The four girls who were known around Shiz's campus to be the most gossipy group in school sat at a table in the café not too far away from Shiz but not too close either. Three out of the four girls were chatting mindlessly away the minutes with talk of boys, sex, shopping, and the latest victim of their cruelty, a Miss Elphaba Thropp, the green skinned girl that they all were forced to deal with at college.
"I don't understand why she doesn't just drop out," the girl on the end, Pfannee, said carelessly, "I mean it's pretty evident that no one likes her, and no one wants her here."
"Even the teachers seem disgusted with her," added Shenshen, who was next to Pfannee, with a smirk as if she knew of personal experiences of this account.
"Well," piped up Milla across the table as she nursed her tea, "Everyone except Doctor Dillamond."
Pfannee sneered as she slammed down her teacup in annoyance, "Oh that goat will like anyone that pays him a scrap of attention and will listen to him drone on and on about Animals' Rights."
The other two in the group snickered.
"That's true," said Milla and Shenshen nodded in agreement.
The three pairs of eyes turned to the fourth girl at the table who had remained silent during all of this.
"I can't believe how you have to room with such an abnormality! If I were you, dear I'd protest. However do you stand it, Galinda?" asked Pfannee offering the girl a sympathetic but oh so fake smile. She was just glad that she didn't have to deal with being the green bean's roommate.
The blonde beauty that was the final girl at the table looked up at the women she called her friends. Galinda had an unusual look on her face, almost as if she had been trying to avoid getting dragged into the conversation entirely.
"It's really not a bother," Galinda said faintly as she glanced down at her steaming cup of afternoon Gillikin tea, "We mainly keep to ourselves."
But that was an outright lie and the blonde girl blushed in embarrassment after saying it.
"But doesn't it bother you? I mean you're practically breathing the same air as that freak!" pointed out Shenshen cruelly and curiously. The other girls fluffed and fretted at their high society clothes and jewelry when Galinda didn't answer the question immediately.
"What if you get 'the green' from her dearie?" added Milla in a joking/serious tone. The other ladies laughed, in crystal clear melodic voices.
Galinda herself had to bite her lip hard to keep the girlish giggles inside. But she was not laughing at the ridiculousness of the statement, Galinda was laughing because she had in truth already caught 'the green'. But just not in the same way that her friends might think she had…
"Oh please, it's not contagious!" laughed Galinda forcibly. She set her teacup and saucer in her lap and balanced it on one crossed slender leg as she endured more of her friend's merciless stabs at her roommate.
By the time Shenshen had finished off her tea, set it down on the wooden table, she had another question pop into the brainless head of hers.
"I wonder…" Shenshen lowered her voice to a social whisper, "I wonder if she's green… all over…?"
Galinda, Milla noticed, nearly let her cup tip onto her dress once Shenshen's musings had been put out into the open.
The drop of the blonde's head concealed her expression, which the girls had assumed had been one of laughter when really it was one of knowing.
"I sure hope she is," said Milla sharply as she rustled her skirts, "How awkward would that be if you weren't the same color all over your body."
"I bet Galinda knows," Pfannee suddenly remarked out of the blue.
Galinda, startled and a bit frightened, shot her eyes up from her cup to their faces.
"What?" she asked innocently as if she had no idea what they were talking about. Her stomach dropped as she wondered if they knew… if they had secretly seen something and were about to call her out for it.
"Is your roommate green all over or not?" repeated Pfannee as the rest of the group leaned towards the blonde to hear the answer.
After a moment of looking like someone had shocked her, Galinda clicked her tongue disapprovingly, "What a ghastly and horrendible question to ask! How the hell should I know? She's always covered up when I see her!"
Another lie. This time Galinda hoped that she had at least said it convincingly to put their suspicions to rest for once.
"I wonder if anyone's ever done it with that green thing…" wondered Pfannee in a loud voice.
"Oh, Pfannee please we're in public!" complained Milla as she turned her head away in embarrassment, even though she was slightly intrigued to know what the answer was.
"What? It's just a question!" shot back the other woman.
"It's not appropriate for us to talk about in public," whispered Shenshen even though she was giggling.
"Don't tell me that none of you are curious," snapped Pfannee who had always been the loudest and obnoxious one of the four girls, "I think it's interesting. I mean who would even touch that monstrosity never mind have sexual intercourse with it!"
"Miss Pfannee, please!" begged Milla.
They all noticed though in that moment that Galinda had grown extremely quiet.
"What do you think, Miss Galinda?" asked Shenshen after a moment, "You know her better than the rest of us."
The blonde girl took a few long moments to answer. The cup that she had in her grasp halfway up to her lips was shaking.
"Don't you have anything better to talk about?" she complained in a slight annoyed voice.
"I bet you know…" teased Pfannee, "I mean come on, Galinda, you're in there all alone with that freak and you're telling us that you've never even tried anything on her. Just to experiment… I would. I would bang that green thing until I knew for myself if her blood was green too…" Pfannee drew breath as if to go on but Galinda's clamoring of her teacup falling to her lap stopped her.
"She wouldn't let you get within a foot of her Pfannee, she hates all of you," snapped Galinda, furious that these people would talk about Elphaba like this, "You're all nothing but a pathetic bunch of sniveling cowards! She's worth the whole damn lot of you!"
Her passionate retort, which had meant to stay in the tones of a social whisper, had been loud and filled with a sharp, frazzled edge to it.
Her friends, the ones who had never stopped talking for a mere moment, sunk back into their seats and grew silent while they stared at Galinda.
The color had flushed in her porcelain, snow white complexion mostly around her cheeks as if she was embarrassed or hiding something or both. Her blue eyes were sharp and gleaming with some unidentified emotion.
"Geesh, darling we were just trying to make conversation," said Pfannee at last with a snort and a slight smirk. She knew the blonde could be overdramatic sometimes but this was over the top, "No need to be so defensive about your room-mate…"
"Can't we find something else to talk about besides my roommate?" snapped the blonde girl.
An awkward silence hung in the air over that specific table as the four girls sat there in brewing quiet.
"Have any of you met the Vinkun prince yet? Fiyero Tiggular?" posed Milla after the quiet had grown to be too much for them all.
The others soon joined the conversation, except Galinda who remained mute and suddenly immersed in the pattern of her charcoal dress. The subject of the prince's inheritance, stature, scandalous reputation, and charming good looks came up.
The golden haired girl kept silent during all this talk until Pfannee inquired of her, "What do you think of him, Galinda?"
"Who?" Galinda found herself out of her reverie and suddenly in a conversation that she had been barely paying attention to. She was now finding herself to be most agitated after her sudden outburst.
"Fiyero, Galinda… we're talking about Fiyero. Lurline above you're acting so strange today," observed Shenshen with a long sigh.
Right. Boys. They had been talking about boys while Galinda's mind had wandered off into the events that had happened last night behind the closed doors of her dorm room with Elphaba.
"He's too dark for my kind," said the blonde stiffly to only prove to these girls that she was still the snobby woman from the Pertha Hills. Galinda wished slightly that their Amas had accompanied them on this outing, if only to save Galinda from more humiliation. She knew that if her Ama was here than she would have told them all to get a move on already and they would be half-way back to Shiz by now.
"Oh, you Gillikinese are so picky!" huffed Shenshen; "I wouldn't mind having him as my beau."
"Me either," agreed Milla and Pfannee nodded too.
"Are none of the boys here good enough for you, little miss Galinda?" taunted Pfannee when the other girls had taken up another cup of tea, "Maybe you'd rather take up a relationship with that roommate of yours if you refuse to copulate or date any of the fine looking men here. I mean, if that's what you like…."
Her comment had gone too far.
In a split second Galinda hastily got up from the table, nearly knocking her chair into a waitressing Deer and her tea on the floor.
"Shut up, Pfannee! Shut up! Just because you're a slut and have slept with nearly the entire student body, and yes I do know that you like to switch sides once in a while too, doesn't mean that you're far more superior than the rest of us!"
Pfannee's mouth dropped open in shock that her secret had been exposed. Shenshen looked ashamed, her pretty face stained with red blotches. Milla covered her mouth with her hands.
Everyone in the café was now looking at their table with wide eyes and shocked faces. The blonde girl who had created the outburst breathed heavily as she calmed herself down.
"I- I daresay I think this terrible spring weather is getting to me," she made up hastily as her voice shook, "I think I'll be heading back now."
She left without another word and not one of her so-called friends called out her name to ask what the matter was.
Galinda's walk back to her dorm was filled with unshed tears in her eyes and a heavy heart. There had once been a time where she had laughed at those comments about Elphaba that her friends had made up. A time where she herself had said such nasty and cruel things about the girl behind her back. There had been a time where Galinda had bullied Elphaba without the poor girl even knowing it.
But now all that was different. Now Galinda was defending Elphaba and her friends didn't even know the real reason behind it. The real reason was horrifying, socially unaccepted but altogether true. Galinda had fallen ever so slowly in love with Elphaba. It had taken a long time but she had finally realized her feelings one night, it was the first night that she had ever tried anything with the green girl. That was the first night that she had kissed her. And ever since then their relationship miraculously deepened and grew. Galinda had been skeptical at first but Elphaba had shown her true colors to the blonde. She got the feeling that Elphaba had never revealed herself to anyone before and that made their relationship even more sacred and precious.
Every-time she did something with Elphaba though; Galinda had her friends' voices in the back of her head.
They told her what a sick thing it was to be kissing, touching, and fooling around with such a freak of nature. Her mother's voice scolded her for being such a disgrace and a freak. Her father's inner voice told her what a disappointment she was turning out to be. But for once, Galinda didn't care. She didn't care how socially unacceptable it was for a woman to love another woman. She knew that a ton of girls try it. Experimenting, they call it. It was harmless, really nothing. Or at least that's what Galinda told herself…
The door to her dorm was opened when she finally arrived. She stepped inside quietly and had wiped away the traces of tears off of her face on the walk over here. The figure in the room beside herself was jack-knifed against the wall with a book hiding her face. Galinda could still see the emerald skin that covered her roommate's body on the parts of her that were not hidden by a book or by her clothes.
"How was lunch?" asked the green girl without glancing up from her page.
Galinda flopped down on her frilly pink bed with a frustrated shriek.
"I guess not so great," commented Elphaba with a slight laugh.
"I don't even want to talk about it," groaned the blonde as she corrected the position of her dress; which had slid over to one side.
"Alright then, I will leave you to your thoughts," said Elphaba as she crisply turned another page of her book already immersed again in her reading.
Galinda eyed Elphaba intently and thoughtfully for a while before her mind and train of thought suddenly became philosophical from today's turn of events.
Two women together was not, as her mother had told her, socially acceptable even if they are in love. Two people of the same gender being together was not right either. But who were they, rich upper class citizens, to dictate what is right and what is wrong, what is socially acceptable and what is not.
Her parents and most people in their older age blamed this 'experimenting' on some sort of mutated gene or something. They believed that it was not natural for this sort of thing to happen between two women or two men.
Galinda would have liked to believe differently but she didn't know for sure if this relationship (or whatever you would call her situation with Elphaba) was permanent or temporary.
But whatever it was, temporary or not, and however long it lasted whether it did or it didn't, Galinda was at least glad that she could have the memories of such a good time.
Damn being socially acceptable, thought the blonde, the heart wants what the heart wants.
And her heart wanted Elphaba… and Galinda found in her later years that it always would want Elphaba.
It was then that Elphaba looked up at her, she had found the blonde's hungry stare to be quite distracting.
"Would you care not to look at me like I'm some sort of meal that you want to feast upon, you're drooling my sweet," said Elphaba with a small chuckle.
Galinda snapped out of her thoughts and wiped the drool away that was rolling down her cheek.
"I'm dreadfully sorry, Miss Elphaba," apologized the blonde.
The green girl gave her a queer look, "What is the matter with you? You haven't called me Miss Elphaba in ages, does this have something to do with what happened at lunch today?" she asked, "Are you afraid that your friends are lurking just outside the door waiting to hear some sort of gossip that they can spread about us?"
Galinda didn't answer that but her blanched expression told Elphaba that she was afraid.
The book slammed down against the rickety bed, "Oh please, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" snarled Elphaba.
"They're vicious, Elphie! You should have heard them today at lunch, talking about you in such a grotesque and ugly manner!" confessed Galinda as tears bloomed in those beautiful blue eyes of hers.
"You know that doesn't bother me," said Elphaba stiffly with a huff.
"It bothers me," Galinda said timidly, "It really does."
Elphaba looked at her with narrowed eyes, "And what did you do about them talking about me? Did you break one of Pfannee's nails or something?"
"I shouted at her and called her a slut," blurted out Galinda as she crossed her legs on the bed, "I also might have let it inadvertedly slip that she has been fooling around with both gender parties… and I called them all pathetic sniveling cowards."
A wane smile appeared faintly on Elphaba's grayish lips.
"Did you really?" To Glinda she sounded amused.
"Yes, I did. Pfannee made me angry," said the blonde quietly and resentfully. She didn't want to remember the events of this afternoon. She wished them gone from her head but she knew that that would not be the case.
"I'm impressed. I didn't think you had it in you," remarked Elphaba as she glanced in Galinda's direction.
"You didn't think I had a lot of things in me, but I daresay I've proved you wrong dozens of times, haven't I?" the playful comment did not go unnoticed by Elphaba.
"I wouldn't say dozens of times, but a couple…" she reached for her book again but was stopped by a pale hand snatching up her precious reading material.
"Galinda!" exclaimed Elphaba as she watched the book soar into the air as the blonde threw it across the room. It landed with a thud against the wall.
Elphaba looked at Galinda who smiled seductively at her as she undid the buttons of her own dress.
"I don't think it's late enough in the evening for this kind of activity, Miss Galinda… I mean you did just eat. I guess we'll have to wait two hours-"
"Elphie, for Oz's sake will you shut up?" purred Galinda as she undid the last of the buttons.
"I mean what if your friends did come in what on earth would they say? Boq would probably faint at such a sight. Nessa would shut herself away in some sort of religious attempt to get us both on the path of righteousness. Fiyero and Avaric would be egging us on. And your mindless, brainless cronies will blab about it to the entire world and beyond," said Elphaba with a sneer.
"Elphie!" the blonde casted her a glare, "shush, will you!"
"You forgot to lock the door," reminded Elphaba to her, "We don't want a close call like last time with Crope and Tibbett, now do we?"
Galinda pouted as she ran to the door, locked it, and ran back to the bed.
"Happy?" she asked sharply.
"It's not me who doesn't want anyone to find out about us. You're the one who insists that the door is locked, the shades are drawn, and that we never speak of our relationship in public."
Galinda realized that that was true and she lowered her head in shame.
"It's because I'm afraid, Elphie," she admitted softly.
"Afraid of what, my sweet?" asked Elphaba as a hand made its way to Galinda's bare back in comfort.
"Of being disgraced when people find out. Of being disliked and looked down upon because of who I love," Galinda looked at Elphaba's brown eyes.
"That's nothing to be afraid of, Galinda. I know what you're afraid of. You're afraid of people seeing us, you and I, together romantically. You're afraid of being seen with me even though it's what you want," Elphaba had pinpointed her fear to an exact and it scared Galinda that she could be read that easily.
"Alright, you're right," she hung her head low, "I don't want to be scared but I am."
"You don't know it, Glin… but you're already taking steps to get over it. Today when you spoke up for me at lunch, yesterday when you called those girls out for something they said to me, and who knows maybe tomorrow you'll just admit it to the entire world that you're in love with me."
Galinda laughed, "I don't think that will escalate that quickly but I see your point, Elphie."
Elphaba kissed her lips softly, "Don't listen to a word they say, my sweet. You're worth the whole damn bunch of them."
"So are you," countered the blonde with a smile as she kissed her back.
And with the door locked, the shades drawn, and their lips sealed the two people that were in love seized the opportunity that was in front of them and took it full force.
Green skin had mixed with snow-white skin, and the combination had never been sweeter, more loving, more socially unacceptable and totally damnable than ever before.
"I love you," the blonde confessed to the green woman afterwards
"I love you as well," said Elphaba to Galinda.
And it couldn't have been more beautiful and more wrong in society's eyes.
I was in the writing zone and I just went with it. I started this off in ASB today and then continued with it when I got home. Seven pages later I was done. So yeah. I don't really know what to make of this but I really loved it.
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