sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry

"I promise there's a good explanation for this and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think you'd be okay with it," he doesn't say.

When Sasha has left, he stands up, walks to Asher's room, and says, "I need you to fuck me."

"This is a sudden change of heart."

"Maybe I've been sold on the whole soulmate thing."

He doesn't hide at all how Asher's touch makes him feel sick, and he doesn't miss the reluctance in Asher's face, and he hopes that this will keep Sasha safe.

Alright. So. The Good Place thinks he's a girl and Lev thinks they're right, and Sasha is here with Faye who is the sort of person whose favorite poet is Audre Lorde, and he's not going to get to learn math but he's still going to be able to teach art and poetry so that'll be okay probably, and, and his soulmate is a lesbian and Lev thinks that's the right choice to make and he's already agreed to go to group therapy with his lesbian soulmate who likes Audre Lorde and spent lots of time arguing about feminism on the internet when she was alive and this is fine he's fine it's totally fine — 

Sasha goes to the fuzzy animal depot and cuddles a cat, because he is not at all sure that cuddling Faye is going to help. The cat is calico and named Spottedleaf and she curls up on Sasha's chest and makes cat noises and it's much much better than nothing and he wants so badly to put his head on Lev's shoulder and he can't do that even a little bit. He doesn't cry. He kisses Spottedleaf on the top of her perfect fluffy cat head and puts her back in the glass room and goes home and flops on the bed and ignores how uncomfortable it is, probably he can get a softer mattress and softer sheets from Janet at some point, of all the things to miss about Lev his bed isn't even the tenth on the list. 

And eventually it is the day of GROUP THERAPY. 

Faye reads the blurb for “Trauma: A Narrative Therapy Approach” five times (“A support group for individuals who experienced trauma or whose trauma was compounded as a result of political, cultural or social forces, our goal is to help participants create a personal narrative to understand and give meaning to their lives and to themselves.”) and triple-checks the address before gathering enough courage to knock on Sasha’s door. “Hello?”

He opens the door. 

(He's not wearing a shirt; to Faye his chest isn't pixelated, and neither are the scars from his top surgery or the lines of his ribcage. There's a bruise on his forearm, about the right size for it to have been left by his own teeth.) 

"Hey." 

She is going to deal with that. At some point. At a later, not-now point. She has been thinking this about a surprising number of things since she got her, now that she thinks about it? Well, at least she’s going to therapy. 

“Hey. I, uh...” She fidgets a little, bites her lip. “Um. Therapy’s today. But I figured we can have something to eat first if you want? Or not, not is also fine. And maybe remind Lev?”

"Eating sounds good, there's a donut place. — I don't think Lev is going to want to go but we can grab him if you want." 

“—Oh, I thought he was interested after I offered to trade for me sitting through extra math lessons? But if you think it’s a bad idea I guess you know him better than I do. Donut place sounds good, if nothing else we can eat with him.”

"...he, uh. Kind of broke up with me, I'm not sure he's going to want to eat with us either. But we can ask." 

“....Oh. I’m, uh, sorry—I didn’t realize—um. Do you think it’s a good idea to ask, still, or—? For you, too, I mean. Since. Uh. You know. Sorry.” Wow she is a terrible soulmate. 

"I mean. I didn't tell you. I don't think I really want to go to therapy with him." Or go to therapy at all but you know. 

“Yeah, that’s. Super fair. And I’m sorry about the breakup. Donut place?”

"Yeah, sure, let me grab a shirt." 

“Of course.”

And then: donut place!

Donuts are still free, which is nice. He eats a slightly absurd amount of them. 

Faye eats considerably fewer donuts than Sasha, but she eats a bit more than she normally would and smiles at the amount that Sasha eats and tries to keep conversation up at least a little. 

He can try and talk but mostly he is dreading what they're doing afterwards and he's pretty sure Faye can tell. 

She kind of can and it’s kind of terrifying and this is terrible moral support but also she doesn’t want to chicken out and get scolded by Michael again for being unhelpful to Sasha, so. Probably it will be better eventually? 

Once Sasha’s done eating she’s going to stand up and say “So, uh, I’m pretty sure it’s this way..?” as though she definitely looked at the address a normal number of times. 

The group is at The Good Place University. 

There are a bunch of hard chairs in a semicircle, and a table with decaf coffee on it in the back. (There's no milk or sugar to put in it.) The walls have helpful signs on them:

"THE PRESENT MOMENT IS PERFECT!"
"EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE."
"SING LIKE NO ONE IS LISTENING. LOVE LIKE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN HURT. DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING."
"SHOOT FOR THE MOON. EVEN IF YOU MISS YOU'LL LAND AMONG THE STARS."
"EVERYTHING YOU WANT IS OUT THERE WAITING FOR YOU TO ASK."
"YOU GET IN LIFE WHAT YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO ASK FOR."
"TODAY, EXPECT AND BELIEVE IN MIRACLES."
"NO ONE CAN HURT YOU WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT."
"NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS."
"SWEAT IS JUST FAT CRYING."

Everyone in the group is female except for Sasha. 

—wow, okay, apparently heaven has horrific taste in posters. Either that or this is going to be really, really awful therapy. Or both. At least most of them are just “cheesy elementary school poster” and not “pulled directly from your self-hating thoughts.” Hopefully they were just already there and nobody consciously decided that “no one can hurt you without your consent” was a good message for trauma survivors.  

Faye ignores the coffee and sits in one of the chairs. 

Sasha looks at the posters, looks at the group, looks a little longingly at the door, and moves a chair aside to sit down on the floor. 

An oppressively cheerful woman enters.

"Hello! Welcome to Trauma: A Narrative Therapy Approach. Narrative therapy is a form of therapy which doesn't focus on changing your behavior but on your retelling of the problem, which is centered around an internalized negative identity. In narrative therapy, you take events and other surface phenomena and tell alternate stories about them that more richly describe your life. We want to help you generate stories that feel truer and more meaningful than the problem-saturated account. Instead of having a deficit-based approach to trauma, we try to convince you to have an empowering approach!"

Sasha is pretty sure that actually the problem with having been beaten and raped and homeless is not the story he tells about it, but that sure is a therapy concept. 

Wow, she’s chipper. Faye is just going to... wait and see what exactly this entails once the therapist gets all the buzzwords out of her system.