A/N: I do not own Wicked. That belongs to the creative genius that is Gregory Maguire. Bookverse. Takes place during Elphaba and Fiyero's affair in the Emerald City, and has turned into a sort of character/relationship study. I tend to get too introspective. A lot of thought went into this, and I hope you enjoy it.
Like Poetry
by Vitani
She waited for him on the appointed evenings, sitting naked under the blanket, reading essays on political theory or moral philosophy. "I don't know that I understand them, I read them as poetry," she once admitted. "I like the sound of the words, but I don't ever really expect my slow, slanted impression of the world to change by what I read."
"Is it changing by how you live?" he asked, turning down the light and slipping out of his clothes.
Wicked
It was cold again. Of course, it was the season for it – for frost to gather on the skylight, obscuring the view into a colorless kaleidoscope. For the floorboards to feel as though they were ice themselves, stinging feet that had yet to put on shoes, sticking skin momentarily to the floor, eliciting small hisses of discomfort before fleeing back under the sheets. For staying under the covers, snuggled close to a warm person until the sunlight returned in the morning to chase you out of bed, unable to ignore the world any longer.
Regardless of the season's implications, Elphaba stirred. Slightly at first… the shifting of an arm, a casual extension of fingers, the fluttering of an eye. Then came the realization, and the sudden drop into stillness – a desperate attempt to sink back into sleep, to dull the mind into blissful unconsciousness. A few moments passed, and finally she turned her head and irritably regarded the drab ceiling with dark eyes, unable to recapture sleep and knowing it useless to pretend that she could. These nights happened all too often for her, she knew better. So, resigned, the thin woman settled into her normal routine, levering herself up slowly, making no noise, and gathering long legs underneath her into a seated position on the bed.
Having no body fat to speak of, it was necessary to wrap the blanket tightly around her thin frame to ward off the frigid air and keep it from seeping to her bones. This required carefully tugging some out from under Fiyero, who had taken more than his share. Admittedly, he was usually her primary heat source, not the blanket, but tonight he would need to relinquish it to her solitary needs. The winter coats that they often used for extra warmth during such nights had been pushed down to their feet, and she retrieved them, rearranging the fabric so that only her face and hands exposed skin the shadowy color of uncut emeralds.
Reaching with long fingers to the table beside the bed, she lit one candle - which provided no heat and only slightly more light - and picked up the papers that were never far from it. Writings on morality, philosophy, politics that she had collected, intrigued by their self-assured tone, their different, conflicting truths. Every author was convinced what they had to say was the right of it, and that interested her almost as much as the theories themselves did. Some didn't even have a credited author, for that matter, making them seem as though they were lost pages from some abandoned manuscript. Perhaps that was the actuality of it. They varied from orderly writing on crisp, clean paper to scrawling text on old and yellowed backgrounds, slightly torn, the ink smudged. She gathered them from many places, from people she worked with, areas and buildings where she was assigned, and random sellers in the streets.
Never the same source more than once – she did not want to attract anyone's attention, which all too often meant their suspicion. She was not one whose face was easily forgotten, as evidenced by the figure sharing her bed.Fiyero shifted in automatic, sleepy response to her change in position, making up for the loss of her warmth by pillowing his head in her blanketed lap. Elphaba went absolutely still until he settled, his breathing deep and even, before returning her attention to the material. One hand kept the papers held in front of her face, the other lowered to gently play with his long dark hair. She stopped her fingers before they could trace the diamonds on his face – she did not want to wake him and have to fend off questions about why she was unable to sleep.
Sometimes he surprised her by how easily he saw through her attempts to guide him away from the truth of her work. He still asked questions, still got frustrated when she gave him half-truths, already formulated answers. It was also clear that he knew he did not really have a right to complain – he had chosen to be in her life, ignoring how she had tried to get him to stay away. Elphaba was not required to tell him anything, and if they were going to be technical about it, she was not allowed to. Not that it meant much, considering their relationship was forbidden in the first place, but she should try and hold to at least some rules. Or, at least, that was her excuse.
He worried too much. Well, that wasn't strictly true – there was certainly every reason to worry, but she wanted him not to. There was nothing he could do about it. She didn't even know if he would, unless it endangered her. Even if it did, she wouldn't – couldn't – let him. Bad enough he risked being seen at her home, without him knowing how truly dangerous and unpleasant her life was. Or had been. It was still dangerous, but not quite as unpleasant as it was before he stuck his foot in her door. She wasn't alone anymore, something that had only begun to sunk in. Elphaba had been so good at ignoring her isolation… until someone tried to get through it. In his doing so, she was forced to face it. Perhaps she should blame him, but she knew she couldn't. She couldn't. It was her fault. She had let him in. She had given up. And it was she who would be at fault if anything happened. Not him, not when he didn't realize the whole of it. 'This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you,' she had snapped at him. 'Love is wicked distraction.'
Elphaba was startled out of her thoughts by the quiet crackling of bent paper, and she stared at where her hand had clenched into a fist, twisting and tearing the report she had been reading. Shaking slightly, she released her hand, and the ruined parchment drifted to the floor. Another thing she would have to hide from him come morning - he would notice. He always noticed. Fiyero shifted, murmuring softly, and she thought for a moment that she had awakened him… but he quieted again. She wondered if he responded even in sleep to her change in moods.
Sometimes, she tried to figure out what exactly they were to each other, if it had a label. Another pointless thought, certainly. She loved him, yes, and he had told her the same. But what did that mean? Did it matter? She wondered if he did also love Sarima, and if his time with her was just a passing fancy – yet, it was his lover's name he said in sleep, or some variation thereof. Not his wife's.
At times she wished he would pick one to call her by, but he seemed to enjoy speaking her name in all ways possible. Elphaba-Fabala-Elphie-Fae, the syllables seemed almost lyrical on his tongue. Elphaba, her birth name, the formal label of her existence. She rarely heard it anymore, he only used it when the conversation turned serious. Fabala, her father's name for her, an attempt to find some sort of humanity in his little, freakish daughter, to dredge up some paternal love. Elphie – the nickname used by her friends, recalling her days at Shiz, laden with naiveté and unawareness. Fae, her code name, the name Fiyero was beginning to make his own endearment for her. And when he used them all at once, it was akin to trying to string all of the different pieces of her together into one he might be able to understand. But he did not understand, not yet – he could not. Not and be safe.
A little, rebellious part of her wanted to help him understand, help him know her the way he so desperately tried to. But the greater part of her screamed against it. She knew the consequences of affection.
He made her real. The thought, regardless of whether or not it was true, caused her lips to tighten bitterly. Reality was one thing she never thought she would have a problem with, and there were few enough of those as is. Yet, in the past few years… she had begun to feel… not fake, but not as though she really existed, either. Until the day Fiyero refused to ignore her – despite her best efforts, she convinced herself - she had been living in the shadows, making sure to be seen as little as possible. She didn't give her name, so no one called her by it. The only ones she truly interacted with were the people with whom she worked – and they were always changing, one face quickly replaced by another. There were no continuing relationships. No one remembered you, no one came to your home – no one knew where it was! No one engaged in casual, friendly banter. No one acknowledged that you existed. If or when you died, there was no pause. Everything moved on – without you. Because you did not have an identity, you were merely a part. A part that could be replaced.
'I have no colleagues', she remembered saying. 'I have no self. I never did, but that's beside the point. I am just a muscular twitch in the larger organism.' She convinced herself that didn't matter, that she didn't need it, that this was what she was meant to do. Finally, something she was meant to do. Friendships weren't allowed in the cell. Only the carrying out of missions mattered. If necessary, you had to be able to leave someone behind.
Fiyero didn't understand that. He did not understand how the purpose could be so much more important than the people. Of course, that was because he had a personal connection to one of them – he placed her over whatever she could be trying to achieve. She indulged in that, she knew, and she shouldn't. He made her believe that for him, part of a system or not, if she were to die, nothing could replace her. She informed him that such thinking was selfish, but, like a hypocrite, relished the warmth that spread through her at those words. When his hands were on her, she felt overwhelmingly alive.
She would spend the day working, in hiding, and people would be in contact with her only as much as absolutely necessary; then he would come at night and his focus would be on her - his careful, devoted attention. When Elphaba's fears overcame her, she was not left to suffer it out alone, an animal curling into its hole waiting to heal. He seemed to take her pain personally, and would spend hours caring for her until her world started to right itself, even a little bit. As much as it could. There was no reason for her to try and believe that she had a self – he believed it for her. It was so easy to oppose someone's views when you wished they were yours. You are bitter, resentful, defensive – all in an attempt to justify why you cannot feel that way, too.
It was because of this that at times she did push him away, in a sudden fervent denial of everything he tried to convince her she was.
Elphaba suddenly realized that the candle had almost burned all of the way down, and she had just been rereading the same paragraph countless times without ever comprehending the words. The words were heavy with significance, but often so incomprehensible that one could wonder if it truly meant anything at all, if the complexity and beauty of the language worked to cover up the lack of the presence of anything rational. Like her life. Like poetry. With a small, self-reproving frown, she carefully gathered the papers – including the ones that had fallen to the floor, and arranged them on the table. The crumpled report was hidden under the stack, she'd get rid of it later, when Fiyero wasn't around to see it.
She settled back down onto the worn mattress, but this time she failed to do so without disturbing her lover. He stirred, blinking large dark eyes at her, partially obscured by flyaway hair –her softly shining black tresses mingling with his unruly locks. "Fae? What's going on?"
"Nothing – it's cold, I was just adjusting the blankets."
Fiyero's expression told her that he doubted it was that simple, especially considering with their usual sleeping position that she wouldn't need more cover, but he wasn't going to push it. It was too easy for her to make excuses in this particular case – he wouldn't get anywhere, and he knew it. She felt a small stab of guilt for jading him in such a way, for making him know what it was to give up. He stayed silent and rested his head against her arm, testing to see if she would welcome the affection. If she pushed him away, he would go, moving to one side of the bed – but when that happened, he never turned his back to her. He would sleep on his side, facing her, always ready to offer comfort or warmth if she showed any sign of need. At times she felt embittered about how often that had actually happened, how often she became that distressed.
Tonight, she was simply relieved he had chosen not to pry, and allowed him to move closer, once again sharing warmth in the world of cold. He made a small contented sound and curled around her, covering her smaller body with his arms, as though protecting her. It was the only way she allowed him to.
Elphaba glanced up a last time at the skylight, before tucking her face into his neck, trying to ward off the sudden wave of irrational fear. She could not afford to be loved.
And yet, she could not bear not to be. Her last thought before falling into sleep was the closest thing she had experienced to a prayer since she was a child, and she would not remember it when she awoke.
If I am allowed any reprieve from punishment for a mistake I have made or will make, let it be for this.
"When I do disappear again, dearie, I'll surely be less real than I am now." - Wicked