Building Bridges

AU: On opposite lanes of a busy Emerald City street were two towering buildings. One belonged to Arjiki Tradings, headed by the Tiggular family. The other, Thropp Co., is run by one Elphaba Thropp. Musicalverse.

Fiyero swallowed hard as he fought the urge to fall asleep.

The old, wispy haired, pale skinned financial advisor had been rambling on and on about their annual projections for three hours straight now. It was nearly impossible not to feel the words slowly lull the entire board of directors to the Ozian dreamland.

He enjoyed his position in the family business, of course. Being the middle child, he hadn't needed to worry about being good enough to take over old Magnus Tiggular – Ozmopolitan's (business)Man of the Year. And unlike his elder brother, he had all the time and money to party like it's the Wizard's birthday.

It was, of course, because of his hard partying lifestyle that placed him in rehab for a little while… A long while actually…

Two years to be exact.

His father had decided he was ready to come to work and help his brother out, and of course, the first day he was back, he'd have to attend the sleep-inducing bore of a meeting.

What a soiree! It was almost as if the unnamed god was damning him for his past reeking of debauchery.

He took a sip from his mug – Best Teacher in the World! – and winced at the taste. They had changed the blend from the last time he was here, and it wasn't a good change. Just what is this crap that he'd just put in his mouth?

The coffee did its job of keeping him mildly awake, however, and he spent the remainder of the meeting staring out the window, watching as the pigeons flew by.

"—and that's it for the projections. Budgeting would be presented next week by our CFO, Fiyero Tiggular."

Ah, office life. It's been a while.

"So this is your new office. We've done some rearranging of the floor layouts – as you might've noticed – and the Finance department – which is your department – is right here. The pink one."

Arielle, his brother's perky, blond haired – oh wait, brown roots – secretary pointed her well-manicured finger on the pink shaded block on the tablet screen. She was standing exceedingly close to him, although he didn't really mind it. If he just tilted his head a little to the right, he would get a really good view of her—

"Fiyero!"

He jerked back at the sound of his brother's voice and scowled as he watched him stride down the hall towards him.

Baldr was taller than Fiyero, which had been a feat, since Fiyero was already a towering 6'2, and unlike his younger brother – who had russet-coloured hair – Baldr prided himself on his dark – almost black – coloured mane.

"You ought to cut that shaved," Fiyero commented with a smirk. "It qualifies as a mullet."

Baldr rolled his eyes as he touched the back of his hair self-consciously, "It's not that bad. I just haven't had the time to make an appointment with my stylist."

"Did your stylist recommend the mullet? You should see my guy instead." He chuckled, shoving his hands into his pant pockets.

"I should get going, Mr Tiggular," Arielle said meekly as she slinked away from the two men. She turned back and gave Fiyero a little smile before she quickly made the corner and disappeared.

"She's cute," Fiyero said.

Baldr grimaced, "No. Not my secretary. I swear in Lurline's name –"

"Relax—"He laughed as he waved his hand dismissively, "I'm on probation, remember? Daddy-O would cut me off, etcetera, etcetera."

Baldr exhaled deeply as if to calm his nerves. "So – Have you seen your new office yet? After the renovations, you've got one of the nicest view in the whole building. And a large enough window to enjoy it."

"I haven't seen it actually. Your secretary was just explaining the changes in floorplans." He said. "Didn't this used to be your room?"

Baldr nodded absent-mindedly, "Dad got really into this Ev-styled feng shui guy. He says that finance should be alongside the river – aka 34th Main Street – because it symbolises a water wheel or some bull along the lines."

"I'm surprised you guys aren't worried about leaving me with the company wallet," Fiyero pulled a half-smile.

"Why? Should we be worried?" His brother raised a thick brow and frowned.

"No – No. Not at all."

Baldr gave his brother a bad look and pushed against the door to the office. The men stepped inside, both looking over the room – one in envy and the other in excitement.

The room was decent sized with an earthy brown and green theme to it. Fiyero found that it reminded him of a forest, although if he knew his father well enough, he was probably reminded of money instead.

The door faced north, with a direct line of sight to the building opposite of the street. His main work area was congregated to the eastern side of the room.

His desk was simple, but very stylish, and had plenty of room for personalization. The padded office chair was almost grand amongst the stylized furniture – he was after all a Tiggular. His computer sat angled and two nondescript chairs were placed in front of his desk.

"This is nice," Fiyero whistled as he took a roundabout.

Baldr stood by the door, smirking. "It's quite a view."

The younger of the two walked over to the window, which occupied the entire northern side of the room. "I can see directly over to the office over at the other building." Thankfully for him, nobody seemed to be in the room, and he was free to stare and observe.

"I wouldn't try to make any eye contact there." Baldr frowned. "After the renovations, we realized that now it's entirely possible for people at Thropp Co. to look over anytime they wanted, and vice versa. It's a distracting flaw much too expensive to fix."

"We could get curtains?"

"We switched over to a new energy savings plan. They won't allow us to use the lights unless it's dark out." Baldr groaned. He ran a hand over his hair in frustration. "Alright, I'll leave you to catch up with whatever you have to do… Dinner tonight with Navii and the kids?"

"Sure."

A week went by with no incidents.

Meetings were attended and he was very easily caught up with his duties as the CFO. Fiyero had always had a secret knack for sorting out finances and all the boring stuff. Of course, barely a year and a half into achieving CFO status, he had burned it all in partying and boozing.

Now he was back and ready to set things right – he didn't want his father barking up his ass again.

"The company's got shares in theatre, don't we?" Crope – one of the public relations guys – asked with a curious tone. They had headed out to lunch at the Old-Hen café with Tibbett – another PR guy – in tow.

"Yeah, we do. The Robinson's Theatre at 37th Main Street was one of them I think." Fiyero stabbed at his chicken caprese. "Why'd you ask?"

Crope glanced at Tibbett with a little smile and then back to Fiyero, "Do we get free tickets? You know. Employee benefits?"

"Don't we give those out thing during Christmas or something?" Fiyero raised a brow, shoving a tomato slice into his mouth unceremoniously.

"Good gracious, don't shove things in like that. You're lucky there's no paparazzi around." Tibbett scowled at the mess around Fiyero's lips.

"Papa – what? Nobody knows who I am, geez. I'm a drone at a corporate company." He cleaned himself off with the napkin that Crope that tossed in his direction.

"And they called you the scandalacious vinkun playboy. Sweet baby Ozma, how far the OzPoz Magazine has fallen."

"They called me that?" Fiyero furrowed his brows, piling the rest of his chicken caprese into a neat mount.

"In the top 10 most eligible bachelors section!" Crope took a long sip from his booster juice. "You were number 7."

"Seven?"

Tibbett chuckled, "Trust me, we thought you'd rank higher too – You were right below Chai Bumblebottom."

"Who the hell is that?" Fiyero huffed.

"That one guy from Dancing with the Stars!" Crope exclaimed indignantly. "Although on hindsight, he's got a great ass."

"HA! Hindsight." Tibbett snorted.

"Very cute, Tibbett." Crope laughed. He then glared maternally at Fiyero's plate. "If you don't finish that chicken, you're going to starve to death later. The budgeting discussions for that infernal 'secret project' is going to last forever – you know that."

"Yes, mom." Fiyero pulled the plate to his mouth and shovelled everything inside, including the garnish – just to spite the blond.

Crope made gagging noises and Tibbett threw another napkin to his face.

It was 7pm when Fiyero had finally finished up with the last of his reviews. It had taken him all week, including the weekends, to finish reading up on what had happened to the company's financial portfolio in the 2 years he had been in rehab.

He stretched lazily in his chair and looked out the window. From where he sat, he could see the purples and the oranges streaked across the blues and the whites. Dusk was his favourite time of day.

It was then that his eyes caught on the movement in the office directly across to his – the office from the Thropp Co. building. All week, he had peaked over to the other side, but was left disappointed when the owner of the office seemed to be away. His childish curiosity had been eating into him. Finally, something seemed to be happening.

A petit blond had carefully entered the room. Fiyero could scarcely make out her face, but she seemed pretty enough. She approached the desk and placed a pile of folders on the tray.

He had been watching her for another minute or two when she seemed to feel his eyes on her and turned to the window. With her standing by the windows, he could see clearly now that she is a very pretty girl. Beautiful, actually.

She saw Fiyero too and she smiled. He stood from his chair and approached the window, giving her a charming smile of his own. She winked, causing his heart to flutter for a second, and turned – making a beeline towards the door.

This discovery of a beautiful girl working in the Thropp building both excited and disappointed him. He was excited that perhaps he would see her again when they were having lunch around the vicinity – but he was disappointed as well, because it was clear that the office in his direct line of sight did not belong to her.

"I think she's the secretary." Fiyero mused absentmindedly while Tibbett nursed his wine.

"You'd better get her out of her head. Your daddy's not going to be happy with you fraternizing with the enemy." He said with a little wave of his hand.

"She's really beautiful though," Fiyero sighed. "That blond hair with soft curls. And when she winked at me – oh, boy." He grinned at the memory.

Tibbett rolled his eyes, "You fall in love much too easily, Fiyero. Remember what happened with Sarima?"

Fiyero scrunched his nose at the name. Even the thought of his ex left a bad taste in his mouth. He took a swig of his jack and coke to rinse it off. "Sarima was a whore. I never loved her."

"You say that, but you also bought her a house."

"Yeah well, I banged her sisters."

"That's nasty." Tibbett frowned. "And it's also one of the reasons why we chucked you into rehab." He took the rest of the drink away, "And don't use that word around me. You know I hate that."

"Bang?"

"Whore. I hate that. It's uncivilized and disgusting."

"I'm sorry. You're right." He sighed. "And thanks for taking that away from me. If my dad found out that I'm out in a bar again, he'd disown me immediately."

"You're welcome. Go call a cab. You look ready to fall apart at the door."

Fiyero planted a kiss on Tibbett's jaw and the dark haired man shoved him aside playfully. They said their goodbyes and he waved down a cab. By the time he reached his apartment building, he'd already sobered.

A/N I don't have a plan for this. I'm very literally winging it and I had so much fun writing the Crope and Tibbett conversation.
As you guys might know, I'm still posting for my other story. This one will not be a priority until Night At The Museum is done. I also have a Gelphie story in the works, but that's going through some revision. No more than two at a time :)

This is a corporate AU where there are no princes and no eminencing.
Only green girls and russet-haired playboys ;)