Chapter Seventeen: Relief

School was almost over for the year and Elphaba was torn. Fiyero desperately wanted her to come home with him and meet his family, which Elphaba said was pointless. Fiyero pointed out that they'd been dating for six months and things were starting to get serious.

And they were serious. Several times Elphaba had found herself lying, fully clothed, on Fiyero's bed, dark cheeks and excited eyes, out of breath. Their kissing exhilarated her, teased her, and she wanted more. Truth be told, they both wanted more. Sometimes they would play and discover, in the heat of all their fevered kissing, but neither of them were daring enough to remove even a garment. Fiyero would press his hands into her clothes, she would stroke him gently at the waistline, but they could do no more. Not without something else to bond them. This went unspoken, but Elphaba knew that she and Fiyero could not have what they wanted from one another until Fiyero broke away from family tradition and married her. In her mind, Elphaba would say 'yes' to his proposal in an instant. But was six months not long enough?

Though he wasn't brave enough to tell Elphaba, Fiyero had a similar thought process in his head. When they would kiss for long periods of time, often in his dorm, Fiyero would lay Elphaba out on his bed and climb over her. The feel of her hips against his (with the exception of cloth between them) drove him mad. But he scolded himself even as he became aroused that he could not have her this way, not yet. Part of him wanted Elphaba with him for the summer, but a part of him wondered how he'd stand being around her without at least taking off one piece of clothing. Sometimes, as they kissed and touched, he'd find himself thinking: just her shirt, I could just unbutton those buttons and… and he'd catch himself and often stop kissing Elphaba, to her disappointment, and pull away from her until he knew he could keep himself in control. He'd never felt something like what he felt when her hands grazed over him. They knew it was wrong, and so they held back, but it pained him more than anything.

Two days before summer break, Fiyero found himself kissing Elphaba on his bed, as he often did. All at once he pulled away, causing Elphaba to gasp for a long awaited breath and look at him curiously. "Yero my hero," she whispered hoarsely, swollen lips and everything, "What is it?"

"Elphie," he took a deep breath, "have you decided whether or not you'll be coming with me over break? You kind of need to decide."

She sat up and brushed her hair back. "Is that why you had to stop kissing me? I was really enjoying that."

"I was, too," he smiled. "Thoughts were running through my head and I figured I'd forget it if I didn't ask you now."

She sighed and crawled towards him, taking his hand. "Well, I thought I'd go home. But maybe halfway through the summer I could come. After about a month and a half. Is that okay?"

He nodded. "That's fine. I can't wait."

She kissed him fondly. "Neither can I. Now why don't you come back here and kiss me again?"

"Come to think of it," he ignored her offer, "I might need that break from you."

Elphaba looked hurt. "Why?"

"Because if we keep doing this and I have no… relief… I might go crazy."

"And how do you plan to relieve yourself when I'm not around, Yero?"

"That's not something I'm going to tell you about."

She stuck her tongue out and then said, knowingly, "Why do you need relief in the first place?"

"You know," he shrugged.

"But I don't," she teased. "How could I possibly know?"

"All this kissing and not having anything more…"

"Are you saying you want more?"

"I knew you'd do this," he scolded.

"Well, I'm just curious. Do you?"

"As much as you do," he evaded. "What I was saying is, I just want to do so much with you so badly, Elphaba, but we can't. And not being able to, it's like this buildup of…"

"That's enough!" Elphaba exclaimed, grabbing Fiyero and pulling him back onto the bed in a heated kiss. "Just forget it, okay?"

"I could forget anything, doing this."

And so Fiyero spent the first months of his summer break preparing his parents for Elphaba. "She's not what you'd expect…"

Fiyero's mother, who was sitting at the dinner table with his father, said, "What do you think we expect?"

"Someone… normal looking." Fiyero could not find any other way to say what he wanted to say. "She's not dark, but she's not light."

"Is she Quadling?"

"No. It's… well, she's a bit more different than that."

"How?"

"She's, well, she's green." Fiyero spat it out quickly.

"Green?" His father raised his eyebrows. "Are you trying to tell us you're in love with an elf?"

"No! She's normal. She's from Munchkinland. But she just happens to be green."

Fiyero's mother looked skeptical. "So you want us to approve you marrying a green person?"

"I never said we were going to get married! She's just the girl I'm interested in right now and yes, it could lead to that." Fiyero blushed.

Fiyero's father smiled. "You're in love with her."

He hadn't told Elphaba that he loved her, and she hadn't said the words to him, either. But it was, finally, days until she would arrive and he had missed so strongly that he was sure he did love her. "I guess I am," he admitted.

"Then why don't you ask her to marry you?"

"Because we've only been dating… eight months, now. I'm not ready for that, and neither is she."

"You're only a year younger than your sister, and she was married in the winter of this past year," Fiyero's mother pointed out. "Besides, we'd rather you marry early than go off and do something stupid."

"Elphaba and I aren't going to do anything stupid!" He protested.

"I don't want any bastard grandkids." Fiyero's father said.

"You won't have any." Fiyero stuttered.

"Well, I'd hope not!" Fiyero's mother agreed.

Fiyero buried his face in his hands and was suddenly not so excited for Elphaba to arrive. He dreaded seeing how his parents would behave towards her.