Work Text:
______________
“Can I just say one more thing? You could've walked away back there.”
“So?”
“So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be –”
“Uh, excuse me, there is no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.”
“Oh, please. No, you're not. Otherwise you wouldn't be so unhappy.”
______________
17 Hours Earlier
“Oh, Oz – everyone! It's halfway through the ninth hour!” Galinda announces, her naturally high-pitched timbre escalating into something panicky and shrill.
Galinda frantically unwinds her arms from where they were looped around her best friend's shoulders. She leaps to her feet with an agitated squeal, nearly shoving Elphaba to the ground in her frenzied state. Elphaba tips forward, bracing her hands against the grass to avoid falling face-first into the field.
“I need to head back to campus right now if I'm to have any hope of showing up to my Fashions and Fancies meeting on time!” Galinda reiterates.
Elphaba smirks with amusement and shakes her head slightly, mostly unfazed by all of Galinda's melodramatic shenanigans. Her heightened tolerance at this moment, however, does not stem entirely from having gotten used to her roommate's chaos over the last few months, but also because the pendulum of Elphaba's judgement is currently settled firmly on the side of grace on the heels of what has turned out to be a very lovely day.
Lovely days aren't exactly something that Elphaba had ever experienced before the last couple of months at Shiz. But by the benediction of some fragile, miraculous reversal of fortune, she has managed to acquire a small, precious circle of friends who actually seem to enjoy spending time with her.
Well. Her sister Nessarose remains as moody and unpredictable as she always was at home, of course, but has continued to be a fixture in her day-to-day life on campus. Along with Nessa's steadfast presence comes Boq, of course – the impossibly eager fellow Munchkinlander they'd befriended as a result of Galinda’s social engineering – who may or may not be dating her sister, and may or may not have a blatantly obvious and raging infatuation with Elphaba's perfectly pinkified, perfectly popular roommate.
And the final member of Elphaba's charming little group of unlikely compatriots was sprawled out several feet away from her, side-lying on the grass: Fiyero Tigelaar, the youngest royal family member from Winkie Country, who had shown up on campus in a whirlwind of relentless attention and scandalacious gossip a few months ago as a mid-semester transfer. The prince was well-known for his effortless charm and easy ability to attract the attention of onlookers, and absolutely notorious for his propensity to get caught up in scandal and buffoonery. So it was only natural – inevitable, really – that he'd been hunted down for sport and claimed within half a day of his arrival by Galinda, almost as if he were a particularly fashionable and glitzy new accessory to add to her rather expansive, expertly curated wardrobe.
All afternoon classes at Shiz University had been cancelled unexpectedly earlier that day, with no explanation provided to the students beyond the emergent need for a faculty meeting. Galinda had implored them to take advantage of the beautiful spring day by heading out to their favorite park off-campus, teasing them with notions of basket tennis, picnicking, and maybe even an hour or so spent catching up on homework. It was an easy enough sell to Nessa, Boq, and Fiyero. Elphaba, on the other hand, had required a little bit more convincing before she agreed to abandon the library for an extended stretch of hours.
Sitting here amongst all the poppies now, on the other side of several hours enjoying each other's company, Elphaba could safely say that she harbored no regrets.
“Well?” Galinda prompts the group again impatiently, drawing everyone's attention back to her. “These little legs aren't exactly going to walk themselves back to campus, people! Come on, come on, let's move!” she commands, clapping her hands together repeatedly for emphasis.
Boq leaps up from the ground in a blur of motion, almost tripping over his feet in his attempt to respond to Galinda's request. “I'll walk back with you!” he chirps loudly, clearly investing far too much energy in pleasing her.
Nessa glares up at Boq from her chair with something adjacent to irritation flashing in her eyes for a fleeting moment before her expression neutralizes somewhat despondently. “Actually, I'd prefer to go back now, too,” she pipes up. “And since you're also ready to leave, Boq – you can push me back to the trail, and we can give Elphaba's arms a little bit of a break,” she declares.
Elphaba carefully trains her eyes anywhere but in the direction of Nessa and Boq. She knows that Nessa is not at all motivated by the desire to give her a break of any kind, but she will allow her to save face in the same passive, gracious way that she has always allowed.
“Oh, yeah, um…okay,” Boq says sheepishly. “Sure thing, Nessa.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Nessa! So that's settled,” Galinda says, clapping her hands. “Darling, are you coming, or what?” she asks, looking over to the other side of Elphaba, where Fiyero remains as unbothered as ever, still sprawled out lazily on the grass.
He flops from his side-lying position onto his stomach and groans, then props his head up to rest his chin heavily on both of his fists. "I slept through the study session earlier, didn't I?”
Galinda presses her mouth into a tight, almost patronizing smile. “Well, yes, darling, of course you did.” She looks over to Elphaba, and her eyes light up with the elation of a sudden flash of inspiration. “Oh, El-phieeee!” she squeals. “Since Boq here will be assisting Nessa, would you do me a huge favor and catch Fiyero up on…well, everything he missed? It's just that we can't have him flunking out, after all,” she finishes on a mumble, leaning dramatically into a manufactured aura of furtive confidentiality.
Fiyero’s eyes dart over to meet Elphaba's, his smile wide and mostly innocent, but she is able to detect the briefest flash of something almost dangerous in his gaze. Elphaba notices it immediately, and recognizes it as an unspoken request to act as if she hasn't been quietly, secretly tutoring him behind the scenes for the last several weeks.
“Of course I can do that,” Elphaba says, and lowers her gaze down to avoid looking directly at either one of them. “Assuming Fiyero’s okay with that plan, of course,” she says, even though she already knows he's going to be okay with it. They have appearances to maintain, after all.
“I'm okay with that,” Fiyero says with a nod, a good-natured, playful smile twisting up a corner of his mouth.
“Perfect!” Galinda says approvingly, and tiptoes over to where Fiyero lies on the grass. She bends down, somewhat awkwardly in her dress and heels, to give him a little peck on the cheek. She straightens up quickly and moves back over to where Boq has already started pushing Nessa down the gentle, rolling hillside. “See you later, lovelies!” she calls out behind her, waving her fingers to signify her goodbye with hyperactive, almost bird-like little flaps.
When the three of them are safely out of sight, Fiyero sits up and not-so-casually slides his body a few feet closer to Elphaba. Neither one of them makes any immediate effort to grab a single one of the notebooks and textbooks Elphaba has laid out behind her.
She looks over at him with bemusement. “So, I take it that you still haven’t told anyone that you've been studying with me this whole time, huh?”
Fiyero smiles at her, almost dopily. “You know, I've been trying really hard to lean into the aesthetic of effortlessness this year.”
“The aesthetic of effortlessness,” she scoffs. “How…charming of you.”
“Yeah, I know, right? And lucky me, I don’t even need Fashions and Fancies club meetings to really lock it all into place.”
“No, you most certainly don't,” Elphaba lobs back at him. “Staying out late to hang out at all the seediest taverns in town – on weeknights, no less – accomplishes that with almost zero effort on your part.”
“Well, I suppose my reputation precedes me,” Fiyero says, shrugging one of his shoulders up to meet the casual, effortless way he tilts his head.
“Well, yeah, of course it does,” Elphaba bites. “Your relentless partying, and your history of - of extracurricular pursuits are undoubtedly what you're most known for around here.”
Something shifts abruptly in Fiyero’s eyes, though it's clear he's working very hard to keep his smile steady.
Elphaba's face falls. “Fiyero, I'm sorry – that was completely inappropriate of me – ”
“Don't worry about it,” he says, waving the brief moment of discomfort off before absentmindedly reaching over to cover her hand with his own. He remembers too late that Elphaba is genuinely unaccustomed to the kind of casual, friendly touches that he so freely and easily doles out to the people closest to him.
As expected, she flinches at the unexpected contact. He quickly pulls his hand away.
“Sorry. I didn't mean to – ” he starts.
They both dissolve into quiet laughter, awkward with the absurdity of their apparent back to back offenses against each other. Elphaba hangs her head shyly, unable to meet his eyes. “It's okay, Fiyero. I'm sorry. You just…startled me.”
“I know, I wasn't really thinking,” he says, his voice far too gentle and soft for the circumstances.
“I don't know why I always do that,” she says, shaking her head. “I promise that I don't bite.”
“Don't you, though?” he responds with lightning speed, quirking one of his eyebrows up at her.
“Fiyero,” she hisses, and feels a burning heat climb up from her neck and settle onto her cheeks.
“I'm only referring to that biting wit of yours, of course,” he pivots. “I sit next to you in Linguification, Elphaba. I’ve heard what you are capable of.”
She huffs into her lap, smiling softly to herself. And then, she decides to take her chances. She looks up from her lap and finds that he is just…staring at her.
“May I share something with you?” he asks, after an unusually lengthy silence.
There's something uncharacteristically hesitant in his voice, and he has that soft, hazy look in his eyes that has so far only made itself known to her when they are studying together in private, hidden safely away from other eyes and ears. It's the look he gets when he's about to tell her something real. Something that actually means something to him.
Elphaba nods carefully, just once, almost as if she might be afraid that any other sudden movement might scare him off.
“I might have…quietly encouraged some of those pesky little rumors about me,” he offers, thoughtfully.
She tilts her head with interest. “Really?”
“That surprises you?”
“To be honest? Yes, it does. You just…don't seem like you actually enjoy that particular kind of attention at all,” she says carefully, treading lightly.
“Well, you're right about that. I don't,” he confirms quickly. “It’s just…” he starts, then pauses as though searching for the right words. “Sometimes,” he tries again, “it's better to focus everyone's attention on a narrative of my own choosing.”
“I can understand that,” Elphaba says, feeling an unexpected twinge of solidarity with someone she'd once assumed would be impossible to find any sort of kinship with. “Honestly, Fiyero, I'd love to be able to do the same thing. I've never managed to divert anyone's attention away from the color of my skin, no matter how hard I've tried, but I've certainly always wished that I could.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the color of your skin, Elphaba,” he blurts out, shaking his head. “Green is a…perfectly acceptable, perfectly lovely color.”
Elphaba looks away from Fiyero before her eyes can give away exactly how much of an effect words like this actually have on her. The problem is, he just keeps saying things like this to her, almost like he doesn't even understand what a dangerous, dangerous game he is playing.
“We're not talking about me, though,” she says matter-of-factly, eyes once again focused somewhere in her lap as she redirects him back to a safer path.
Fiyero nods with understanding. “You’re right. We aren't.”
Elphaba takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, effectively resetting the conversation. “So, are you telling me that all of the hullabaloo about your - your love life is…fabricated?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Well, not exactly, anyway.”
“The…frequency of your dates and number of partners are exaggerated?” she tries again.
“Well, that goes without saying,” Fiyero drawls. “I'm only twenty-four years old, Elphaba, how in Oz could I have ever found enough time to entertain hundreds of women? Or even a few dozen, for that matter? Don't get me wrong – I am a bit of an unrepentant flirt, but let's be serious, here. No one could literally keep up with the sort of things that all the gossip rags seem to think I'm capable of.”
“Okay, so you've inflated the number of women you've been with.”
“No. I didn't have to. The papers did that part all on their own.”
Elphaba takes a moment to try and organize her thoughts before she speaks again.
“All right,” she says after some contemplation. “You're telling me that you haven't had hundreds of girlfriends, but that you don't want to do anything to correct the record.”
Fiyero nods.
“Because…you want the press to think you have had hundreds of girlfriends?”
“It…helps,” Fiyero says, thoughtfully.
“What do you mean, it helps?” she asks, almost too quickly. “Helps you how? Helps with what?”
He takes in a breath and releases it through his nose, the exhale long and careful. “Elphaba…I've been to seven different schools including Shiz, and the first five of them were boarding schools for boys only.”
“Okay,” she says, and tries to encourage him to continue without saying anything more.
“There are certain expectations that come along with my title,” he says quietly, his voice almost imperceptibly wobbly.
“Wait, wait, wait – Fiyero! Are you telling me that Winkie princes are expected to - to just go out and have a lot of sex?” she sputters incredulously.
Fiyero laughs. “Well, I can't really say that's an officially sanctioned expectation, but…I suppose the answer to that is…probably? Yes?”
“Okay. So you're telling me that you haven't had lots of sex, but that it's important for people to think that you've had lots of sex?” she tries again, in yet another attempt to clarify.
“I’ve had…a fair enough amount of sex, Elphaba,” he says, laughing now at the absurdity of the convoluted, almost circular nature of their conversation. “And that's still not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Fiyero?” she asks, throwing her hands in the air in defeat, more confused now than she was at the start of this line of dialogue.
“The point, Elphaba, is that when you are a Winkie prince, there is an expectation that you will, one day…bring home a new Winkie princess.”
Elphaba's eyes widen in abject horror. “Oh, Fiyero…are you saying that you're expected to work your way through a certain minimum number of women before you’re allowed to make your choice?”
Fiyero shakes his head, laughing again, even harder this time. “No, Elphaba, that's not what I'm suggesting,” he says, his tone laced with fond amusement. “I'm suggesting that there is no precedent for a Winkie prince to bring home another prince.”
“Oh,” she says softly, seemingly still a bit confused.
Then something finally, thankfully clicks, and Elphaba's face melts into a clear aha moment of realization.
“Oh! Oh, Oz, Fiyero – d-do you not like women?”
Fiyero throws his head back now and practically cackles. “That’s not it at all. I adore women. I just happen to adore other people who...aren't women, too.”
Elphaba watches him closely, and slowly adjusts the angle of her face until her eyes are able to lock directly onto his. “You’re not supposed to adore people who aren't women, are you?” she asks, as all of the puzzle pieces interlock in a way that finally makes sense.
“Now you're getting it,” he says.
There’s a sadness in his eyes that causes something to twist and ache in her stomach.
“Fiyero…” she whispers, while the hand closest to him twitches to do something utterly traitorous like reach out and touch him. But she manages, just like she always does, to rein herself in.
“Please don't get the wrong idea, Elphaba. Made up stories in trashy gossip rags are one thing, but I need you to know that I have never – I would never choose to date anyone out of any sort of…misguided attempt to hide my true identity.”
Elphaba whips her head around to regard him with wide, understanding eyes. “I would never think that about you,” she says, her voice falling nearly to a whisper.
“The only thing I've ever done is to simply fail to correct the public record, as long as there were no real names or real details involved. The assumption that I was surrounded by some kind of harem of nameless and faceless women at all times was helpful when I was just trying to figure things out myself,” he says softly. “And it was especially helpful to the boys I was trying to figure things out with, none of whom deserved to have their earliest attempts at partnership handed over to the public to feast on, simply because of who I happened to be born to."
Elphaba bears silent witness as he speaks, in what she hopes comes across as understanding. What she practically prays that he can feel as her acceptance.
She's had a feeling, for quite some time now, that Fiyero's mindless, brainless routine was hiding something. That for whatever reason, he felt the need to stow other, truer parts of himself away.
Elphaba has seen glimpses of something soft and compassionate in the very fabric of his being long before today, of course. He's never excluded anyone, never intentionally tried to hold himself separate or above anyone, no matter their social status or class. He's never failed to ensure that every single one of their group activities and outings have been accessible to Nessa. And he's certainly never once seemed to think any less of her because of the color of her skin, or her unintentional abrasiveness, or the many defensive mechanisms she’s erected over the years in order to protect her heart.
This moment, however, feels sharper than all the rest, in a way that she can’t quite put her finger on. It's hard to even fathom that someone this considerate about protecting his partners – someone who would so easily allow his public image to be exaggerated and twisted as a way of shielding himself and others against something potentially more harmful – could have successfully made her believe in his nonchalant, shrugged off, nothing-really-matters song and dance routine for even the briefest of times.
“That's…a remarkably kind and selfless gesture, Fiyero,” she says after several more moments pass between them in silence.
He shrugs. “No, it's really not. It's basic manners. The barest of minimum dignities that anyone should have a right to.” He pauses for a moment, then lowers more of the curtain he keeps wrapped so tightly around himself. “I guess I've always been drawn to people who are a little bit…different, you know? Romantically or otherwise.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asks, with genuine curiosity.
“Well, for starters, my oldest friend is a blue Horse, for Oz's sake.”
Elphaba smiles at that initially, but then something melancholic settles over her. “You’re…not supposed to like anyone that's different, either. Are you?”
Fiyero smiles quietly to himself and stares off somewhere in the distance. “I think that I appreciate a lot of things that my parents haven't ever allowed themselves the opportunity to appreciate."
Elphaba lets that sink in. “And you’ve allowed yourself to appreciate these sorts of things in spite of your parents’ expectations.”
He nods. “We don't have the sort of relationship in which we have reason to see each other very much at all, anyway,” he acknowledges, a little nugget of truth doled out of him with almost no fanfare at all.
“When did you first learn this about yourself?” she asks him, unable to refrain from attempting to satisfy her interest in his childhood.
“When I was fifteen, my parents had me transferred to a boys’ school near the Northern Territory,” Fiyero says, almost dreamily. “And I sort of…ended up developing a bit of a crush on my fencing partner.”
“I didn't even know you liked fencing,” Elphaba says, her face settling into a soft smile. “You certainly don't seem to enjoy it very much here at Shiz.”
She tries to picture what a younger Fiyero might look like, a version of him that perhaps hadn't yet come to terms with the fact that even the dreams of a prince might somehow remain stubbornly out of his reach.
“I didn't, actually. It was compulsory at the academy, as it is here at Shiz,” he says. “But I sure did like Cymric.”
“Cymric?” Elphaba inquires, her eyebrow raising with interest.
“Yeah,” Fiyero says shyly. “He was my fencing partner. Oz, Elphaba, he was brilliant. So principled, and well-spoken, and all of the things I always thought I might grow up to be, but just…couldn't seem to get it together, you know?”
“What happened between the two of you?” she asks, prying gently.
“Well…we started talking more and more. Lingering after fencing classes. Skipping lunch so he could share books about Ozian politics with me.”
Elphaba snorts. “You must have really loved that last part.”
Fiyero’s eyes shine. “The thing is, Elphaba…I did. I really, really did. I couldn't get enough of him. Couldn't get enough of the way he talked to me, like I was actually someone worth taking seriously.”
“Why wouldn't someone take you seriously?” she asks, horrified.
“Come on, Elphaba. No one takes me seriously, you know that,” he says, plucking a piece of grass out of the ground to fidget with and roll around between all of his fingers.
Elphaba opens her mouth to respond, but finds herself frozen. There's nothing she can think of to say to him right now that feels safe, or even permitted at all.
“Anyway,” he continues, “after weeks of working up every last ounce of courage I was capable of, I took him on a picnic, and I told him that I wanted to be more than just his fencing partner. And he kissed me, and it was like my whole world just…burst into color. I had no idea anything could ever feel like that.”
“Fiyero, that's…wonderful. Isn't it?” she asks earnestly.
He looks over at her and smiles, but she's startled to see that there's a sheen of tears beginning to glisten at the corner of his eyes. “Well, the next day,” Fiyero says carefully, “Cymric got a letter. His parents had been killed in some kind of an accident at a dig site, they - they were archaeologists by trade, and it was just a routine expedition that somehow…went wrong.”
Elphaba takes in a sharp, startled breath. “Fiyero – ”
“His parents were nobles,” he says, talking over her attempted interjection. “And therefore, Cymric was called home immediately to assume responsibility of the family estate and all of the associated territories his parents were responsible for. We exchanged letters for a little while, but eventually, it became clear that we were heading in opposite directions. He needed to grow up really fast, and I couldn't meet him in the ways he needed a partner to show up for him. We never saw each other again. Sometimes, some things just aren't meant to be.”
Elphaba can’t help but hold her breath, and she's not entirely sure if the pain she feels in her chest is the result of the pressure of holding onto that breath, or the crushing empathy she feels at hearing Fiyero talk of letting things go.
“You would have loved him, Elphaba,” Fiyero whispers. “He would've shared all of his books with you. You'd have been able to talk for hours about all the hidden details everyone else misses, all those little bits and pieces I know you love so much. You probably would've been an even better fencing partner for him than I ever had any hope of being. You could've helped him when he really needed someone.”
Her heart breaks for him quietly, privately – even though he's sitting right next to her.
The bitter truth of all of this is that she is pretty sure that Fiyero needs someone desperately right now, and she can't help but to see some of the parallels between herself and this Cymric of his, this seemingly star-crossed young man that he once held in such high regard.
And Oz, how she wants to be the person Fiyero needs right now. She just wants him. She's been lying to herself about this fascination of hers for weeks now, trying to convince herself that it's really nothing to worry about at all. She'd almost convinced herself that she was responding to him in exactly the same way every other person does when in his dizzying orbit.
What Elphaba wants more than anything right now is to reach out and hold him in her arms. She wants to run her fingers gently through his irritatingly golden, gorgeous hair. She wants to lay his head down in her lap and let him cry, wants to be the person he trusts enough to wipe away the tears that he normally refuses to allow himself to shed.
But then something shifts yet again, and Fiyero seems to blink himself back from some otherworldly realm, shaking his head and rubbing his hands over his eyes. “I'm getting a little too self-indulgent over here. The lack of sleep might be getting to me in my advancing age, I think – probably need to lay off the weeknight ragers,” he says, clearly moving toward levity, and steering them carefully away from the tender wound he had just unwrapped for her.
“Was Cymric…the only one?” she asks, unwilling to let the moment come to a close just yet.
“No. There were others, though none of them had the kind of lasting impression on me that Cymric did. Eventually, after a few more messy friendships with both men and women, I kind of accepted that I have the capacity to feel that way about anyone. About everyone, really.”
Elphaba considers Fiyero thoughtfully, and then can't stop herself from saying what ought to be the quiet part out loud.
“Does Galinda know about any of this?”
Fiyero scoffs with playful, exaggerated disdain. “Oh no, of course she doesn't,” he says, tilting his head closer to her almost unconsciously. There's a shy smile flirting across his lips, and a wild sparkle in his eyes.
“I don't think she would have a problem with any of this, you know,” Elphaba says gently.
“You’re right, Elphaba, she probably wouldn't. But the truth is, I would like to keep all of this out of the papers, and Galinda gets…a little bit too excited about things, sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?” Elphaba sputters.
They both dissolve into laughter, as they both consider how unlikely it would be for the whirlwind of a girl whose presence is so loud, even when she's quiet, to manage anything even approximating discretion.
And then Fiyero stops laughing, and tentatively reaches out to brush his pinky finger against the side of her hand.
Elphaba doesn't flinch away from him this time.
“Is it okay if we keep this between you and I?” he whispers. “I just don’t want this part of my life to be twisted into some ridiculous form of entertainment for a bunch of silly strangers.”
“Of course it is,” she assures him. “I won't say a word to anyone. You can trust me, I promise.”
Elphaba slides her hand completely underneath his and then turns it over delicately, allowing her fingers to tangle up carefully with his.
Fiyero’s eyes darken in response, and he squeezes her fingers back with only the slightest hint of pressure. “I wouldn't have told you any of this if I didn't already know that,” he whispers, allowing himself to trace over the imperfect little horizontal lines on her thumb before he can talk himself out of it.
Elphaba has never actually held a boy's hand before, and it feels almost scandalaciously self-indulgent to allow even this simple, innocent touch. Not just because she’s green and should know better – but because it’s Fiyero, and he’s not someone she has any right to touch, or care for, or keep.
Remembering her place, she gently pulls her hand back into her lap. She knots both of her hands together in a way that absolutely ensures that they will behave themselves.
“I should probably head back now,” Elphaba says, practically chastising herself. She knows the moment the words actually tumble out of her mouth that she's done an absolutely terrible job keeping the disappointment out of her voice. “I'm so sorry, Fiyero, we didn't – I didn't even get a chance to help you with any of our outstanding assignments. I'd be happy to let you borrow my notes,” she says, reaching behind her in the direction of one of the notebooks piled up beside her.
“Don't worry about it, Elphaba, you always help me,” he says, and puts his hand on her arm to stop her. A crooked smile wrinkles up a corner of his mouth mischievously, and he follows the smirk up with an utterly devastating wink in her direction. “Today is no different.”
“But I - I didn’t even – ” she gapes incredulously, clearly caught off guard.
“There will be plenty of time for me to catch up on homework tomorrow,” Fiyero says, interrupting her. "In the meantime, I think you should stay here for a little while longer. Just until the sun sets. It's remarkably beautiful out here in the moments right before the darkness swallows everything up. The light sort of bounces off the poppies, and they almost seem to…glow.”
“Fiyero,” she whispers, alarm bells ringing in her head.
“Come on, Elphaba, do something nice for yourself, for once. Stay,” he says, leaning over just far enough to bump his shoulder against hers. “It's only a handful of clock-spins more before sunset, and Galinda won't be back from her meeting for another couple of hours, anyway. I'll stay here with you, and then we can walk back to campus together.”
Elphaba swallows. “Don't you have somewhere else you'd rather be?”
Fiyero’s expression changes again, but Elphaba can’t figure out exactly what the shift means. There's just a hint of that sadness she saw earlier in his eyes again, something tucked in deep that she can’t quite reach. He bends his knees and gathers his legs up into his arms, curling his body into a tight little ball.
“Mmm…not tonight,” Fiyero says, finally. “I could use a little break, to be honest. I've been partying a bit too hard lately, and I should probably give my liver a night off,” he says, attempting nonchalance, but not quite managing the ease he can normally call upon with no effort at all. “I'd really like to stay out here for just a little while longer.”
Elphaba watches him, paralyzed with indecision.
She wants to stay.
She really, really wants to stay.
“Stay with me,” he asks her again, and leans forward to rest his chin on top of his knees. “Sometimes, the quiet can be awfully loud when you're sitting alone with it, you know?”
Elphaba looks toward him then, but he doesn't turn back to meet her gaze.
“Okay,” she says to him, finally conceding. A quiet, tingling warmth travels from the tips of her fingers up her arms and then descends somewhere in her chest, settling somewhere deep and largely untouched. “I'll stay.”
Elphaba mirrors Fiyero’s position without realizing what she's done. They sit in perfect alignment, a respectable distance away from each other, bundled carefully into themselves. The blazing orange glow of the poppy fields lies wide open ahead of them as they remain set apart, but still, somehow…together.
The sun dips toward the horizon. It won't be much longer before the light sinks down below the farthest edge of the fields, and they'll have no other choice but to move along.
It won't be too much longer at all now, Elphaba thinks, before anything and everything under the sun has to change.