Content Advisory: Alcohol (mention)


Chapter Nine: Never Have I Ever

Elphaba was thankful, actually, that Yero was seeing somebody. She was! It knocked the ridiculous notion Galinda had planted in her head clean out of her. She'd known all along that Galinda had been wrong. Yero's revelation had merely confirmed it. With the ludicrous ordeal about her 'crush' settled, Elphaba went about her business in a contentedly detached fashion and continued to write to Yero. Why shouldn't she? They were still perfectly pleasant platonic pen pals.

"You've been in a mood," Galinda pointed out.

The girls were spending an afternoon at a local parfumerie off campus and, after dozens of samples, Elphaba was failing to react to the fragrances with the kind of enthusiasm Galinda was looking for.

"Galinda, the insides of my nostrils are on fire. If we keep this up, I won't be able to smell anything ever again."

"I'm still trying to figure out what kind Fiyero would like best," Galinda complained, sniffing her wrist for a fifth time. "He's so close, Elphie. I can tell. He is so close to telling me that he loves me. If I find the right scent, I know he'll give in."

"Fiyero this, Fiyero that!" Elphaba grumbled. "He's all you ever talk about."

Galinda spritzed a cloud of perfume at her friend as punishment and Elphaba choked on the lilac scented particles.

"You hush, now. Just because you're cranky about your own love life—"

"I have no love life," Elphaba coughed.

"—does not mean you get to criticize mine! Besides…Fiyero and I aren't the only ones enjoying an autumn romance," Galinda hinted, shamelessly dangling her gossip.

"Alright I'll bite," Elphaba croaked as she held back the urge to hack. "Who is it?"

"You know that darling little Munchkin boy Bick?"

"No."

"Yes, him! Well, the poor thing was terribly infatuated with me—can you blame him? But after a little matchmaking from yours truly, I have it on good authority that he is taking your sister out tonight!"

"What?!" Elphaba gasped. "Galinda, what did you do?"

"A pretty girl like Nessa could use a sweet boy like him! He just needed a little encouragerizing is all," Galinda shrugged.

"Galinda, Nessarose is a very impressionable girl!" Elphaba protested. "Why would you do that?"

"I did it for you, Elphie. Nessa is going to be so smitten with Bick that she'll forget all about your little quarrel," Galinda explained. "You're welcome!"

"This better end well, Galinda," Elphaba warned. "I don't want Nessa to get crushed."

It was common knowledge that Galinda was used to getting her way. When she wanted something, she made it happen. Elphaba had to, begrudgingly, admire that. Now that she'd successfully finagled herself into sorcery seminar and set up her unwanted admirer with Nessarose, Galinda had a new goal.

She was determined to make her roommate and boyfriend get along.

That Friday evening, Elphaba trudged back to her dorm on Galinda's orders so that they could have a 'girl's night'. Elphaba was braced for an evening of nail polish and Ozian fashion magazines, but when she entered their dorm she realized that something much worse was in store for her.

"What is he doing here?!" "What is she doing here?!"

Fiyero and Elphaba went rigid at the sight of the other and Galinda immediately put herself between them to prevent potential fisticuffs.

"Galinda, you told me this was going to be a girl's night!"

"What?! You told me Elphaba would be out tonight!" Fiyero objected.

"Joke's on you, I don't go out!"

"No surprise there. You hate fun."

"What I hate is your—"

"Enough!" Galinda held out her arms to call for peace. "Yes, I lied to you both, but it was for the greater good. Accept it and move on!"

Elphaba and Fiyero shared a look before bolting towards the door to escape before the other could. Galinda, who had predicted this, whisked out her training wand and aimed it at the door to magically lock it. Elphaba scoffed and unlocked it manually with her hand.

"It locks from the inside, Galinda."

Galinda waved her wand and it clicked shut again. Elphaba growled and snapped her fingers, unlocking the door with her own magic.

"Oh, you big show off! You know I can't do wandless magic!" Galinda stomped.

Galinda waved the wand yet again and the roommates descended into a childish magic war over their shared doorknob. Click. Open. Click. Open. Click. Open.

"Sorcery students…" Fiyero sighed tiredly.

"You can't actually keep us in here," Elphaba declared with a sense of finality as she reached for the knob. In a mad dash Galinda hurled herself in front of the door and threw her arms out to block the way.

"I am Galinda Upland of the Upperuplands and I can do whatever I want! Now you both listen to me. Tonight you are going to work through your differences and we are all going to have a WONDERFUL TIME!" she screamed. "Now sit down! Both of you!"

"But—" Fiyero began.

"Nuh uh."

"You—" Elphaba tried.

"Zip it, Elphie."

Elphaba and Fiyero shot each other a befuddled look, briefly united over Galinda's absurdity. Elphaba lifted her hands in surrender and reluctantly sat on the floor at the foot of her bed. As Galinda and Fiyero sat across from her, Elphaba shot Galinda an exaggerated smile.

"So, what kind of fun do you have planned for us, Galinda?" she mocked in a chipper tone.

"I am so glad you asked, Elphie! For all of us to get along, we need to get to know each other better. Soooooo…." Galinda drum rolled on her knees. "I think we should play a game!"

"A game?" Elphaba grimaced.

"I think a game sounds great!" Fiyero jumped in, draping an arm around Galinda's shoulder. "After all, games are fun."

Elphaba shot him a nasty look and Galinda moved on quickly.

"The game is called never have I ever. Have you ever played?"

"Of course," Fiyero said.

"I've been the subject of it," Elphaba sighed, recalling the ingenious prompt 'never have I ever seen anyone as creepy as Elphaba'.

"Great! I'll say 'never have I ever' done something and if you've done that thing, you put your finger down. Got it? I'll go first," Galinda bounced, gesturing for them to put their hands up. "Never have I ever…stayed up for an entire night."

Elphaba and Fiyero both put a finger down and Galinda eagerly clapped her hands.

"See? You already have something in common!"

"You've never stayed up the entire night?" Fiyero asked Galinda.

"Goodness, no. I need my beauty sleep. Fiyero dearest, you go next."

"Never have I ever…read an entire book in one sitting," Fiyero stated. Elphaba, to nobody's surprise, put a second finger down.

"Is that what kept you up all night?" Fiyero asked snidely.

"Well, I'm sure it isn't what kept you up," Elphaba clapped back.

"Elphie! You go…" Galinda interjected.

"Never have I ever been to The Emerald City," Elphaba said. Fiyero put a finger down.

"No, but I wanna go so bad!" Galinda whined, pouting over the five fingers she still had up.

"So do I," Elphaba agreed.

"It's alright," Fiyero reported nonchalantly.

Elphaba rolled her eyes. It figured that he'd take something like that for granted.

"Oooh okay," Galinda said. "Never have I ever been to a funeral, which is just as well. I look terrible in black."

Elphaba and Fiyero both put their fingers down. Their eyes met for a moment, as if daring the other to say something, but neither did.

"Never have I ever drank alcohol," Elphaba said. She pretended to act surprised as Galinda and Fiyero both put a finger down. "Wow, shocker."

"Well forgive us for being awesome people who enjoy having an awesome time," Fiyero said.

"It's sad that you feel the need to incapacitate yourself to feel joy, Fiyero. You may want to talk to somebody about that," Elphaba said dryly.

"Okay, let's try this. I'm Elphaba and never have I ever had a fun day in my life!" Fiyero snapped and stood to his feet.

"Well, I'm Fiyero and never have I ever taken responsibility for my actions!" Elphaba stood and squared off with him.

"Guys! This isn't how the game works—"

"Never have I ever been popular!" Fiyero said.

"Never have I ever had a brain!" Elphaba said.

"Never have I ever had friends!" Fiyero hissed.

Elphaba stopped, punched in the gut by his remark, and her face wilted to betray the damage his words had caused. Fiyero's face twitched and softened, immediately grasping that he'd taken things too far. He opened his mouth to speak but Elphaba, her face already stoning over from her momentary lapse, was quicker.

"Never have I ever met someone as careless as you."

Elphaba felt a sudden yank on her arm as Galinda, having had enough, began dragging both her and Fiyero across the room. Elphaba and Fiyero resisted her pull but Galinda was surprisingly strong. She threw open the door to her walk-in closet, yanked the string to turn on the light, and promptly shoved the feuding pair inside.

"Galinda!"

"What in Oz?!"

Galinda slammed the door in their faces and dragged over a chair which she propped under the doorknob to barricade them in. Elphaba tried the handle to find that they were indeed trapped. Elphaba banged on the door with the palm of her hand.

"Galinda let us out!"

"No! You two are going to stay in there until you learn to get along. Even if it takes all night!" Galinda slammed her hand twice on the door. "Start talking!"

Elphaba pressed her ear to the door to hear Galinda stomp across the room and fling herself onto her mattress springs with an audible humph!

Stunned over their predicament, Fiyero and Elphaba slowly turned their heads to look at each other. Elphaba stiffened upon registering their close quarters. Galinda's closet was packed to the brim with gowns and handbags, leaving only precisely enough room for two people to stand inside. The lack of elbow room crammed Fiyero and Elphaba practically nose to nose. A mere inch of air between them prevented them from touching in any way.

"Well, uh…" Fiyero swallowed uncomfortably. "I'm not planning on working out our differences or—"

"Right. Me neither."

"I can't believe Galinda thinks this is going to work."

"Why is it so important to her for us to get along, anyway?" Elphaba complained with a breathy laugh. "It's never going to happen."

"Never going to happen. Exactly!" Fiyero agreed.

"Exactly."

Fiyero lifted his hand to mess with his hair and accidentally whacked his elbow on the coat rod. He sucked in some air through his teeth and began to rub the sore area with his hand. His eyes glanced around the closet, deliberately fixating on anything that wasn't Elphaba.

"Good thing I'm not claustrophobic," Fiyero commented. "Are you claustrophobic?"

"No," Elphaba answered. "I don't fear silly things like that."

"Me neither. I fear nothing."

"Same here."

They spoke in awkward, hushed tones, as if afraid of being overheard. Being thrown into such an intimate space had very much disarmed them and an awkward silence soon rang in their ears.

"I do have fun, you know," Elphaba brought up abruptly.

"Huh?"

"You keep saying that I don't know how to have fun. I do. I just find different things fun."

"Okay, like what?" Fiyero asked.

"All sorts of things! Like…" Elphaba trailed off as her mind went blank. Like what? "Well…I-I recently took up the harp!"

"The harp?"

"Yes, the harp," Elphaba nodded. She left out the fact that she hadn't picked one up since Munchkinland and didn't plan to. "My sister and I took lessons. We've picked up many fun hobbies together, in fact."

"Like what?"

Elphaba exhaled a sharp puff of air. "You name it. Soap making, bird watching, needlepointing—"

"Needlepointing?" Fiyero asked.

"Yes, why?"

"No reason…" he cleared his throat. "You just don't seem the type."

"Well, it's a hidden talent," Elphaba explained, straightening up a bit. "I'm damn good at it too."

Fiyero shot Elphaba an uncharacteristically pensive look before giving his head a small shake.

"So, you have a sister?"

"Yes. Nessarose."

"Oh! I think she's in my Ozian Politics class. The one in the—"

"Chair? Yes," Elphaba confirmed.

"I just didn't know that you two were sisters is all."

"Strange, considering our striking resemblance," Elphaba deadpanned.

Fiyero shot Elphaba an incredulous look and she granted him a gently ironic smile to clue him in on her joke. Despite himself, Fiyero let out an amused chuckle.

"You know, I've always wanted a sibling," he mentioned, shifting his eyes back towards the wall as if fascinated with Galinda's dresses. "Only child."

"Well that explains your—everything," Elphaba snorted. "Well, you may be better off. I cherish Nessa but siblings are work."

He cast her a questioning glance and she crossed her arms.

"She's not speaking to me right now," Elphaba admitted. "Go ahead and make a joke. Something about how even blood relatives don't associate with me."

Fiyero didn't take her up on the offer. Instead, he simply asked, "Why aren't you speaking?"

"She's cross with me over my little display in the quad," Elphaba sighed. "She asked me to be nice to people and, well, look how well that's going."

She gestured vaguely at the surroundings of their holding cell and Fiyero laughed again, surprised that Elphaba's humor kept getting to him.

"Nessa is a sensitive girl; she doesn't like to stir things up," Elphaba continued. "It's just her luck to get stuck with such a twister of a sister. She's had a rough go of it, particularly when you consider the loss of our mother."

"Was that the funeral?" Fiyero asked.

"What?"

"You put a finger down about going to a funeral. Was it for your mom?"

"Oh…yes," Elphaba nodded. "Yes, it was."

"The funeral I went to was for my grandfather," he shared. "We were close."

"Oh…"

"I was pretty young when it happened."

"I was young too. My mother passed away while delivering Nessa," Elphaba explained, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'm…sorry about your grandfather."

"I'm sorry about your mom."

Their eyes met and a heavy, but not unwelcome, silence fell between them. Fiyero's hand twitched with an unidentified impulse and their fingers unintentionally brushed. They yanked them away with breathy, mumbled apologies.

"It sure is snug in here," Fiyero blurted out with a nervous laugh, inwardly cringing at his own awkwardness.

"Yes, Galinda is an accumulator indeed," Elphaba nodded towards the multiple dusty hat boxes on the shelf above their heads. "I've never even seen her wear one of those."

"I'll bet you could take them and she wouldn't even notice."

"I'm not much of a hat person," Elphaba shrugged.

"I've seen you wear that cute beanie around."

Elphaba sputtered and scoffed, caught off guard by his word choice. 'Cute' had never been a word used to describe any part of her. Her cheeks felt hot as she awkwardly adjusted her glasses.

"Been paying that much attention to me, have you?"

"Not on purpose," Fiyero chuckled. "You draw a lot of attention to yourself, you know."

"Tell me about it."

"Not because of your skin. Well, not…just because of your skin," Fiyero allowed. "You just have a way of showing up and making it everybody's problem."

Elphaba said nothing, uncertain if she should feel insulted or flattered by his observation. Perhaps a mixture of both. Fiyero, sensing this, continued his train of thought.

"I thought it was hilarious, by the way," Fiyero said. "Your outburst on the quad."

"Hilarious? My rage was hilarious?"

"No, the look on everyone else's faces when they realized they shouldn't mess with you. That was hilarious," Fiyero chuckled. "You put the fear of Oz in them."

"I guess I did," Elphaba grinned.

She wasn't conflicted about that one. She was proud. Emboldened by his praise, Elphaba shifted her shoulders towards Fiyero and arched an eyebrow, her initial smile melting into a sly smirk.

"It's just too bad that it didn't work on you…" she teased smartly. "Seeing as you're not afraid of anything."

The muscles in Fiyero's face dropped and his eyes locked with Elphaba's. Elphaba's smirk gradually fell as she registered his expression and a feverish sensation unexpectedly swelled through her body. A precariously placed shoe suddenly dropped from a high shelf between them and Elphaba and Fiyero leaned backwards to dodge it.

"Oz if you love Galinda, you'll influence her to downsize," Elphaba mumbled off hand.

"What?" Fiyero asked with an anxious scoff. "You don't really believe in all that, do you?"

"All what?"

"Love," Fiyero answered. "I don't believe there is any such thing…do you?"

"Well…uh…"

Being as close as they were, Fiyero began to feel Elphaba's tremulous exhales upon his cheek. He briefly closed his eyes to focus and when they opened again a single word burst into Elphaba's mind.

Blue.

Her discovery was hardly profound, but she extracted the detail from Fiyero's being for safekeeping in her mind. Fiyero's eyes were blue. His eyes were blue.

"Listen, Elphaba…" Fiyero began.

Elphaba offered a slight, expectant nod but Fiyero's thought had already fizzled out. She briefly held her breath, perhaps to block out Fiyero's pleasant cologne, and grimly reflected that she'd finally detected a fragrance she liked. Try as she might, she was unable to detach her stare from his, and her senses numbed through as she watched Fiyero's blue eyes subtly but surely flick down towards her parted lips.

They both swallowed, acutely aware of their proximity as the flushed heat from their skin radiated between them. The subsequent lean in was unconscious but mutual, like a gravitational pull that they were not fully aware of…yet powerless to resist.

"Elphaba…"

The door to the closet suddenly flung open and Elphaba and Fiyero flew apart from each other. Galinda stood before them with a satisfied smile on her face.

"I haven't heard any bickering for a few minutes!" Galinda boasted. "Sounds like it's going well!"

"Uh—" Elphaba stammered, wildly thrown off balance. "Uh…"

"Galinda, just—hold on just a clock-tick, okay?" Fiyero decided hastily.

He grabbed the doorknob and quickly pulled it shut once more.

"What!?" Galinda shouted in surprise, knocking on the door impatiently. "Fiyero!"

"What are you—" Elphaba began.

"I'm sorry," Fiyero cut her off before he could lose his nerve.

"What for?" Elphaba asked dumbly.

"You're seriously asking me what for?!" Fiyero blurted out. "I'm sorry—okay?! For the thing you've been hounding me about literally since the moment I got to Shiz. I'm sorry. Even though I wasn't driving—I…I am sorry for almost hitting you with my cart. I'm sorry, Elphaba. I'm…sorry."

Elphaba stared at him for a long moment before breaking into an immense smile as a sense of justice bloomed within her. Elphaba had been subjected to too many unfair things in her life and there were too many apologies she was owed. Now, having finally secured one under her belt, she felt as if she could breathe easy enough to move forward.

"Thank you, Fiyero," she whispered sincerely. "I accept your apology."

Fulfilled by her forgiveness, Fiyero put his hand over the doorknob and, after a nod from Elphaba, pushed it open. Galinda stood waiting for them on the other side, looking pleased if not confused.

"You see?" Galinda grinned. "I knew my little trick would work."

Fiyero and Elphaba exchanged a final glance, the same unspoken thought on their minds.

Yes. Galinda's trick had worked…perhaps a little too well.