Work Text:
He is a simple man. Always has been. There are others who seek challenge or strife, a desire to feel more, but not him. Not Fiyero. He glides through life, and sees no need to go looking for more when contentment can be won with just a flash of his pearly whites and the sparkle of his winkie blue eyes. Life is easy. Life is good.
Or at least it was.
Before her. Now, something has changed. Something within him has changed, and he isn’t the same as he once was.
No more does he glide about the halls of Shiz with the pizazz for which he is known. Instead, he stumbles and trips over his feet, his mind unable to trace the steps before him. It seems, instead, they are always seeking that path through the forest. Picking their way over buried branches and winding through the rich, verdant greens of that night.
No more does he skip and prance and dance towards his class, instead hanging back, dawdling in the shadows of the labyrinthine hallways. Waiting. Waiting for something, someone to show themselves.
Perhaps, it was always safer here in the shadows. Before, he had always sought the spotlight, glowing beneath the admiring eyes of others, basking in glory as they celebrated the persona he inhabited. The Winkie Prince. Dancing through life. But here, in the darkness, he tastes a freedom he had not known he sought.
“Fiyero?”
Shards of light splinter the shadows, and he is pulled from the darkness by two piercing eyes of jade.
“Elphaba,” the sound drips from his lips like the sweetest honey.
“What are you doing lurking in the dark?” Her arms hug a dusty tome against her chest, a barricade across her heart.
“I…” he starts, but the words are jumbled as he suffers beneath her piercing gaze. He cannot be this close to her, he cannot think with her looking at him like that. Beneath her gaze he feels exposed, foolish, brainless. For she does not buy the shallow man he presents. Elphaba is always digging. Digging, digging, deeper and deeper, with every look. Searching for more. Seeking to find something in him that he is not even sure is there.
After a few torturous beats, her study ceases. He is at once grateful for the reprieve, and devastated that she found nothing there.
Her sigh is like an iron chain upon his chest. “You are looking for Galinda.” It is not a question. A statement delivered with a certainty in her voice that is not reflected in her eyes.
“Of course,” he answers with the same certainty. The lie coming too easily. “Who else would I be waiting for?”
This close, he sees the minutiae of her expression as it morphs into disappointment. How quickly her eyes are jaded, their brilliance dulled to acceptance. As he is forced to watch her don a mask of indifference, he aches at his weakness. He knows that mask. He sees it in the mirror. And he cannot bear to be the one who has forced her to wear it.
“Well,” she continues, her eyes skirting the floor now, studying the aging bricks as if they will lead her to some great adventure, “she went ahead. I imagine she is waiting for us in class.”
Tightening her arms around her book, she turns to leave, and a panic surges within him. The words are blurted out before he can stop himself. “Walk with me.”
A few beats pass as she watches him back, and her lips part as if she will say something. It is impossible not to look at the lips, full, and plush, the exact hue of the deepest swathe of river that runs through the valleys of Winkie country. He finds he is holding his breath, waiting for her rejection. Instead, she just nods, and relief floods his veins as he falls into step beside her.
There are no words spoken, just an amiable silence weaving itself around them. Fiyero cannot remember the last time he ambled so, his arms swinging softly at his sides, just grazing hers every now and again. Though he tries to ignore it, each touch sparks a frisson of warmth, and he wonders desperately if she feels it too.
They linger as they approach the classroom door, neither addressing how they move slower and slower, dragging the moment on as long as they can. He searches for nothing in his bag just to delay them, and she plays absentmindedly with the bottom of her plait. His eyes are drawn helplessly to her long, elegant fingers - a striking green against the ebony of her braid. He remembers those fingers. Remembers the velvet softness as they grazed his cheek. A caress that haunts his dreams.
“Elphaba, I…” he trails off when she looks at him. Really looks at him. It should terrify him, that someone seeks to see through the facade. It is peculiar, how the fear of being uncovered doesn’t fill him with dread, as he had always imagined. When Elphaba looks, it feels…it feels…
He does not know what the feeling is, nor is he sure he wants to. It is too raw. Like the new skin beneath a scab, it is safer and less painful to leave it untouched and yet the itch, the itch, is almost unbearable. The desire to peek beneath. To feel. To feel something.
“Yes…” There is a tremble in her voice when she responds. That is not his Elphaba. His Elphaba is always strong and brave. Without thinking he leans in, raising a hand to seek hers, to still the quiver he sees in her fingers. And he is so close, so close, when…
“Elphie,” a shrill voice pierces the moment. “There you are.”
The clatter of heels echoes about the halls until she reaches them, all smiles and sweet perfume. “And Fiyero. My Prince.” Galinda hangs upon his arm, her smile growing wider as she takes him in, her almond eyes the picture of joy. “Don’t you look swankified today.”
It is a heavy effort to draw his eyes away from Elphaba, to force a smile back at the girl now resting against him, bouncing upon her feet just to be by his side. Galinda is everything he thinks he should want. She is perky and pink and perfect. They are matched in every way. Yet when she looks at him, it feels glancing. Not even skin deep. Her eyes do not penetrate every layer, every defence, until they seep deeper than his bones.
“We are late for class,” Elphaba’s voice is guarded again.
“There is no time for that,” Galinda enthuses, finally releasing her crippling grip upon him to grasp at her friend. “Madam Morrible is searching everywhere for you. There is quite the disturberance down by the lake, they say it is a message from the Wizard, the Wizard. So come, come, we must discoverate what is happening.”
There is a flurry of pink and green as Galinda tries to drag her friend away, tugging at her immovable form. Only, for one more moment, Elphaba still simply looks at him.
He cannot understand why she does not rush to follow. All she has ever wanted is to meet the Wizard, to leave for the Emerald City and never return. It is where she belongs, to be with her equals and cherished by someone as worthy as The Wizard. Where Fiyero is bravado and smoke and mirrors, she is the truth. Meant for greatness. Meant for more than this. More than him.
There is the fear he expected. Not in being revealed, but in being left behind. For not being worthy of her, and knowing he never will be. And it is in that moment of acceptance, that his mask slips.
Elphaba sees it. Of course she does. There is only a fraction of a moment before she is finally dragged from him, but it is enough for him to know she has found what she was searching for. The one thing he is always trying to hide. The man beneath the mask.