A Late Night Delicacy
He didn't really eavesdrop; it was just this once! That night in which he caught some girls with a Three Queens lad, or when he had seen those other two reenacting a cheap and filthy novel, or when he heard those Amas who thought nobody was listening whilst they dished out on everyone they knew or would never know, or that time when – well, he wasn't eavesdropping. He just happened to be passing by the hallways of Crage Hall. The ones that led to the girls' dormitories. Very late at night.
Strolling, was all.
Still, even if he were willing to admit to any voyeuristic tendencies (which he wasn't – a tiktok contraption has its morals and isn't yet human enough to accept it acts regardless of them or to consciously revel in going against them), no one would blame him for taking an active interest in that night's happenings inside room twenty-two. Not that the nature of the sounds or exclamations were inherently uncommon – it was the participants, rather, that caught his attention. His mistress seemed more than pleased to see a friendship sprout between them, but surely she wasn't expecting anything like this:
"Ouch, Elphie!" shrieked a voice from within, a voice Grommetik positively identified as Miss Glinda of the Arduennas'. "That hurts, you're doing it wrong!"
"Shh, you silly thing," was the hushed reply from who could be no other than Miss Elphaba Thropp. "It is far too late, you'll wake Nessa. And how, pray tell, would be the 'right way'? I'm merely green, I cannot read minds, you know."
Grommetik moved in a little closer to the door as silently as he could, leaning in this or that awkward angle to try and find a glimpse of what was going on – the keyhole was blocked, however, and he could see only but a shred of life. Bothered by being left locked out of the moonlit room, with its blurry visions of faded golden, pink and green hues, the little metallic thing was forced to settle for listening intently.
The Smith and Tinker's Mechanical Man was not much, although he could at times be more than any human, but he was certainly able enough to hear a bed creaking, as if someone shifted their weight on top of it. The noise was accompanied by Miss Glinda's voice, that said, " Oh, really now, I'm sure even the boys at the Ozma Towers can hear Nanny's snoring, I wouldn't be worried about whatever we do waking Nessa. Lower, Elphaba – ouch! You're being overly rough! It is not necessary to read minds for something like this, one needs only to learn how to recognize reactions."
Grommetik was not the kind to take pleasure in witnessing humans indulging themselves, but he was extremely curious about these two in particular; his midnight perambulations revealed they were the "serious student" types, the kind that fell silent at such hours, either due to reading or sleeping. He had heard them interact before, of course (though his short-term artificial memory could not retrieve any special conversations), but it had always seemed strictly verbal. This was new, and Grommetik loved shiny new things.
And then, a moan.
"Must you be so loud?" Miss Elphaba hissed, immediately reprehending her roomie.
"Well, you finally –" there was a small pause which a shudder Grommetik could not see was accountable for. Miss Glinda's voice was mellow and relaxed when she said, "You finally got it right… That's much, much better… I never knew you could – oh! – do such magical things with your fingers, Elphie."
"I could be as magical as Kumbricia if it weren't for your clumsiness. I can't help it if you're all sticky, Glinda."
"Well," and another pleased moan followed before she continued, "you were the one who brought in the honey, Elphaba."
"Yes, and you were the one who decided to put it to such good use," the other girl replied in an unclear tone; probably sarcastic, possibly just teasing. Grommetik interpreted it as the latter, since honey seemed generally regarded as an actual good thing.
As he enjoyed this private little spectacle, another one was brewing close by and rapidly approaching him, as two other Crage Hall students, a little too unsubtle in the display of their mutual infatuation and a little too drunk to care, hurried up the stairs to the second floor in order to retire after a night sneakily well-spent and now ready for further intoxicated elaboration.
The two girls giggled and tripped about and over themselves, but came to a halt before the sight of an eavesdropping (just innocently taking a walk through the hallways at an absurd time for no specific reason whatsoever and chancing upon a conversation he was absolutely not hearing a word of!) Grommetik. Usually, they would be weary of him, but a blurry mind cares nothing for who is doing something questionable, but for what, exactly, that something is.
One of the girls even ventured to ask what was going on, but the sounds from within the room prevented any further action; as any woman of fiber and honor would do, the new intruders moved in closer.
They stood silently and entranced behind the still oblivious Grommetik when one of them slid an arm around the other's waist, hiccupped loudly and asked her companion if that wasn't Miss Galinda's – hiccup – Glinda's room, to which Grommetik responded by losing his balance, startled, and stumbling forward, hitting his round head against the door before them with a loud bang.
The obvious moaning and ambiguous chatter from inside the room ceased at once. The tipsy girls outside leaned even closer to the door in an drunken effort to make them come back, whilst Grommetik wobbled away as fast as he could to safety, somewhere no one would unjustly accuse him on spying on the resident students.
He was barely out of sight when he heard (he had to see where he was going, he wouldn't dare turn to peek – well, maybe for a second or two, and then he nearly ran into the wall) the lock turn and the door open, revealing a maniacal-looking green girl into whose lap the slightly altered couple almost fell, deprived of the wooden support their ears had trusted.
"Can I help you?" Elphaba growled through gritted teeth.
The meddling duo gasped in horror as their lazy eyes darted from the menacing figure before them to (a fully-clothed? Huh?) Glinda, who sat on her frilly bed and held her ankle. Suddenly sober again, they didn't answer the question and ran away to their own chambers as they had planned, though the rest of the night probably wouldn't play out as initially designed.
Grommetik stood in the shadows, hiding – hoping Elphaba wouldn't see him when she inspected the surrounding vicinity for any more uncalled-for audience. Failing to find other spectators and still visibly irate, she walked back inside the room and slammed the door behind her, leaving Grommetik once more alone. He hanged around for some time still, enough to hear the roommates within reengage in conversation:
"Well done, Glinda. Not that I care about what those inebriated ninnies think, but our little commotion is sure to originate some rather splendid stories. I'm afraid your reputation will sink to its deepest low, if talking to me hasn't caused it to do so yet."
"Oh, please, Elphie, I have more to think of nowadays and you know it," Glinda's voice said, seemingly annoyed. It sounded good humored, though, when it added, "And, really, what are they going to expand upon? You stealing honey from the kitchens, begrudgingly sharing it with me and my inability to properly shove it back to you? You reckon they'll tell stories because I don't like to receive things that haven't been voluntarily and whole-heartedly given?"
"Having nothing better with which to occupy themselves, yes, though I'm certain they wouldn't leave out the part in which you trip and manage to dirty yourself almost entirely with the contents of the jar, spraining your ankle and blackmailing me into massaging it for you."
Grommetik had dared to give some uncertain steps back in the direction of their door, but the revelations as to what was truly going on inside discouraged him; he heard only a few sentences more and left, frustrated, after listening to their remarks on how "it was the third time that week someone had been hovering about their door" and "what the hell was it that people thought they both did in there?"
-x-
Grommetik didn't eavesdrop, but had he loitered around for a few more minutes, not-eavesdropping, he would have heard how the affair had concluded:
"Elphie… What do you think they think we do? Just out of curiosity."
"Frankly?" and a pause ensued, in which muffled voices mixed. Then Elphaba said, in a low tone, "I think they think we do exactly what we really do."
The soft and alternating pitched noises that followed proved that, ultimately, that jar of honey (or what was left of it) was indeed put to good use.
A/N: Whew, I finally finished it. This has been sitting around my desk for weeks, but real life got in my way, as it always does, so that explains why I haven't updated anything new in ages.
Anywho, I wrote a voyeur Grommetik. I think I'm going to hell after that, hahaha!
I'm pretty sure this was much funnier in my mind; I've never been very good at writing funny things. In fact, this story was actually going to be a tad more serious than it is, but then I thought, "hey, everything I write ends up having a darker shade to it, I'm being repetitive. How can I change that?" and this perfectly silly little fic was born. Though it isn't "ha-ha funny", I'm hoping it can at least give someone out there a reason to smile once or twice while reading. So, did it work?