The next time they were in the lecture hall for Life Sciences, Elphaba nudged Boq when she saw Fiyero heading into the room, making his way pointedly to a seat in the back of the room, alone. She realized he no longer had a friend to sit near partially because of her, even if she had "saved" him from Avaric. "Ask him!"
"Why don't you?" Boq whined.
"Because people might make fun of him if he accepted the class freak's invitation to sit by her and her friends! He has no one else to sit with, Boq, and I happen to know he'd like to sit with us."
"What happened to Avaric?"
"They're in a bit of a tiff." Elphaba bit her lip, looking away.
"What? Why?"
"It's kind of my fault… Just ask him!"
"You've never cared if someone got made fun of because of you before."
"This is different!"
"How?"
"I… it… it just is. Go!"
"Only if you come with me."
Elphaba sighed, but stood with Boq, seeing as she didn't have much time to persuade him to go by himself. Dr. Nikidik could be seen from the windows heading towards the building. "Fine." She walked next to Boq to the back of the lecture hall. As they approached Fiyero, she elbowed Boq. "Ask!"
"Um, Master Fiyero, we were…" Getting a glare from Elphaba, Boq rephrased his sentence, "I was wondering… no we were wondering… I mean… well, would you like to sit with us?"
Fiyero looked up from a dull stare at the desk. "Sure." He smiled gratefully. "Thank you," he said to both of them.
Elphaba nodded, still not speaking.
"We're just over here, with Crope and Tibbett."
He gathered his bag and then paused. "Doesn't Avaric sit with you?"
"Just sit as far away from him as you can," Elphaba suggested. "He'll probably be having too much fun teasing me to even notice you."
"Well, I thought you usually kept yourself as far away from as possible. How could I, at the same time?" Fiyero was joking lightly now; he followed them to the seats in the right, near the back, but not completely in the last row. Sitting in the last row classified one as a loser, a loner or both, but they weren't fond of sitting too close to Dr. Nikidik, either.
"You're right. I do seize the furthest seat from him, don't I? Well, I'm not giving it up. You'll just have to settle for the second furthest." Elphaba insisted.
"Next to the furthest, then, and next to you?" Fiyero then adjusted his voice and stature, pretending to whip his hair back and wrinkle his nose at Elphaba, imitating Avaric. "Why would I want to sit next to you?"
Elphaba chuckled, "You're good."
"It took time. Too much time, if you ask me. Do you know how much time I had to spend with him to master that?"
"Every minute of it must have been torture, you poor thing," Elphaba mocked. "Well, maybe you'll be able to master my attitude, after this irritatingly time-consuming, lengthy project. It looks like you'll be subjected to even more torture, perhaps worse than spending time with Avaric."
"I don't see the time I spend working with you as torture, I see it as endurable suffering I must put up with for the good of my grades." Fiyero raised his eyebrows.
"I can't say that's necessarily a compliment, but it's better than the way most people would describe being around me," Elphaba remarked coolly.
"I didn't mean it." He told her.
"I know sarcasm, Fiyero, I'm not stupid. I know you didn't." But she didn't want to talk about that, it seemed. She shifted uncomfortably as she sat down next to him. "Great," she muttered.
"What?"
"No offense, but we are the two most out of place looking students in Shiz, and sitting next to each other doubles the stares I get."
"They'll stop staring eventually. Haven't they gotten used to it?"
"You've been here a few weeks and they haven't stopped staring at you, what makes me any different, even if I've been here a bit longer?" She sighed. "They may be used to me, but the color of my skin still fascinates them, causing them to stare."
"They can go screw themselves." Fiyero decided.
Elphaba winced. "That's not a pleasant vision. There are times when I curse an active imagination, and now would be one of them."
Fiyero chuckled and then suddenly grimaced. "You know, if you hadn't mentioned that, I wouldn't be seeing it my head now. This is your fault."
"You started it," Elphaba replied swiftly, "it's yours."
"But I have a somewhat less active imagination, and had you not gotten me to thinking about the picture in my head, I wouldn't have seen it."
Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Ah, Prince Fiyero, of course, men cannot help themselves from imagining people naked."
"You had the image in your mind before I did, Miss Elphaba." He reminded her.
"True." She conceded. "But it's gone from my mind, as quickly as it appeared. I'll bet your mind isn't quite so clear yet."
No, his mind was certainly not clear, but it wasn't filled with the visions she thought it was. When it came to images he didn't want, he could wipe his mind clean in a moment. But something she'd said had sent a sight into his mind that part of him didn't want to get rid of. He knew, in his mind, what it was, but didn't even admit it to himself as he shrugged nonchalantly at Elphaba and opened his notebook. "Nope. Not clear at all." He said softly.
Elphaba jumped. The joking, playful tone of his voice was gone. She looked at the Vinkus boy, the diamonds etched along his face in a way that could either illuminate or conceal his expression, and at the moment it was the latter. Shifting uncomfortably, she continued on with the game, "See? I knew it. Dirty thoughts, all the time."
Fiyero swallowed hard and then shook his head. "You think you know men so well, don't you?"
"I know what men think about fifteen percent of the time," she answered, sticking her nose in the air.
"And women don't?"
A small smirk crept along Elphaba's face. "If we did, you wouldn't be able to tell, would you?"
"Sadly, no. It would be nice to know, though. How ironic it would be, to find that the thing women scorn men for wanting is on their minds just as much."
"It would be ironic, if it was true, which it is not." Elphaba said proudly. "College girls may think about boys a lot, but not necessarily that aspect, at least from what I gather. I'm a bit different than the average college girl."
"Right you are. And what makes you think you can assume I'm thinking of sex, since I'm a bit different, too?" He challenged.
Elphaba paused a moment. "Damn, I'm more of a hypocrite than I thought. It seems like everyone's catching me judging, aren't they?"
"What?"
She was remembering the conversation she'd had with Glinda when she'd been angry about working with Fiyero. Glinda had gotten one up on her, and now so had Fiyero. "Nothing. Just something Glinda said to me the other day."
"Glinda?"
"My roommate. She's the blonde who comes with us to the café. Remember her?"
"Oh, yes. The one Boq is madly in love with who he's decided is the most beautiful creature in Oz?"
Elphaba frowned, wishing suddenly that she hadn't brought up her roommate. She'd never had a problem with the attentions paid to Glinda before, but now suddenly she didn't like the idea of Fiyero thinking too much of the blonde girl. Well, what's done is done. It's not as if she really cared anyway. "Yeah, her. The one that everyone's decided is the most beautiful creature in Oz."
"Avaric seems to prefer Shen-Shen." Fiyero pointed out.
"Well, of course, she's Glinda's second hand. Why wouldn't he? He only dislikes Glinda herself because she's much too goodly to do anything of his sort. Most people like her for that, if they're not perverted bastards like Avaric, that is," Elphaba sighed now, staring to the side of the classroom and into space.
Fiyero conjured up the picture of Glinda in his mind. He didn't adore what he saw, but he understood why people would find the young woman attractive. "She's the type of girl you see in all of those paintings, I guess. Blonde hair, pale skin, she's pretty enough."
"Well, you think so, too, do you?" Elphaba's eyes were lit with sudden malice and… could it be? No, it couldn't be jealousy.
"Not the way Boq does. I'm not attracted to her, but I see why someone would be." He defended himself, immediately worried that he'd offended Elphaba.
She sighed in relief. Relief? Why was she relieved? Forget it. "Right. Just wait, you'll be drooling over her at the café like Boq does. The only reason Crope and Tibbett don't is because they don't like women of any sort to begin with."
"She's not my type," he insisted.
"I didn't know you had a type," she retorted.
"Not a specific type, but I know what I don't want." He said.
Elphaba cackled. "What do you want, then?"
He didn't answer. His eyes kept their challenging gaze on hers, but he said nothing. Fiyero blinked slowly and shook his head, trying to shake away the stupor he'd put himself in. Elphaba was looking at him in a way she didn't often look at anyone: like she was afraid of him. Not knowing what else to do, he cocked his head at her and raised his eyebrows.
"What?" She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "You didn't answer."
"What I want? I think I'm still figuring that out." He decided.
"Class, class, please sit down!" Dr. Nikidik had walked into the lecture hall and was waving frantically in the front of the room. He didn't have much success. Most of the students were already sitting down, but were chattering noisily. "Silence!"
This hushed some students but many of the girls continued giggling and gossiping. The boys kicked their feet aimlessly in their chairs and the two strangest classmates sat next to each other looking opposite directions and pretending to occupy themselves with something or other.
"I'm sorry I was late; I had a meeting," Dr. Nikidik began in a mumble.
Fiyero wanted to make a snide comment about their professor's untimely entrance, but Boq was doodling hearts with Glinda's name in them in his notebook and so he turned to Elphaba. "Elphie."
She jumped. "What? What in Oz made you think you could call me Elphie?" She whispered harshly.
"I don't know. Isn't that what Boq calls you? He's your friend; so am I."
"He's called me that since we were children," she elaborated, "and I don't necessarily like it, thank you very much. I don't much like my full first name, either, but I would appreciate it if you would call me by that, please." The intimacy of this boy giving her a nickname unnerved her for some reason she couldn't put her finger on.
"Oh, all right," he nodded, "I'm sorry." He hung his head a little.
"Don't be. You didn't know." She replied quickly.
"Right." He sat up straighter, proudly.
"But," she continued, "you do it again, and you will have reason to be."