Chapter Text
Galinda has spent years perfecting the art of being, well…. perfect. She knows exactly how to speak, every word she says is carefully chosen, how to laugh, how to hold herself with effortless grace. Every movement is precise and every hair in place. People see what she wants them to see. No one at Shiz—not even her closest friends—knows that when the lights go out and the halls fall silent, she paints.
Because painting is messy. Painting is imperfect. And Galinda Upland is never supposed to be less than perfect.
But late at night, when her performance is over, she locks her door and lets herself breathe.
And, without meaning to—without understanding why—she starts painting Elphaba.
At first, she tells herself it’s nothing. Just a challenge, just practice. Elphaba is all sharp lines and strange angles—difficult, frustrating, nothing like the soft, symmetrical beauty Galinda has always been taught to admire.
I live with her. I see her all the time. Of course I’d paint her.
She tells herself this over and over. She’s sure something new will catch her eye quickly.
But she keeps coming back to her.
Because Elphaba is real in a way that nothing else in Galinda’s life is.
And the more she paints her, the more terrifyingly honest it feels.
So she hides the paintings. Tucks the sketches and charcoal away, locks the canvases in her wardrobe behind layers of silk and lace.
And she tells herself no one will ever know.
Galinda learned long ago that keeping a traditional sketchbook would be too obvious in public. Instead, she disguises it. She doodles in the margins of her lecture notes in faint ink—quick strokes that she can smudge away before anyone looks too closely.
If someone were to notice her sketching, she could pass them off as meaningless scribbles.
But they’re not meaningless.
Because no matter how much she tries to stop herself, the sketches always turn into her. Sharp cheekbones, piercing eyes, a posture both rigid and defiant. Elphaba spills from her hands onto the page, and no amount of erasing can make her go away.
They aren’t romantic per say. Not obsessive. Just studies—quick portraits capturing sharp cheekbones, furrowed brows, the way her hands move when she’s deep in thought.
They are intimate in a way that isn’t glaringly obvious. Because intimate and romantic can be two very different things. Intimacy can be sharing a secret no one else knows. It can be helping someone study for an exam late into the night. It can be making someone a cup of tea when they are running a fever. It can be sketching someone from memory as they read quietly in bed.
She couldn’t explain why her heart fluttered every time she thought of Elphaba. There was no logical reasoning as to why she wasn’t more excited about going on dates with Fiyero. How she could quickly come up with excuses to break plans with him so she could stay in, and there was certainly no good reason why she was constantly attempting to turn dates into outings that included Elphaba.
She’s my best friend. I’m her first friend. I need to include her and help give her a social life.
And while all that is true there is something else. Deep down she knows it. It shakes her, it rattles a part of her soul she can’t explain. It’s something she can’t grasp, so she paints.
Because the truth is, perfection isn’t just about looking the part—it’s about control. And her art, her feelings, Elphaba—they are the only things she can’t seem to control.
That’s why no one can ever know.
Because if they did, they wouldn’t just see that Galinda is an artist.
They would see what she really wants.
And she is not ready for that.
____
It happens in small ways at first.
Her hands twitch with the urge to reach for her pencil when Elphaba speaks in class, when she gestures sharply in frustration, her fingers long and expressive.
She lingers in the library longer than necessary, not because she needs to study, but because she finds herself distracted, watching the way Elphaba hunches over her books, lost in thought, her nose scrunching slightly when she’s deep in concentration.
She starts offering Elphaba tea on the nights they stay up studying together.
She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until Elphaba looks at her, brow furrowed in suspicion, and asks, “What’s this?”
Galinda blinks. “Tea.”
Elphaba looks at her curiously. “You made me tea?”
Galinda flushes, flipping her curls over her shoulder. “Well, yes. You drink too much coffee, and it’s bad for your skin. You’re welcome.”
Elphaba stares at her for a moment, then shakes her head. “You’re so strange sometimes.”
“Yes I’m the strange one here.” She mumbles and shuffles to her bed.
She doesn’t tell Elphaba that she made the tea the way she likes it. That she paid attention the first time she’d made a passing comment about strong black tea, no sugar. That she has, without realizing it, memorized these little details.
That night, long after Elphaba is asleep, she sketches her hands.
____
She tries to redirect herself.
She throws herself into her social life, laughing louder, smiling brighter. Anything to distract herself from these feelings. She lets her friends drag her to parties and lets Fiyero take her out on dates. She flirts, she twirls, she plays the role she was born to play.
And yet—
The moment she is alone, her hands betray her.
It’s becoming an obsession.
She doesn’t understand why—why it has to be Elphaba. Why no other subject satisfies her, why every time she tries to create something else, she finds herself picking up green paint and dark charcoal.
She tells herself she’s just trying to capture something challenging. That Elphaba’s face is difficult to get right, that it’s simply artistic curiosity.
But it’s more than that.
She paints the tension in Elphaba’s shoulders, the way she holds herself apart from everyone else. She paints her smirks and her scowls, the rare, fleeting moments when her lips curl into something softer.
She paints her the way no one else sees her.
And then, she hides it all away.
Because she is not ready for what it means.
Because if anyone were to see—if Elphaba were to see, she doesn’t know what she would do.
____
One night, she nearly gets caught.
She is sketching, deep in thought, her fingers smudged with charcoal, when the door swings open.
She barely has time to shove the sketchbook under her pillow before Elphaba steps into the room.
Galinda schools her expression into indifference, but her heart is racing.
Elphaba raises a brow. “You look guilty.”
Galinda scoffs, crossing her arms. “I do not.”
Elphaba narrows her eyes, then glances at the bed.
Galinda follows her gaze and nearly swears aloud—because there, just barely peeking out from beneath her pillow, is the corner of her sketchbook.
Before she can stop herself, she reaches back and yanks her blanket over it, laughing a little too brightly. “What are you looking at?”
Elphaba gives her a long, suspicious look, but eventually shrugs. “Nothing.”
She doesn’t press.
Galinda lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
That night, she buries her sketchbook in her trunk.
She tells herself she’s being ridiculous. That this is all in her head. That Elphaba wouldn’t care if she knew. Out of everyone in her life she might be the only one to understand. The way she can be messy and expressive and…not perfect.
But she doesn’t want Elphaba to not care.
And that’s the problem.