Work Text:
It’s become a regular thing, nights down at the Ozdust. Anticipation starts to build days before the event itself as students gather in hallways and courtyards in clusters of excited chatter about who’s asking who and who’s wearing what. Elphaba watches from above as revellers from all corners of Shiz adorned in their finery descend to the boats with all the subtlety of one of Galinda’s moods. It’s a wonder that the professors haven’t caught on to Shiz’s worst kept secret.
Or maybe they know, and maybe, like Elphaba, they don’t care.
After Madame Morrible miraculously turned a blind eye to the first party, Fiyero had been triumphant, somehow more untouchable than ever as he invited everyone at Shiz to dance the night away on a monthly basis. Still, Elphaba supposes it will be his legacy here at Shiz, once he inevitably gets not-so-politely asked to leave, which, if his track record is anything to go by, should be any day now.
The thought stirs that deep-rooted ache in Elphaba’s chest, as unwelcome as it is hollow that’s formed over the last few weeks without her permission. It spreads, finding new ground every time Galinda returns to their dorm, fawning over her boyfriend. Flowers every time the sea of Fiyero’s blue eyes meet her green. She breathes deeply, shakes her head once, twice in a bid to clear the thought from her mind, exterminate the seeds of hope within her.
The steady stream of students heading out for the night has thinned to a trickle, evidenced by the growing quiet in the courtyard as Elphaba sits on the large balcony of her and Galinda’s dormitory. Late summer night air clings to her, a thin tacky second skin that she doesn’t mind as much as she probably should. Elphaba sits back in her chair with a frustrated huff, placing her textbook on Animal welfare that her brain refused to focus on down in an admission of defeat.
In its place her mind wonders. Ebbs and flows from essays and exams to the velvet feel of a Lion cub’s fur. Building to crash in a wave of devilish smirks, surprisingly insightful quips, and entrancing blue eyes that sparks a heat within her that has nothing to do with the weather.
She inhales deeply, feeling the balmy air that usually stifles fill her lungs, loosen her body, makes her feel alive. It’s always done this, made her blood pump that little bit faster, her joints more supple, her mind sharper.
Her roommate turned best friend, however, did not feel the same way.
“Oh Elphie it’s positively hideoucious!” Galinda screeched in a pitch that Elphaba was convinced creatures in the forest miles away would have heard. She watched as her usually graceful best friend frantically smoothed her perfectly formed blonde curls in the mirror. “This heat! I’m a frizzy mess!”
Elphaba had learned quickly to keep quiet when Galinda was like this, a lesson she took with her as she watched her best friend flounder over what could possibly be the most insignificant non-problem in the history of Oz with a fond smile.
“How could Fiyero possibly want me like this? I’m hideous!!”
“He’ll live” Elphaba noted dryly, somehow managing to keep the flip in her stomach at the mention of Fiyero out of her voice.
“Maybe,” Galinda reasoned, and Elphaba almost had time to be surprised by her maturity when she heard “but I won’t!” as Galinda flopped onto her bed with all her might. Elphaba bit back a smile as Galinda’s – who is legally an adult if in nothing else but age - theatrics reminded her not for the first time of Nessa’s tantrum phase she went through as a toddler.
Elphaba moved to sit at her desk, gathering her books for tomorrow’s classes and putting the finishing touches on her riveting essay about the Wizard’s struggle to overturn the ancient and oppressive past political system of Oz when she felt the air move swiftly behind her, a soft yet panic-tinged toss toss landing on her ears.
“You know, I’m no expert,” Elphaba began, slipping her completed essay into her satchel and turning back to Galinda. “But I don’t think all that throwing your head about is going to help the frizz situation”.
Galinda flipped her head up to look at Elphaba with a knowing look. “So my hair is frizzy! I knew it!”
And so began another turn of Galinda’s spiral. It had got to a point where Elphaba had to stop listening, watching her roommate with an understanding expression, nodding and throwing in words of encouragement and support where needed. Sometimes she feels guilty when she reverts to this, listening to Galinda but not hearing her, but sometimes simply gets too much for her.
There’s also the added complication that the majority of the times Galinda gets like this its Fiyero related, and while Elphaba can feign interest in the latest trends, or whether Pfannee really did trip her up on purpose in the library that time, she can’t pretend that she doesn’t care about Fiyero, not anymore.
It’s gotten to the precarious point where every time Galinda even mentions his name Elphaba is thrust back to those woods on that day. The Lion cub’s terrified trembling mirroring that in Elphaba’s fingers as her hand reached up to touch Fiyero’s cheek. His skin soft, his jaw tight from the stress of their task going slack under her touch, his pupils blown wide. She felt his sharp intake of breath in sync with her own, the still air around them a vacuum.
She was trying her best to avoid everything that was Galinda and Fiyero, trying to be a good friend. But when she noticed Galinda had gone quiet, looking at her with those impossibly wide doe eyes with a frown on her usually smiling face, she remembered that being a good friend sometimes means putting that friend’s feelings before your own.
So she wrapped her arms around the petite girl’s shoulders and told her how breathtakingly gorgeous she is, how Fiyero really would have to be brainless not to see it. How even if her hair was a tad frizzy – which it wasn’t of course – that Fiyero would still want to be with her for her kind heart and beautiful soul. She soothed Galinda with the words she wanted to be told herself, all the while trying with all her might to ignore the heaviness settling in her heart, the knots of guilt twisting in her stomach because she hoped beyond hope that her words weren’t true. That Fiyero’s feelings might, somehow, in some other life, have been for her instead.
In the end, she’d sent Galinda off to the Ozdust with her usual dazzling smile and a renewed confidence. Her sullen eyes bright once more with an excitement for her night with Fiyero that reinvigorated Galinda and hollowed Elphaba’s chest.
So, here she was, sat alone on their balcony, the sun long since set while Galinda danced in the arms of the man Elphaba longed to call her own.
Elphaba had finally managed to find a modicum of peace, falling into a light slumber when she heard it, A small knock on her dormitory door. Her body moves slowly towards it, her face a picture of confusion, her groggy brain slow to catch up. She didn’t expect Galinda back until much later, and anyway, she has her key. The confusion on her face only deepens when she opens the door.
‘Fiyero.” She says, half statement half question.
“Elphaba,” he returns with an amused smile, his arm propped against the doorframe in a way that makes Elphaba’s eyes roll and stomach flip in equal measure.
She’s speechless for a moment, caught off guard. “Uh..” she falters, before saying the first thing that makes sense because why else would Fiyero be here? “Galinda’s not here.”
“Correct.” Fiyero returns matter of factly and Oz, she’s not awake enough for this. Fiyero embraces the rarity of having the upper hand, slipping past Elphaba as her brain finally starts catching up.
He settles in the middle of the large room, his eyes drifting over the explosion of pink that is Galinda’s belongings with something not unlike judgement on his face. Elphaba shifts slightly, and his gaze falls to her, eyes tracing her frame and she watches as he falters, his body freezing for the briefest of moments. “Sorry, were you sleeping?” When it first hit her ears his tone felt almost accusatory, but his eyes search hers, a hint of apology in them and it might be the most endearing thing Elphaba has ever seen.
“No. I was studying.” She lies, trying to save face. She thinks he almost believes her until an unexpected yawn breaks free from her lips.
Fiyero chuckles, sending her a knowing look, “well, you know what they say. No rest for the wicked and all that.”
Elphaba purses her lips, “did you want something?” She crosses her arms, fatigue giving rise to annoyance.
That seems to stump the man in front of her, his mouth opens and shuts, words momentarily failing him. “I.. I don’t know.” Fiyero hesitates, his hand reaching behind his neck searching for words. “All I know is I wanted some air and then… I was here.” He stares at her, eyes intense yet uncertain, his mouth pulled slightly out of shape from where’s he’s biting at the inside of his lip.
Wait. Is he.. nervous?
That can’t be right.
Elphaba blinks up at him, curiosity starting to tinge the edges of her wit. “You wanted.. air?” She asks slowly.
“Yes.”
“At the Ozdust?”
“Yes.”
“So you walked from the Ozdust to the lake, got on a boat and then walked to my dorm - all of which is outside might I add - because you wanted air?”
Fiyero smacks his lips, eyes narrowing as he realises he’s been caught out. “What can I say, I’m not very smart” He finally says with a dazzling smile.
“That’s not true,” Elphaba scoffs, the words spilling from her lips before she even knows they're there. They surprise her their insistence to be heard and overt honesty. Fiyero’s eyes soften, and she’s ducking her head and walking back out to her spot on the balcony before he can see the blush that forms on her cheeks because apparently, he does that to her.
Oz, she really needs to get a grip.
He follows her, his presence dizzying yet calming, insistent yet not overbearing. He settles easily against the wall of the balcony opposite Elphaba.
“Oz, it’s stifling out here” Fiyero says, pulling his collar away from his neck. Elphaba lets her eyes trace the line of his collarbone in a rare moment of weakness.
“I thought you wanted air” she says dryly, picking up a book from the stack on the table to busy her hands and seeing nothing but a swirl of lines on the page where she swore there were once words.
“Ha. Ha” Fiyero rolls his eyes.
The edge of Elphaba’s lip twitches, “anyway, I like the heat.”
“Of course, you do” he drums his fingers lightly against the wall of the balcony, a sharp grin softening into a fond smile.
He’s the most eligible bachelor in Oz.
Fiyero picks up another of the books, skimming the cover quickly and flicking through the pages. His long, delicate fingers pausing when he finds a page of interest.
Everyone wants him. He’s so obvious.
Fiyero’s index finger traces the page where he’s reading, bright blue eyes following the words with interest.
Oh Oz, he’s gorgeous. Really Elphaba, don’t be so cliché.
His brow furrows, shallow lines forming on his forehead. The tip of his tongue wets his bottom lip, teeth biting at it absentmindedly in concentration.
Oz, she wants to kiss him.
He looks up at her, sparkling eyes wide like he’s gotten so engrossed in the passage he was reading that he forgot she was there.
Badly.
Elphaba’s chest flames and stomach twists as she stares at him, resolute. He doesn’t drop his gaze and it burns into her, but she can’t look away, can’t make the silent admission of what he does to her.
Finally, mercifully, Fiyero blinks. “Why don’t you ever come to the Ozdust anymore?” He asks conversationally, like the air wasn’t just charged with a thousand volts and it throws Elphaba for a loop.
She gapes at him for what feels like an eternity before “wha- I do.” Smooth.
“Hardly. You’ve not been the last three times.”
“You’re counting?”
Fiyero looks down briefly, caught out, restoring the balance between them. “I just… miss you being there is all. Is that a crime?”
“Depends who you ask.”
Fiyero tilts his head in a bow, raising his eyebrows as if to say he can’t argue with that. It makes a nice change. He huffs a laugh but there’s something in his eye when he speaks, “why can’t you ever just take a moment for what it is?”
“And what is it?” Elphaba’s shoulders square reflexively, preparing for a battle? No. A defence.
Fiyero remains silent. He sighs heavily, shaking his head in what Elphaba can only describe as frustration.
“You know, university isn’t all about .. this.” He gestures towards her stack of books, annoyance edging his tone. “You have friends, too.” He adds, softer.
“No offence, Fiyero, but I’m not taking University advice from someone who can barely last five minutes in one.” Her heart sinks when as she watches his gaze fall to his feet, brow furrowing. Their sparring is fun, refreshing even, no one else has ever been close to matching her in that regard. But, as with everything, it’s all fun until someone gets hurt. Shame prickles her skin, but she can’t silence the voice in her head that tells her to take this and run, flee to safety where Fiyero thinks she’s as cold and spiteful as everyone else does.
“You think just because I’m friends with Galinda, everyone suddenly likes me? That’s not how it works Fiyero.” Her voice wavers and she’s not sure when she stood up, but she did, metal chair scraping jarringly against concrete.
She hates how he does this to her. The carefully crafted demeanour born from her father’s unrelenting judgment, the weight of people’s stares, the weight of living this life she’s been cursed with all crumbles in his presence leaving her exposed.
Nessa had called her calculated once, after witnessing another of her sister’s dredge matches with their father. But Nessa doesn’t understand that there’s a difference between calculated and careful, and she could never comprehend the threat people feel from those they have deemed as ‘other’. The reason behind Elphaba’s considered actions not laying in malice, but survival; the knowledge that the second anyone who’s different does something, anything that someone deems even the slightest bit unusual, outside of the behaviour they have defined as acceptable, safe, all hell breaks loose. The constant hyper vigilance it takes for her to just exist in relative peace. It’s exhausting. It’s necessary.
But here, with him, it all goes out the window. Actions thoughtless and instinctive. The care she takes, the weight she carries, the target on her back all disappears until she’s what she’s always longed for but never been allowed to be: normal. The feeling terrifies as much as it vindicates.
“They put up with me because they want Galinda to like them.” She continues, her voice low in an attempt to keep it from shaking. “So, I show my face once in a while, but that’s it. Besides, I’m happy. I have Galinda and Nessa. They’re all I need.”
“And me” his voice cuts through the silence that barely had time to form and yet, somehow, his words still sent a seismic shift through the air.
Elphaba’s eyes snap up to his, green and probing meeting blue and earnest. She feels the “what?” escape from her lips but her voice feels foreign to her ears, entranced.
“You have me.” He breathes out a soft laugh, all nerves, his face closer than Elphaba remembers it being two seconds ago. His gaze intense, tracing a path across the faint lines on her forehead, her eyebrows, the earliest signs of crow’s feet bordering her eyes before landing on the vibrant green of the things themselves. His eyes move over the freckles that dust her nose, her cheeks. The contours of her lips, searching for the answers to every question he’s ever had, ever will have.
He exhales a breath that shudders slightly, a contradiction to the easy, gentle curve of his lips.
Elphaba’s mind is a blur, swimming with denial and desire. She’s never drank alcohol before, never really cared for it, and now she doesn’t need to because she knows no vice in existence could possibly match this. His warmth radiating in the tiny gap between his body and hers because he’s right there, his scent, so raw and real that she’s lightheaded with it. Her favourite kind of intoxication. She’d barely have to reach out to touch him. “..l-“
His fingers encircle her elbow, touch delicate yet unyielding. He steps impossibly closer, closer until there’s almost nothing between them. Everything in her mind is screaming at her to stop this, run away and never look back at the man she wants more than anything but can’t have. The man who despite everyone’s warnings thinks he wants her, but she knows better.
But as always with him, her body betrays her. She remains still, afloat in a world not meant for her but rooted in his orbit. Her wide eyes alight with a desire she sees reflected in Fiyero’s, lips parted in both awe and expectation, and she will go to her grave denying that her eyelashes just fluttered.
It’s all this and more that means that when his eyes ask the question, her traitorous body answers, closing the miniscule gap between them.
Fiyero wastes no time, large hands coming up to her cheeks on impulse, cupping her face and obscuring it from view in the process just because of how big he is. Her body moves toward him on instinct, an invisible force pulling her to her tip toes until her face is centimetres from his, pliant under his touch.
His breath warms her skin, dusting over her face like the freckles that already call it home. The hairs on her arms rise, goosebumps littering her skin despite the balmy summer air as her brilliant mind fails her.
Millimetres
Air escapes her lungs because this is it, the moment she’s been dreaming of for weeks, months if she’s being honest with herself. She can feel the ghost of his lips, so impossibly close to hers, the Elphaba that escapes as little more than a breath. It swirls in the paper-thin air between them, rising to meet the melodic chant in her head, FiyeroFiyeroFiyero.
His nose bumps hers oh so softly that her knees want to buckle and it’s the final nail in the coffin of her resolve as her eyes finally flutter to a close.
But, in the last fragments of her vision before she finally gives herself to this man, she catches the faintest glimpse of pink. A sequin from one of Galinda’s gowns catches a sliver of moonlight from its place on her bed, hastily strewn there earlier that evening, a casualty of her ruthless quest for perfection.
Galinda.
The one person who has cared for her out of choice instead of necessity. Loved her openly, not only ignoring any judgement that comes her way, but challenging it. How cruel does the world need to be to make the only two people Elphaba cares about – the only two people who might actually care about her – already bound to each other? She knows the answer to that.
Suddenly Fiyero’s touch that only seconds ago was her solace, now burns instead of ignites. She stumbles backwards, tripping over her own feet so he has to catch her, his hand enveloping hers in one deft movement.
“Elphaba, what-“He starts, pupils wide and alert.
“Don’t!” Her voice shakes in unison with her hands as she pulls them into her chest.
“What’s wrong? What did I do?” Elphaba sees the panic in her eyes reflected in Fiyero’s and it rattles the core of her being.
“Just go” she turns, cutting herself off from seeing the pain in his eyes, from helplessly watching the charred remains of her sanctuary burning down with every word she speaks.
“Why?” he asks, voice small.
“Because, you have a girlfriend.” She spits the words like venom, a punishment for both of them. “And I’m not her.” It follows so quietly, so despairingly that her eyes prickle with the threat of tears.
Fiyero opens his mouth, eyes soft, but she cuts him off, any platitudes silenced before they had the chance to be spoken. “Go. Now” her voice is surprisingly even in her desperation.
He exhales, shoulders sagging and for a moment he looks so sad that she thinks he might cry. He whispers a solemn “goodnight, Elphaba” before he passes her, closing the dormitory door behind him with a click that sends a jolt through her.
Not a moment too soon her tears come, hot and stinging. She stumbles inside, legs carrying her leaden body to bed before collapsing under her.
Curled up on her side, she stares at the wall in front of her, hot tears skim the bridge of her nose, forming a damp patch on her pillow that spreads the moisture to her cheek. Her eyes follow faint shadows on the wall as her mind wonders to torturous places.
Her heart aches at the realisation – the knowledge – that Fiyero will marry the perfect woman. If not Galinda herself then someone strikingly similar; blonde, fair, personable with kind eyes and an open heart. Everything Elphaba isn’t. It’s his destiny.
Meanwhile Elphaba will keep her head down, devoting her life to mastering her sorcery. She will prove herself to the Wizard and take her place next to him, rulers of Oz. Faithful servants to a people who look to her for guidance but at her in contempt. She will have everything she thought she wanted, and she will hate it, exiled from the warmth of genuine love. It’s her destiny.
Clear as day, set in stone. Inevitable. To challenge the powers that be would be foolish at best, dangerous at worst, rife with grave consequences. Like trying to defy gravity itself.
Her chest aches with the certainty of it all. The future she once longed for so much now feels constricting and unavoidable. It shackles her to a life she thinks she may no longer want, not when she feels the magnetic pull of the man who looks at her with awe and what feels dangerously like the the beginings of unconditional devotion.
She sighs heavily, the last of the summer heat escaping her lungs, leaving her body slow and hollow in its wake. She curls up tighter in her blankets, both for the comfort they bring and as a way to feign sleep when Galinda eventually returns. She can’t face her, can’t pretend, not tonight. Tomorrow, the war that is her life with rage on and she will meet it with her usual persistence that an outsider might mistake for strength.
But tonight, she will hide in her covers, soothed by the ghost of Fiyero’s touch, the exhilaration of being the object of his desires, lulled to sleep by the fragile remnants of his scent on her and let herself fall apart so she doesn’t break entirely.