Title: Unmentionables
Author: Angel Leviathan
Disclaimer: Wicked, the characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Summary: "I consider you lazy and to be adopting a manner that is most unbecoming of a lady that I suspect has some sense in her mind somewhere."
Notes: Bookverse.
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Sweet Lurline, if she couldn't get Ama Clutch to untie the damned corset, she swore she was going to expire on the spot. What had the woman been thinking? Corsets were for ball dresses and well-tailored outfits to be seen in, to be endured whenever needs must – not the everyday attire of a schoolgirl!

Galinda was rather aggravated not to find Ama Clutch in her room. She did, however, find Elphaba, nestled against the wall, eyes down, book up. As ever. Did the girl ever relax or have time to think her own thoughts with her constant reading?

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe! Enough was enough! Galinda collapsed on her bed (a bad idea, she discovered the moment she did it) and let a loud sigh escape her. She pointedly tried to pull at the back of her dress, desperate to untie the corset, but, on finding herself incapable, decided she would have to attract Elphaba's attention in the hopes of her volunteering her help. She snatched an abandoned fan from her nightstand and waved it dramatically about herself.

After much of the same behaviour – more ladylike sighs and waving of the fan – Galinda knew that there was nothing else for it. She was going to have to speak to her roommate unless she wanted to die an early death of suffocation. She sat on the edge of her bed and folded her hands in her lap, trying to appear calm. "…Miss Elphaba?"

"Miss Galinda?" Elphaba responded, not looking up from her book.

"Miss…Miss Elphaba, I require your assistance."

The green girl still didn't look up from her reading. "I'm not writing any essays for you and I'm certainly not accompanying you anywhere so that you can look even more stunning by comparison."

Galinda pretended to be shocked. Was she really as unflattering a shade of red as she felt she was? "I'm appalled that you even suspect such things of me."

"I'm appalled that you deigned to lower yourself so much as to ask for my assistance."

"Miss Elphaba!"

Elphaba finally looked up. She smirked, amused, at the sight before her. "Is it the riveting conversation or your attire causing that's you such trouble?"

"Ama Clutch insists I must learn to endure wearing a corset and I could swear she tied it this tight on purpose!" Galinda exclaimed. She glanced back at the door. "Where is the woman?"

Elphaba closed her book and hopped down from her bed. "Hush. She deserves a break every now and then, you know. You're a very demanding creature."

The blonde narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. And rapidly unfolded them again once she released she was only making her breathing predicament worse.

"Is it 'demanding' or 'creature' you take offence to, Miss Galinda?"

"Miss Elphaba, do you intend to torment me until I am asphyxiated?"

Elphaba took the fan from Galinda's bedspread and tapped her with it to make her stand. "For using that word correctly you deserve to be released from your torment."

"You consider me stupid," Galinda stated.

"I consider you lazy and to be adopting a manner that is most unbecoming of a lady that I suspect has some sense in her mind somewhere." Elphaba began to work on the blue satin bow settled in the small of Galinda's back, at the base of the corset.

Galinda huffed, coughed, and almost choked at the same time. After a moment's silence, she said, "You have no idea what it would be like to have a mind and live in my world."

"Being able to total up the value of the goods you fling onto shop counters?" Elphaba shot back. "Or the sense to know that you already have a dozen of said goods in every imaginable colour?"

"Is it my money or my breeding you take offence at, Miss Elphaba?"

"A little of both, perhaps, if you are the evidence of what it does to a girl." Nimble fingers tugged at stubborn lacing. "Just as you see poverty and lack of breeding to be my main and particular faults."

"Your great grandfather is the Eminent Thropp."

"Your mother is a nobody."

Galinda opened her mouth to spout an angry retort, but fell silent on finding her quick intake of breath somewhat easier. She supposed her mother really was a nobody, in circles of political power at least, she bitterly admitted to herself. "Perhaps, then, we are both pretending about something."

"If we're being honest," Elphaba replied, yanking at the horrendously tight ribbon towards the top of the corset, "then we should say we are lying, not pretending, and that you're lying about two things, whilst I can be accused of only the one." She unlaced the bottom half of the length of ribbon entirely. "I suggest you hold the top of your dress up," she added somewhat absently.

One hand clasped over her chest, holding her dress in place, Galinda frowned. "Why am I to stand accused of two cases of lying?"

"Three," her roommate amended. "I have just thought of a third."

"Three then," Galinda continued, exasperated. "But why the three?"

Elphaba finished with the corset and stepped back. She paused to gently brush blonde curls back into place over smooth shoulders. "One," she began. "As we have discussed, your mother is a nobody, which unfortunately makes you half a nobody." She re-tied one of the ribbons in Galinda's hair as if it were her duty. "Two…" Elphaba smiled wickedly. "A corset implies the desire to mislead people as to one's figure." The smile faded and her voice grew quiet. "…And three. You must have a mind and an intellect to speak of, otherwise you would not be aware of the pain and suffering having such gifts would inflict on somebody of high society." She blinked and glanced around the room, at the floor, at the bedspread. "…Perhaps four counts of lying, if we consider mind and intellect to be two differing elements…" Elphaba murmured.

Gazing out of the window in a trance-like manner, Galinda was sharply awakened by the slam of the door. She hadn't heard the quick thud of boots, nor the creak of the door handle as her roommate made her swift escape. Still unable to form what she would consider a coherent response, the tears in her eyes and the sudden chill surprised Galinda as she sank to the floor amongst the loose folds of her dress, still clutching stiff blue satin to her curves.

Fin