, Len snaps back to the moment, eyes fixed on Barry.

"Well, it doesn't sound awesome," he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Barry grits his teeth and offers up a pained smile that only makes Len groan and roll his eyes, exasperated.

Will this nightmare ever end? Is this a nightmare? He pinches the side of his thigh, hard.

Nope. No such luck.

   
*

   
"Listen kid, we need a plan," Len says under his breath as he follows Barry through one of the many sprawling gardens. They all look the same to Len, with their too-green grass and too-perfectly-shaped bushes and too-tall fountains. The whole place makes him feel itchy, like he's about to break out in hives.
Barry leans against one of the stately fountains and takes a deep breath. Len walks up behind him and elbows him in the ribs to get his attention.

"Hey," he says, and Barry looks up at him. "I say we just lie low, and hope nobody notices me."

Barry shakes his head back and forth.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just don't think I can help you. I don't like being dishonest. Lying makes me feel sick, and misleading people is just...wrong." He shrugs his shoulders and presses his lips together in a tight line.

"Come on," Len groans. "I'm just asking you to fudge a little bit, not blow it up with a forking bomb or whatever." He groans again, this time longer and louder. "Ugh, this cursing thing sucks." He takes a deep breath. "Look, you must've told a few white lies in your life. Just do that again. I mean, what was your job?"

Barry looks at Len with the same flabbergasted expression.

"I was a Professor of Sociology, specializing in Queer Theory and Ethics." He emphasized the last word, eyebrows sky high.

Of forking course.

Len leans back and lets out a sigh.

"Motherforker!" he exclaims, running his hands over his face.

Barry squirms uncomfortably.

"Look," he says, voice low. "I spent my life living by a certain moral code. Do no harm, and treat people with kindness. And lying is one of the most famously harmful actions in the whole universe. Also, I'm really bad at it, so... yeah, I don't think I can do this." He pauses. "I think I have to tell Rip."

"No, no no no, no, Barry, you don't have to do that," Len protests.

They're interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Tell Rip what?" says the man himself as he walks over to where Barry and Len have been arguing by the fountain. They both throw on happy faces, Barry's a bit more strained under the weight of their recent realization.

"Rip! Hey!" Len says, whacking Barry on the side of the arm and giving him a look that says play it cool. 

Barry swallows, hard.

"What's up with you?" Len asks Rip, a forced smile on his lips.

Rip gestures to the two people beside him, a freakishly tall black-haired man in a tuxedo and a bald guy with rippling muscles and a vacant expression wearing cargo pants and a zip-up fleece vest, as if he were only minutes away from going camping.

"Len, Barry, I'd like you to meet Ray and Lincoln. They are soulmates and your next door neighbors."

"Hi!" Ray says, releasing his grip on Lincoln's hand to shake Barry's, then Len's. "I'm so excited to meet you guys!" Len gives his hand a shake and Ray hangs onto it for a second too long, a bit too tight, looking at him in a way that is just a little too friendly to be comfortable. Len squirms under his grip. He had to clear his throat for Ray to finally get the hint and let go.

"Nice to meet you," Len lies, and glances over at Barry, who is still standing there with a shell-shocked expression. Len gives him a nudge.

"Hi," Barry says, swallowing audibly. "I'm Barry, this is Len," he says nervously, and Len sighs.

"They know that, dear," Len says through a forced smile.

"Anyway," Rip says. "Lincoln and Ray are throwing a party over at their house tonight, a sort of welcome-to-the-neighborhood celebration."

Ray grins excitedly.

"It's going to be fantastic!" he says, his massive smile growing even bigger. "I planned the whole thing myself, all the way down to the decorations and themed cocktails." Rip clears his throat and Ray looks over at him, his eyebrows rising slowly. "Oh!" he says suddenly, realizing what Rip was hinting at.

Ray turns to the side and loops his arm through Lincoln's, flush to his side, and then turns back to look at Len and Barry.

"This is my soulmate, Lincoln," he says with a smile that is a bit too forced. "He's an environmental activist who took a vow of silence nine years ago to protest deforestation in the Amazon." He looks at Lincoln, then back at the other two men. "And apparently," Ray says, that bright smile growing a bit tight, "he's decided to stick to that vow, even here. Even now. In paradise." 

Len looks at Lincoln and nods. The man nods back.

Hmm. Weird.

"So anyway," Ray continues, his voice shifting back into excited familiarity. "We'll see you both tonight?"

"Oh yeah," Barry says, nodding a bit too fast.

"Yeah, we'll be there," Len says, kicking Barry's foot with his shoe.

Play it cool, you idiot. 

   
*

   
"Oh, you have got to be forking kidding me."

Len and Barry walk over the threshold and into the house, Barry's face awash with wonder and Len's riddled with disdain.

"Family photos? Framed college degrees?" Len points at the wall along the staircase with a skeptical expression on his face. "Oh, come on, a forking Presidential Medal of Freedom?" He rolls his eyes and turns to face Barry. "Brag much? Like, who do they think they are, Jay-Z and Beyonce?" he asks, and Barry sighs, exasperated.

"OK, listen," he says, his hands pressed together like he's praying, fingers pressed against his lips, steadying himself.

Len raises an eyebrow.

"I need you to help me out here," Barry said. Len waits. "Tell me one good thing that you did on earth, just one truly kind and decent act, so I can feel better about helping you out."

Len thinks about it. A kind and decent act? If it wasn't bringing him inventory or making him money, he really didn't care that much about decency. His mind wanders, and apparently his face shifts into a dissociative expression, because Barry snaps his fingers impatiently to get him to jump back to the present.

"OK," Barry says as Len's eyes readjust after glazing over in heavy contemplation. "Let's forget good. Just tell me something neutral about yourself. Like, tell me about the day before you died."

Len scrunches up his face, and thinks back to his last full day on earth. You know, before the column of shopping carts and the shitty vodka and Engorge-ulate. Bleh.

It's sort of a blur, but from what he does remember, he and Lisa had gone to go meet a buyer down at the docks to move some product for a local gang leader. On the ride back to the safehouse, Lisa had turned to him and asked him if he thought working with the gangs was a good idea. Len remembered telling her that it didn't matter who they were working with, as long as they knew who they were working for, then promptly slamming on the gas pedal and peeling out onto the main road.

Len comes back to the moment, the memory still fresh in his mind.

"I don't remember anything specific," he lies, and Barry sighs, running his hands over his face in fraught distress. "Look, kid," Len continues, and Barry meets his gaze, shoulders slumped. "I might not have been a forking saint, but like, I never killed anyone. I didn't set buildings on fire. I never sold fake cocaine to college kids that was really just crushed up baby aspirin to make ends meet."

Barry's eyebrows shoot up.

"OK, that last one was really specific, and that makes me think that you definitely did do that," he says, voice cracking on every other word.

Len rolls his eyes.

"All I'm saying is, these people might be good, but are they really that much better than me?" He shrugs, and Barry stuffs his hands in his pockets with another loud sigh.

 
*

   
Len hated drinking games on earth. He thought they were stupid. What kind of loser needed to play a game to get drunk?

But as he and Barry walk around Lincoln and Ray's sprawling suburban wonderland, mingling as best as they can with the other residents, he realizes that making a game of this might just be his saving grace.

Drink every time someone says something that you would've punched them in the mouth for on earth. Drink every time someone humble-brags about all of the good things they did in their apparently-morally-upstanding lifetimes. Drink every time someone speaks. 

They walk around for an hour, Len throwing back more champagne and wine than he can ever remember drinking in one sitting, and in no time at all, he's drunk.

"Can you please slow down on the champagne?" Barry hisses, holding his own glass in his hands as they listen to Ray telling a story in front of the fireplace.
Len hiccups.

"Champagne's a stupid drink, anyway. It's all bubbles." Hiccup. 

Barry rolls his eyes, exasperated, and groans before putting his hand on Len's shoulder and attempting to whisk him out of the living room.

Len pulls himself out from under Barry's grasp with a dramatic jerk.

Suddenly, Gideon walks by with an empty tray above her shoulder like a waitress about to clear a table. Len grabs her arm as she passes by.

"Hey, hey, hey, slow down there, ace," he says. "Where's all the food?"

Gideon smiles her perfect white teeth smile.

"This is The Good Place. Just close your eyes, think about what you'd like to eat, then open, and your snacks of choice will be on this tray."

Len squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds, picturing his favorite foods from earth. He opens his eyes, and grins wolfishly at what he sees. Now, this he can work with.

On the tray in Gideon's hands are hot lobster rolls, several packs M&Ms, a cup of cocoa with mini-marshmallows, and mint ice cream.

"Oh fork yeah!" he says, grabbing things from the tray and holding them in his arms like a toddler left wandering a toy store.

"Can you chill for a second, please?" Barry begs, and Len rolls his eyes.

"Oh come on, it's all free," he says.

Suddenly, Len feels himself being watched. He looks up to see Rip, standing beside Ray in front of the fireplace, looking directly at him, apparently coming to the end of a speech he'd been giving that Len had missed entirely.

"Simply put," Rip says, eyes locked on Len as he struggles to balance his armful of snacks. "You are all good people."

Rip smiles. Len swallows, hard.

"Anyway, that's it for me! Back to you, Ray!" Rip gestures at the man beside him, who proceeds to tell everyone about the in-ground heated pool in the backyard, complete with a diving board and a twelve-foot slide, that all are welcome to. 

Len groans.

"Ugh."

Barry raises an eyebrow.

"What?" he asks, and Len scoffs.

"It's just, Raymond. And his soulmate, too. With their perfect little suburban house and their wall of achievements and their in-ground pool. Like who cares?" Len raises his eyebrows and makes a snooty face. "Oh hello," he mocks, mimicking Ray. "I'm Raymond, welcome to my lovely home. Would you like to see my vegetable garden, or perhaps a photo album of all my happy family moments on earth?" He snorts and shoves a hot lobster roll in his mouth.

A look of confusion crosses Barry's face.

"I don't understand," he says. "Why is Ray being a nice person and offering up his home and his pool a bad thing? We're in The Good Place, Len, it's going to be full of good people."

Len rolls his eyes.

"What makes someone a good person anyway?" Hiccup! "Raymond just seems like a pompous deck." He pauses. "Deck. Deck. Why can't I call him a deck?"

"No swearing, remember?" Barry says, reaching over to remove some of the snacks from Len's arms.

"Oh come on!" Len protests, snatching back the cocoa from Barry's hands. "Deck isn't even technically swearing!"

Barry sighs.

"It is when you're hurling it at a perfectly nice, perfectly kind man that you literally just met." 

Len, now properly drunk and divested of all his snacks, save for his mug of cocoa, rolls his eyes and fakes laughs.

"You just met him too," he says, his eyes beginning to glaze over. "How do you know he's so perfect and nice?" 

"I said he was perfectly nice,"  Barry says, and Len makes a "psh" sound.

"Whatever," he says, then stumbles to the side, barely catching his balance at the last second.

"Alright, I think it's time for us to head home," Barry says, and places his hand on the small of Len's back to guide him out of the front door.

"Hey, hey, wait a sec," Len says, stopping in his tracks. "I just, I gotta go upstairs real quick." A pause. "And steal a bunch of shiny shit."

Barry presses his lips together in a straight line.

"Please don't do that," he says, and Len ponders this for exactly half a second before darting upstairs, cocoa in hand. It doesn't even spill because, hello, Good Place. 

Barry chases after him, muttering his name urgently under his breath, and when he catches up to him just before Len opens the door to Ray's bedroom, he forcefully drags him back down the stairs and out the front door.

   
*

   
Len pushes open the bright red front door and kicks off his shoes in the entryway.

"Hello, boring house that I hate!" he says, spreading out his arms and spinning in a circle. "Hello, terrifying clowns!" he shouts at the oil painting on the wall. He turns and starts up the stairs, having realized earlier that day that his bedroom is all the way up on the fourth floor.

Barry follows him, hands poised to catch Len if he stumbles, and the two men make their way up the seemingly endless spiral staircase, stopping on the landing between the second and third floors so Len's drunken self can catch his breath.

"Why are there so many stairs?" he asks, distraught, groaning and leaning back against the wall. Barry sighs, and Len hoists himself up off the ground and starts crawling up the remaining stairs to the fourth floor.

When they get to Len's bedroom, as plain and uninspired as the rest of the house, he flops down on the bed face-first, collapsing into the pile of pillows, one of the only soft surfaces in the entire house.

He lays there for a moment, while Barry stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching as Len rolls from his stomach to his back, splaying his arms out beside him on the plain white comforter.

"Well," Barry says, and Len's head pops up off the bed. "I think I'm gonna go," he says.

Len nods.

"Yeah, OK."

Barry turns around and started to make his way out of the room when something inside of Len jumps into his throat and grabs ahold of his tongue, forcing a slurred Barry from his lips.

Barry turns around and looks at Len, who leans up on his elbows to get a better look at the man across the room.

He looks tired. Exhausted, even.

Len pauses, not sure what to say.

"I, uh, I'm sorry you had to, you know. Deal with this." He points at himself. Shrugs. Looks away awkwardly.

Barry gives him a half-hearted smile.

"It's fine," he said.

And for whatever reason, Len's heart sinks at that.

"No," he says softly. "It's not."

It's silent for a moment, just the two of them staring at each other across the long, narrow room.

"Do you think..." Len starts, then stops. He looks up at Barry, who was wearing a curious expression. Len continues. "Do you think that anybody cared that I died?"

Barry's face twists into something Len can't place.

"I mean, maybe someone did. I dunno." He shrugs. "My sister and I weren't really that close. I left home when she was still pretty young. My parents split up when I was a kid, they were both forking messes and pretty crummy people so they're probably..." Len pauses, grimacing, and points at the floor.

Barry lets out a small, breathy laugh, just a chuckle. A tiny smile makes its way across Len's face. He sits up and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor.

"I bet way more people cared that you died," he says quietly, and swallows hard. "Because, well... you're a nice person." He cringes a little at himself, but does his best to to hide it. "You... are a nice person, Barry Allen," he says again, the words more deliberate, more intentional. It still feels weird.

Barry stares at him, his face unreadable, and it makes Len feel like he's being examined, studied, picked apart. He scrunches up his face a bit, then fake-yawns.

"Goodnight," he says, before falling back onto the bed and turning away from Barry, fake-snoring the second his head hits the pillows.

Barry sighs and turns off the lights.

"Goodnight," he says softly, before closing the door behind him and heading back downstairs.

   
*

   
A clap of thunder startles Len awake.

He groans and rubs his eyes, nearly punching himself in the face when another deafening roll of thunder causes him to leap straight up in bed.

He looks to the side of the room, over by the window, and sees the shadows of flailing trees cast against the curtains.

He gets up in a rush and goes over to peer out the window, throwing the curtains open.

Outside, bright red columns of wind, what appear to be tiny tornadoes or hurricanes of sorts, are swirling around through the air, picking up debris and spewing them across the sprawling yards. Giant animated lobsters and comically large marshmallows are flying around every which way, and a wooden deck falls from the sky and lands directly in the middle of the lawn. Thousands upon thousands of M&Ms are rolling down the hill, taking out tables and chairs alongside the cafes and plowing right through a group of residents, all of whom are wearing hideous yellow-and-navy striped pantsuits.

There's music playing from somewhere, and what sounds like "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce and Jay-Z is blasting throughout the neighborhood.

Len looks down on the lawn below and sees Ray, in his yellow and navy striped pantsuit, running towards Rip, who is dressed exactly the same.

Ray shouts something at Rip, pointing at the floating, animated lobsters. Rip shouts something back, then takes off running towards the town square. Ray looks around, frazzled, then runs off after Rip.

Len throws on a pair of slippers he found in the closet and runs downstairs, throwing open the front door and running out into the chaos, desperately trying to find Barry.

"Barry?" he shouts as he sprints into the square, narrowly squashed by a falling deck. "Barry!" 

He makes it to the center of town and sees Barry, in the same yellow-and-navy pantsuit as everyone else, standing in front of one of the frozen yogurt shops, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open in shock.

"Barry!" Len shouts. He runs up beside him, and Barry's gaze shifts from the swirling chaos to Len, standing in front of him in black sweatpants and a gray "Central City University" t-shirt.

"Barry, what's going on?" he asks, frantic. "Why are there giant lobsters everywhere? Do you hear Beyonce playing?" He pauses, looking over Barry's ensemble. "Why is everyone wearing blue and yellow?"

Barry, his face still shell-shocked, points at Len.

"You're not," he says.

Len looks down at his outfit, at the sweatpants and the ironic college t-shirt.

"You're the only one that's not," Barry says, his tone pressing, and Len realized that he was right.

He swallows.

"Len," Barry says. "This is all happening...because of you!"

Len groans and rolls his entire head before stomping his foot on the ground like a petulant child, fists clenched, nose scrunched.

"Oh, fork me!" he shouts.
   

*

   
Len and Barry both shuffle into the narrow townhouse as quickly as they can. Once they're inside, Barry with his hands pressed to the sides of his temple and Len's hands waving around frantically, they start shouting again.

"OK, OK, we don't know that this is all because of me," he says, voice as distressed as Barry's face.

"Len," Barry says, trying his best to keep his voice level. "This place? Is like a perfectly made Swiss watch, and you are a wrench in the gears." Len scowls, affronted, but Barry continues. "No, actually, you know what? You are a hammer! Just pounding and smashing the gears into dust!"

Len snorts.

"OK, alright, hang on a minute. Not everyone here is perfect, OK? Ray is totally stuck-up, and there are a couple of...you know, chunksters." Len holds his arms out to the side and did a little waddle.

"Oh my god, Len!" Barry exclaims, putting his face in his hands.

"What? You don't get to judge me!" Len shouts. "All I'm saying is that I'm not the only one here with flaws, so how do we know that I'm the one that caused this?"

Barry blows out a sharp, frustrated breath. 

"You had Gideon bring you M&M's last night at the party, and now there are thousands of them taking out residents in the streets. You called Ray a condescending deck, and now there are wooden decks literally falling from the sky."

Len rolls his eyes.

"OK, fine. Turns out that there are several ways to tell that it was me."

"Len," Barry says, voice as serious as Len has ever heard it. "Let's just face it, OK? You don't belong here."

Len stands there, mouth hanging open, the anger filling his body like a fancy Brita filter, something that stuck-up Ray probably has six of. He feels it bubbling up, starting in his toes and filling him up to his ears, and after a few seconds of prolonged, angry eye contact with the younger man in front of him, he loses it.

"Well then this system sucks!" he shouts, pointing a finger up at Barry's face. "What, one in a billion get to live in paradise and everyone else is tortured for eternity? I mean, come on!" 

He paces back and forth as he speaks, and Barry just stands there, shaking his head slowly as Len rages.

"I mean, I wasn't forking Gandhi, not that that would even matter because apparently he's in The Bad Place anyway, but—"

"Wait, Gandhi is in The Bad Place? For real?" Barry cuts him off, and Len stops his pacing for a second.

"Yeah, Rip told me."

Barry laughs outright.

"So one of the most famous humanitarians in the entire world is being tortured in The Bad Place, and you're going to look me dead in the eyes and tell me that you think you belong here?"

"You know what?" Len shouts. "Fork you! Like you're so much better than me just because you study ethics." 

"I'm not saying that," Barry says. "I'm just saying that I think I probably have a better grasp on the difference between good and bad."

"I'm not a forking child, Barry, I know the difference between good and bad."

"Are you sure about that?" Barry asks, one eyebrow raised, and Len rolls his eyes.

"Look, I might not have been the best person on earth, but I also wasn't the worst." He gasps, a sudden realization coming to the forefront of his mind. "I was a medium person," he says, and Barry's eyebrows shoot up.

"A medium person," he repeats slowly.

"Yes!" Len says, warming up to it. "A medium person. Not good, but not bad either. I should get to spend eternity in a medium place, with the rest of the medium people."

Barry sighs.

"Well, apparently it doesn't work that way."

Len feels a lump forming in his throat.

"Look," Barry says. "I'm sorry. But there's nothing anyone can do."

Len swallows the lump. Thinks. Considers. 

Like you're so much better than me just because you study ethics. 

Ethics.

Oh yes. A con. Now, that he can do.

Len clears his throat.

"Unless," he begins smoothly, looking up at Barry to assess his reaction. His eyebrows are still raised and his face is twisted into a confused but curious expression. He nods, urging Len on.

"Unless," Len says again, drifting closer until they're almost nose to nose. "You could teach me."

Barry's face scrunches up.

"Teach you? Teach you what?" he says.

"Ethics," Len says, his tone of voice as soothing and warm as the hot cup of cocoa Gideon made for him last night. "You know, how to be good. Wasn't that like, your whole job?"

"Well, my job was more about the practical applications of ethical concepts to Queer Theory as a means of strengthening legal argu—"

Annoyance flares. 

"Oh my god, we get it kid, you were like, some brainy gay superhero, that's great. What I'm saying is that when I got here, nobody knew I was a problem. Shirt didn't really start going down until I was an ash-hole to everyone at the party." Len grimaces and lets out a frustrated groan. "You know I'm trying to say ash-hole and not ash-hole, right?"

Barry rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I got that."

Len clasps his hands in front of him like he's begging, and it feels pathetic, but he's coming to realize that this tall, annoying kid standing in front of him might just be his only hope.

"Give me a chance," he says, and he's trying to sound calm but his voice breaks, a little. "Let me earn my place here. I swear, I'm worth it." He can hear the pleading tone in his voice and his stomach twists at it. Barry pressed his lips together, hesitant, not responding but rather just staring at Len with a vacant expression like he's in processing mode, clearing out the files.

Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.

"Hey guys!" Rip shouts from behind the door. "Emergency neighborhood meeting! Now!"

"We'll be right there, Rip!" Len shouts, then turns back around to face Barry. He looks himself up and down, then looks at Barry's hideous pantsuit. "If I walk out of here in these clothes, I'm toast."

Barry lifts his hands to his head and rubs his temples, the impending-headache type motion Len has seen before.

"My soul is in your hands, soulmate," Len says urgently. He hates this, he hates having to depend on anyone but himself, but he has no other option. Rip knocks on the door again, and Barry swallows hard, staring at Len with wide, frightened eyes.

"So," Len says, eyebrows sky high. "What's it gonna be?"