I don't own The Good Place nor will I ever. No copyright infringement intended.
Michael had been looking forward to torturing Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason at first but over eight hundred reboots later, something had changed - like Janet, they had become his friends. And he wasn't exactly sure how to handle that. Yes, he still enjoyed forking with them occasionally (the demon in him couldn't help it) but he actually cared about them as people - something that had never happened before. It's somewhat terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. He was dragged out of his thoughts by an elbow in his side and turned to face Eleanor. "Pay attention to Chidi," she urged.
"Sorry," he whispered back. The close call with Shawn had set him on edge and now he was trying to best to stay ahead of his boss' suspicions. He couldn't let them tortured for real, an unusual situation for him. Worrying about others instead of himself was new and felt weird.
"Stop talking!" Chidi called over his shoulder as he continued the day's lesson.
"Can we play a game?" Jason stage-whispered to them.
Michael laughed. "Maybe in a little while."
"Why is nobody listening to me?" Chidi glared at all them and stopped for few minutes to let all them talk it out, a daily occurrence.
"You should know better by now. How long have we been doing this?" An amused Tahani ignored Chidi's sputtering and turned her attention towards the others.
"Are you okay? You seem off." Michael had been unusually quiet for a few days now and Eleanor was worried about him.
"I'm fine. Nothing to worry about," he lied, not wanting to panic them - it'd only make things worse, something they couldn't afford right now.
Eleanor definitely didn't believe him but she chose not to call him out on it for now (which he appreciated). "Okay. Why don't we watch a movie? Something none of us have seen," she suggested.
"I'm trying to teach here!" They all felt a little bad for the clearly distressed Chidi but today's lesson had already been derailed and there was nothing he could do about it.
"What would we even watch?" Tahani questioned.
"A Disney movie!" a clearly enthusiastic Jason shouted.
Chidi groaned, turned around, and then lightly slammed his head into the blackboard. "Why me?"
"Guys, you're stressing the fork out of Chidi! Shut up!" Eleanor shouted, clearly worried about the man she (didn't want to admit she) loved.
"We should probably get back on track, as amusing as this is." But worries and fear continued to plague Michael and he nearly began to panic upon realizing that he loved these four humans (and a robot). He was a demon! Demons weren't supposed to love others, let alone humans they were meant to torture.
Shirt, he was utterly and royally forked. There was no way around it.