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Fiyero has a reputation.
This is something that Elphaba knows, something she has known from the very start. From the moment that Galinda started waxing poetics about him, Elphaba was told of his, quite frankly, ridiculous reputation.
The rumors about the people he’s managed to seduce, about the number of people he’s gotten into his bed with a pretty smile and a kind word, about the number of schools he’s gotten kicked out of for various reasons—honestly, none of it particularly impressed Elphaba and none of it sounded as true as Galinda made it out to be.
Then she got to know him. Then he asked her out, and she threw all caution to the wind and said yes. Despite his reputation for breaking hearts and despite her reputation for being a smartass walking commotion and despite the rest of Shiz’s shock—she said yes. And then at some point between dancing together at the Ozdust for the first time and this moment now, watching him dance with someone else, she fell in love with him.
It was a terrible idea, really, to fall in love with Fiyero Tigelaar. Or, it was a terrible idea to fall in love with someone who would always be chasing after someone better.
Because, really, there are so many better options than Elphaba. There are so many better people he could ask out, could fall for, could pull into both his bedroom and the tangled net of his heart. Anyone would say yes, anyone would let themselves be pulled.
Elphaba is no different from any of those people—and she is no different than any of the people that he’s left behind. She is no different than any number of the people that Fiyero has dragged into his orbit with that golden, giddy, confident smile; and just like them, she will leave a piece of herself forever caught there in the notch on his bedpost.
But maybe that’s getting ahead of herself. Maybe there’s still time to gather all her pieces and steal them back before he can tear her apart further and keep only half of the scraps for himself. They haven’t actually had sex, so Elphaba hasn’t given that piece of herself to him; and she hasn’t said she loves him, even though she does, and so those words still belong to her and her only, too.
Watching him dance with some girl towards the outskirts of the dance floor, though, Elphaba is half wondering if that’s the problem. Would he stay with her if she were more beautiful, if she were less skittish about touch, if she both looked and acted the part of his worshipping girlfriend rather than the spitfire contradictory hurricane that he once promised he liked? Would he stay with her if she gave him more than she has?
Maybe he wouldn’t stray if she gave him more. If she did more. If she just was more.
But then again, his reputation has always preceded him. He’s never stayed in a relationship more than three months and—if her math is correct—they’re about to hit two and a half. He’s chosen a different few girls and boys at every university he’s made a pit stop at on his journey to his own self-destruction.
He’s moved on from them each as quickly as he started with them—and why should Elphaba be any different? He’s off dancing with that girl right now, their bodies moving in quick, sensual, synchronized motions. He’s not thinking about Elphaba. His mind is clearly on this other girl, whose face Elphaba doesn’t recognize and whose name she doesn’t know.
“Are you really just going to let him do that?”
Elphaba flinches, looking over to where Galinda has come up to her with two drinks in her hand. Galinda hands one of them to her and Elphaba sniffs it suspiciously. “What is this?”
“Whiskey from Munchkinland,” Galinda says lightly. “Boq brought it. Anyways, I see you watching Fiyero. Are you really letting him get away with that?”
Elphaba takes a tentative sip of the drink, wincing as the burn runs down her throat. “Who am I to stop him?”
“His girlfriend,” Galinda reminds her.
Elphaba shrugs stiffly. She wants to sound unaffected and she knows she doesn’t when she says, “Clearly I’m not enough for him, so he might as well have his fun. I’ll break up with him in the morning.”
At that, Galinda chokes on her drink as she turns her head sharply to Elphaba. “What?”
Elphaba shrugs again.
“Miss Elphaba Thropp,” Galinda starts harshly, “did you just say you’re going to break up with him?”
“Not so loud, please, Galinda.”
“Elphaba.”
Elphaba turns to face her wide-eyed, shocked stare. Her voice sounds impossibly bitter even to her own ears. “What? Did you really think this relationship was going to last? He clearly is finding his happiness elsewhere right now.”
“Elphie, that boy adores you.” Galinda glances towards where Fiyero is laughing at something the girl is whispering into his ear. “He’s an idiot and he doesn’t think sometimes. He’s horrifically oblivious to most flirting. But he adores you.”
“Oh, please,” Elphaba scoffs. “This time four months ago, he was dating some guy. And this time six months ago, there was you. I’m just another conquest. An exotic, new, green one—but a conquest all the same.”
Galinda stares at her. “That’s not—”
“It’s fine,” Elphaba says tightly. She wants to cry so badly, but she will not do so here nor now. She shoves the drink into Galinda’s hand and then turns away. “Another fun party. I’m going back to the room.”
Elphaba makes good on her word then, navigating her way through the crowd and then across campus back to their dormitory. She falls asleep crying, still in her clothes and with the lamp still burning, barely stirring when Galinda quietly enters later that night.
It’s stupid, to cry over him when she knew going into this what people said he was like. And she tries not to take stock in rumors—Oz knows there’s enough about her for her to know that rumors often mean nothing—but the truth of this one feels undeniable now.
Just because she can see and understand how unhappy he is while pretending to be happy doesn’t mean that she can change the fact that he’s going to keep pretending. Seeing him for who he is doesn’t necessarily change the fact that he’s just not ready to be that person while the rest of the world is watching. No amount of her love for him will change whatever fear he has about that.
When she finally wakes, it’s because of the loudest, most incessant, obnoxious pounding on the door that Elphaba has ever had the displeasure of hearing. Galinda wakes up at the same time she does, rubbing at her eyes, clearly hungover and unwilling to deal with whoever is there. She mumbles something about Elphaba answering the knocking and then drags her pillow over her head and starts snoring again.
Elphaba groans, forcing herself out of bed. Her head feels fuzzy and her mouth tastes like dry cotton; she really does not want to talk to anyone. The knocking still hasn’t stopped by the time she shoves slippers on and answers the door.
Outside, Fiyero has his hand mid-air, clearly about to bang on the door again. For a moment, they just stare at each other.
Then he says, somewhat lamely, “I was beginning to think neither of you was inside.”
Elphaba raises her eyebrows. “So you decided to wake up the entire floor as punishment?”
“Was I really that loud?” he asks, wincing. She stares at him pointedly and he at least has the decency to look a little ashamed. “Sorry. Can I come in?”
“Galinda is sleeping and hungover,” Elphaba says. She steps towards him, closing the door behind her. “We can talk out here.”
Fiyero grimaces a little. “I’d really like this to be private.”
“We all want things we can’t have sometimes,” Elphaba mutters. She doesn’t mean for it to sound so jaded and so pointed, but she doesn’t think she has anything else left in her. She’s tired and she doesn’t want to break up with him but she also doesn’t see any other way of moving forward. She can’t play this game anymore, where she pretends to be good enough and he pretends to want what’s not enough.
“Fine,” he says, exhaling in a slow and measured breath. He closes his eyes. “Galinda said you were going to break up with me and—”
“No,” Elphaba cuts in sharply. “You do not get to break up with me before I get the chance to do it myself.”
He opens his eyes, staring at her. His gaze is sharp, narrowed in on her face. “I’m not breaking up with you. I wanted to fix whatever I did that made you want to—”
He cuts himself off, unable to finish the sentence. Elphaba stares back at him, waiting, but the next words never come.
Finally, Elphaba sighs, sagging against the door. “Look, Fiyero, we just—we’re different people. We live in different worlds. You go dance with pretty girls and I stand at the wall. This was never going to work.”
“I—” Fiyero’s voice breaks a little as he stares at her— “I was just dancing. It didn’t mean anything. I don’t—Fabala, I’ll stand at any wall with you all night if that’s what you want.”
Elphaba swallows, her eyes drifting away from his and towards his left shoulder. “You know what the first thing Avaric said to me was, when he found out we were going on a date? He said, ‘Did you know that he breaks up with everyone the day after he sleeps with them? So choose your special night wisely.’”
Fiyero visibly tenses at that, taking a full step back from her. “He said that?”
“And I kept hoping that I was different,” Elphaba says, her voice quiet, low, void of emotion. “But I also kept pulling away, refusing to take things further, like that would prevent the inevitable, so I guess some part of me knew I wasn’t any better than anyone else you’ve been with. And then I saw you last night and—you could only hold out for so long, right? It makes sense.”
“Inevitable…makes sense,” Fiyero echoes numbly. She can feel his eyes on her even though the thick, terrible silence. Then, finally, his words so quiet that she almost doesn’t hear them, he says, “That isn’t true. What Avaric said. That’s just a stupid rumor. I don’t—I thought you knew me better than that.”
Elphaba lifts her gaze to finally meet his eyes again. There’s something hard and unforgiving in her words, and she hates it, hates the sound of her own voice, hates the way it makes him flinch. “I thought I did too.”
“Dancing with that girl didn’t mean anything. She’s just a classmate. Nothing else. I like dancing. I don’t want to do anything else with her.”
“You don’t want to do anything with me either,” Elphaba accuses, and it’s kind of just a shot in the dark but he tenses again and something on his face seems to snap—and she knows she’s gotten something right.
Fiyero finally averts his eyes, threading his hands through his hair and heaving a hurt, pained exhale. “That’s not—”
“Then what, Fiyero?” Elphaba feels her hands trembling, some hurt pulsing in her fists that threatens to overwhelm, that threatens to take control of her magic. “Because it looks to me like—whether or not that girl meant anything—you still don’t want to be with someone like me, so I really don’t know what’s left that you’re trying to fix here.”
“There’s more to a relationship than sleeping with someone,” Fiyero says quietly.
That’s what I’m trying to fix, is what he doesn’t say.
I’m trying to fix the part of us that doesn’t rely on you being beautiful, because we both know that’s a lost cause, he doesn’t say.
I’m trying to fix the pieces of this relationship that, one day, are not going to be sufficient enough on their own, goes unspoken.
“I knew you were pulling away,” Fiyero continues, voice low. He looks away from her, down the empty hallway. “I didn’t know Avaric said that, and I thought it was because you were—like me.”
Elphaba frowns. Of all the things that they’ve said so far this morning, this one has made the least sense. “Like you?”
Fiyero laughs humorlessly. “You know, I’ve never actually had, like, actual sex. I’ve done a few things, I guess, that maybe count. But I don’t break up with people after I sleep with them. I break up with them after they make it very, very clear that the only reason we’re dating is for sex.”
“What?”
“You not wanting to sleep with me was kind of the ideal scenario.” Fiyero shrugs, still looking away. He’s trying to seem nonchalant but his entire body is tense and something in his voice is tightly coiled and ready to burst open. “Wishful thinking or whatever.”
“I know I’m not attractive,” Elphaba snaps, “but you didn’t have to lead—”
“It’s not you, Elphaba, it’s that I’m wrong.” Fiyero hisses the words, his voice suddenly trembling with an angry vibrato. There’s something wild and something pained in his eyes when he steadies his gaze on her. “Oz, is that what you wanted to hear? It’s my stupid—sex drive being made wrong. It’s not that you’re not attractive and it’s not you. So just—”
He forces himself to exhale, and tugs anxiously, angrily, at his hair with one hand. He turns away from Elphaba, and she can see his shoulders heaving with every breath.
“It’s not you,” he says again, but his voice sounds so ragged that she barely recognizes it as his.
Shame and guilt floods through Elphaba in an overwhelming tide as she looks at his turned back, at the way he’s rubbing his hands over his face as if to clear his expression, at the way his hands slide to the back of his neck, at the way he tips his head up to the ceiling in the way he does when he’s trying to blink back his feelings. She doesn’t know how this conversation could have spiraled so quickly. “Fiyero—”
“Don’t,” Fiyero mutters. He drops his hands to his sides. His back is still turned towards her. “It’s—just don’t. If you want to break up with me, I get it. But if your issue with me is thinking I’m going to cheat, or going to break up with you after sleeping with you, trust me, that’s not going to be a problem.”
Elphaba swallows hard. There’s a mantra in the back of her mind: she will not cry. She will not cry right now. She will not fucking cry over Fiyero Tigelaar. Not while he can see.
Fiyero takes a breath and lifts his head. “I’m sorry Avaric made you think that about me. And I’m sorry about everything I did that made you believe it. And I’m sorry for dancing with that girl last night. That’s all I came to say, I guess.”
“Fiyero—” before she can even finish saying his name, he’s starting to walk away.
She stares after him for a moment, numb, unsure of what just happened, and then she’s dashing down the hallway. She grabs his wrist, making him pause in his steps as she holds tight to him.
Then she whispers, “I don’t understand. Please just make me understand.”
Fiyero exhales slowly. A beat. And then, “Everything you’re so afraid of is just a rumor. Just something someone said one time that spread and is now controlling everything else in my fucking life. None of it is true.”
“I saw you with that girl,” Elphaba murmurs. “It all came from somewhere.”
“It came from a pattern of people who didn’t want to admit that I both refused to fuck them and then broke up with them.”
Fiyero jerks his hand slightly and she drops it so that he can turn around to face her. His expression is tired, defeated, when he continues.
“Sex isn’t something I look for in a relationship. It’s more of a vague inconvenience that I’ll do for someone I love, not something I actively want. That’s why I break up with people, that’s why I let you pull away. I just…didn’t want it. That’s not your fault.”
Elphaba swallows hard, studying the tension at his shoulders and the way his eyes keep flicking around their surroundings, to anything but her own eyes. He looks caged in, anxious, like he’s ready to bolt the rest of the way down the hall should she say one wrong word.
“I really was just dancing with her,” Fiyero says softly. “Nothing more than that. And I was thinking of how I’d rather be dancing with you the whole time.”
“I’m not a very good dancer,” Elphaba says, trying for a smile and failing.
Her heart is still in her throat, pounding to the beat of both her own and Fiyero’s anxiety. She loves him, is the problem. She wants to be with him, and she would dance if it were for him. The problem therein lies in all her fear, and in all the ways she doesn’t know how to believe that someone might want her back.
“I’m a good teacher,” Fiyero tells her. His attempt at a smile looks no more happy than her own smile felt. “Don’t have any references, though. You just have to trust me on that.”
“I’ve been told I have some issues with trust and vulnerability.”
Fiyero snorts. “I’ve been told something similar. Maybe our issues will cancel each other out.”
“If this conversation has proven anything,” Elphaba says, “it is that that is not how it works.”
Fiyero’s lips twitch upwards just slightly. “I guess not.”
“Fiyero—” Elphaba starts at the same time as him saying her name. They both stop, staring at each other for a moment. He makes a vague hand motion, gesturing for her to continue first, and she sighs. “Avaric scared me. All the rumors scared me. But I do know you. And I trust you. I just don’t think I’d handle losing you very well.”
“So you tried to break up with me before I could break up with you,” Fiyero says, filling in the blanks that make Elphaba wince slightly.
Fiyero sighs when she nods, suddenly so deeply embarrassed by her own insecurity that she’s put at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry that the rumors exist. That people talk. That I have a reputation.” His lips curl in disgust at the last word. Then he takes a breath. “But I’m not going to apologize for the way I actually am. Trust me, no one dislikes it more than I do, but I’m not going to apologize for it. And all of this—the rumors, my stupid lack of, you know, sexuality—it’s just something we either put up with or we don’t. Up to you, Fae.”
He sounds so tired when he speaks that Elphaba aches to take his hand and lead him somewhere safe where they can both lay down and rest. She doesn’t want to be the reason he seems so jaded, so done with the world and the people in it. Distantly, she wonders how many people he’s told up to you and heard the answer this won’t work. She wonders if he’s expecting her to be and say the same.
She's determined to prove him wrong. She's determined to love him better than that.
“All those rumors,” Elphaba says quietly, “they aren’t you. That’s some other person who doesn’t exist. The—the man I love is made up of more than that.”
At those words, his eyes widen visibly. She swallows down her fear as his lips part wordlessly, and then continues. “I’m sorry, too. For not trusting you. I shouldn’t be making you apologize for rumors you don’t control. And I don’t ever want to hear you apologize for being honest about the way you actually are. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
Fiyero licks his lips, staring at her like maybe he’s seeing her for the first time all over again. “There might be more rumors some day. I’m kind of a figurehead in the Vinkus and there might be people chasing after my drama for the rest of my life. And I might never want to do more than making out with you. I might never be comfortable with giving you children. I probably can’t ever give you a normal life in general.”
“I don’t want children,” Elphaba says bluntly. “But kissing you at all is plenty. And I don’t think I would even know what to do with a normal life. Besides, I probably can’t give you an easy life either. I’ll never look the perfect part of your girlfriend. And I’m not going to promise not to freak out and get scared sometimes. I’ve never done this before. But it’s…I want to try. If it’s you.”
“Me too,” Fiyero says quietly. Slowly, he reaches out to brush the pads of his fingers against her cheek. “I don’t think I want an easy life at all. Sounds kind of boring. And you’re beautiful like this, as you are—you don’t need to play any part. If you get scared, you can tell me, so I can remind you that we’ll handle it together. I’ve never done this before either, not genuinely. But I want to try too.”
Elphaba exhales carefully. She catches his hand as he pulls away, and lifts his palm to her lips. His breath catches in his throat when she kisses him, and then she places his arm around her shoulder so that she can step closer and fully wrap her own arms around him. Her hands are tight against his shoulder blades, her elbows pressed to his sides just above his waistline.
“Let’s keep trying then?” she asks quietly.
He smiles finally, pulling her close and kissing her temple. “Yeah. Let’s keep trying.”