(AN: I've been way to busy with other stories and rl to do much with this story. Now I'm getting back to it. Hopefully my readers haven't abandoned me in the period of departure.)

(I need more ideas, please. Like songs, for instance! One reason I waited so long is that I wanted to include song-lyrics for their songs, while portraying the live shows. Unfortunately, I can't even make song lyrics for my own music project - I can drum, play guitar, bass and even sing [weakly, though, and a baritone at that], but I can't make any lyrics or melodies :(. So yeah, how can I pump out stuff for my characters when I can't even make stuff for myself? If you have ideas, please either send them in the PM or the reviews. Thank you)

The Afterparty

Free drinks were better than nothing. Although, after a stellar performance, some of the People of Oz would have liked to receive a more lucrative compensation.

Avaric Tenmeadows being among that number.

"Drinks I can get anytime," he said, as they walked out the back of the Philosophy Club. Things were getting rowdy and they could not reach the front without being caught in some orgy or another.

Behind him walked Fiyero, then Elphaba and Galinda, the latter of which was reapplying her make-up. Even now, after midnight, she wanted her make-up to be spot-on. Behind waddled Ramon with his keyboard and Boq, eagerly trying to snag a moment with Galinda.

"You know," Elphaba said to her blond room-mate. "I don't think you should have left your drum-set there all by itself. What if something happens to it?"

"I can always ask Momsy and Popsicle for another one," Galinda commented carelessly. "They always send money when I ask for it."

Elphaba nodded, though a little bemused. Not only was this not healthy, but it pained her that her own father never even gave her the slightest consideration. Not that she wanted monetary compensation...or did she?

So many thoughts went through her head through the one-hour-long set, and she was still shivering from all the thoughts and emotions that went through her body as she sang on the stage, the lights making her verdigris look more like teal. She had to clear her head, another reason they made for the exit.

"Well now," Avaric said, holding up the bottle of Frottica '57 Blue: a good year, that one. "Here's to a shitty performance, that got us only a bottle of wine!"

"That's the best you can say?" Fiyero returned.

"I don't think it was that bad!" Galinda said, closing her make-up kit and stowing it back in her hand-bag.

"I thought you'd have something worse to say, Tenmeadows."

"Screw them, Tiggular" Avaric said. "I know I was the best one in the stage and I don't need money to prove it."

"What was that you said about only getting a bottle of wine?" Elphaba asked.

"Don't start with me, Thropp!" he returned. "I got something, at least."

He removed the cork and then took a long draught of the stuff, whooping loudly after removing it from his lips. They noticed that he was swaying about once he finished his drink. Fiyero burst into laughter.

"Y'think sumthin's funny, Tiggular?" Avaric slurred. He took another swig of the bottle, holding it up high above his head while he swallowed the burning liquid. Fiyero took the bottle out of his hands while Avaric swayed for a second then fell flat on his back.

"What happened to him?" Galinda asked.

"He can't hold his drink!" Fiyero smirked, giving Avaric a well-deserved yet none-too-forceful kick in the side. He was passed out after only two drinks.

"Miss Galinda?" Boq called out for perhaps the hundredth time.

Galinda ran over to Elphaba, pulling at her room-mate's arm.

"Elphie, please!" she whined. "Can't we get rid of Bick?"

Elphaba didn't want to say anything. A certain unpleasant memory resurfaced from a time before she was friends with Galinda Upland. She was listening to Nessarose go on about how she was going to some amazing party with Boq, thanks to Galinda. She may not be as 'pretty' or 'popular' as her sister, Elphaba mused, but dammit she knew she was smarter. She saw through the ruse almost immediately: after all, she shared a room with Galinda. It wasn't like she hadn't heard Boq outside the window, throwing rocks to try and get Galinda's attention. And she also knew how much Galinda hated having him around her.

That was just the thing Galinda would do, shove Boq onto someone else just to get rid of him. Of course, Elphaba couldn't care less who she shoved Boq onto, unless it was her sister. She knew exactly what kind of mess this could cause, if allowed to go on untended. She could not allow Nessarose to come to harm, or be hurt in any way: Oz knows her father would take it out on her if she did.

But now she was friends with Galinda, and she couldn't just tell either of them off. Something inside her didn't want to hurt Galinda, while something else didn't want her to support what she was doing to Boq and Nessarose.

"Boq," she called back to the wee Munchkin, who gave an involuntary gasp of surprise at the green visage speaking to him. "Shouldn't you be studying?"

"Shouldn't you?" he bit back.

"I'm in the band." she returned with a smile.

"Well, I'm your first roadie!" he commented proudly, with a small swelling of his chest.

"We haven't even started touring yet." Elphaba said, turning rather to all of them rather than just Boq.

"Actually," Ramon stated. "I've been wondering about that. We need to think about the possibility of taking this little show on the road."

"What d'you mean?" Fiyero asked.

"Well," the Raccoon continued. "We haven't got the money to record albums, so the only way people will get to hear about us is by going from place to place and playing venues."

"What about school?" Elphaba asked.

"School's a drag!" Galinda laughed.

"Here here!" Fiyero added, taking a single gulp from the bottle.

"The summer season is just a few weeks away, isn't it?" Ramon asked. "We should be able to have a few days together for our tour."

"But how will we tour?" Fiyero asked.

"What do you mean?" Elphaba queried.

"We can't walk from town to town, carrying our instruments with us." he reasoned. "You know, some of those Gilikin towns are rather far-spread."

"We could always take the train." Galinda said.

Ramon cleared his throat rather loudly. "That would be a bit of a problem."

"We'll figure something out."

Both the Raccoon and Galinda turned to the ones who had spoken. Fiyero and Elphaba were staring at each other as well, for this was a great shocker to them both. They had just had the same thought at the same time and even spoke it at the same time as well.

"Uh," Boq nervously spoke up. "I think I'll go back and check on the instruments. Ha ha! Be right back." The Munchkin-lad sped off into the Philosophy Club as if he had just spotted Galinda in there by herself.

The tense air was suddenly broken by Galinda squealing.

"Oh, sweet Oz!"

Fiyero and Elphaba turned to see who or what had caused Galinda's start. Lying upon the street just a few ways away was something that looked like a body. Elphaba and Fiyero immediately ran over to see if it was alive or not. It was a human male. The face was stone cold, and no movement or sound of breath could be heard.

"I think he's dead." Fiyero stated. Looking down, he saw that his leg was broken.

Elphaba took one look at the face, and suddenly turned her head and walked away toward a line of barrels that sat outside the Philosophy club. Fiyero pushed the body onto the side-walk rather than leaving it in the streets, and walked over to Elphaba. Glinda meandered over to the wall of the building and watched from the outside as her boyfriend approached her room-mate.

"Friend of yours?" he inquired.

"No." she answered, keeping her face to the ground. She sniffed.

"Then what's the problem?"

"I could have saved him," she rose up and looked at Fiyero. "I ran into him several hours ago. He was lying in the streets, with a broken leg. I-I tried to help him..."

"But he wouldn't accept help from..."

"A green freak!" Elphaba shouted, hiding her face in her green hands.

Fiyero hopped up onto a nearby barrel and tried to comfort her by placing his arm around her shoulder. This was even closer than the Lion-cub incident.

"It wasn't your fault, Elphaba." he consoled.

"No, it was!" she returned. "It's because I'm green."

"You can't change that, you know."

"Some people can." she spit back determinedly. "But that's not the only problem."

"Well, then, what is?"

"It doesn't make sense, Fiyero, that someone in need would reject help when it was offered to them. Like if you were, say, drowning in the Restwater Lake, and someone threw you a rope to save you, it would be like throwing the rope back just because you didn't like the person with the rope!"

Fiyero didn't have an answer for that. After all, he may have started thinking, but he was no philosopher now - a true thinker, not one of these lecherous villains who frequented the Philosophy Club.

"Let me have that." Elphaba said, reaching out to the bottle in Fiyero's hand.

He handed it to her, and she lifted the mouth of the bottle up to her mouth. A few moments later, she gave it back to him, coughing a little from the bitter taste.

"Are you alright?" Fiyero asked.

She nodded. "I don't feel any better."

"It takes a little more than one drink, Elphaba." Fiyero said with a smirk.

"I'm not going to get drunk, you know." she said to him. "If anything, I have to keep you and Galinda from getting too smashed and start fooling around in front of me."

Fiyero chuckled a bit.

"Besides," Elphaba continued. "You're not staying at Shiz. I heard what you said that day when you came to Shiz."

"What did I say?"

"'I'm sure I won't last longer at this school than any of the others.'" she made a very comical caricature of Fiyero as she spoke.

"Do I really sound like that?"

"I don't know," Elphaba returned. "Maybe this blue stuff is getting to me." She and Fiyero shared a laugh. Galinda seemed completely forgotten where she stood, all alone on the side of the wall.

"Well, I don't know," Fiyero responded, taking a leisurely swig of the '57 Blue. "Maybe I'll stick around. Come back for a semester or two."

"Be careful, Fiyero," Elphaba said. "That 'scandalacious' reputation of yours is in danger. You're sounding like a normal person now."

"I'm highly offended!" Fiyero mocked, throwing his hand upon his chest in over-dramatization. Elphaba was hard-pressed to subdue a laugh. Just then she saw Galinda sitting on the side of the wall. "Hey, Galinda, come here and join us."

The blond shook her head. "I think I'll go to bed. I don't feel very good right now." Galinda walked off towards Crage Hall, looking very dejected. Elphaba suddenly got up off the barrel and walked after her.

"No, you stay there." Galinda pouted. "I don't wanna ruin your fun."

"Galinda, get real!" Elphaba protested. "You can't go walking back to Shiz at night alone."

Galinda waved her hands at the empty air, trying to swat them off, but Elphaba and Fiyero decided that they would accompany her back to Crage Hall, and do that they would.

Once they found the building, they brought Galinda up to the entrance and waited for a moment. They could not go all the way in, since Fiyero was obviously a boy and not welcome here. Galinda turned back to Fiyero, grabbed his collar, brought him down a little bit and kissed him. Once done, she meandered back to the door.

"Coming, Elphie?" she asked.

"I've got to get our equipment back from the Philosophy Club!" she reasoned.

"Yeah, and I'll help." Fiyero added.

Galinda nodded, then bade them goodnight and departed back into the room.

Along the gas-lamp lit streets of Shiz the two friends wandered back to the Philosophy Club. Both of them walked in silence, for they were both lost in their thoughts. No matter what obscure topics their thoughts wandered to, they always came back to the same thing: each other.

Fortunately, they discovered that Ramon and Boq had made short work of the instruments. Some of the Raccoon's friends had joined in and they had taken the instruments back to Lakely and Oakes for them. Elphaba hugged the Munchkin after hearing what he had done: it was a major relief that their instruments were safe now. Boq gave a cry of alarm at being hugged by something so...green, and ran off as fast he could back to Ozma Towers.

Fiyero laughed, but Elphaba did not.

They bade farewell to Ramon, and then headed back to Crage Hall. All the while their thoughts lingered on each other.

I can't believe I'm thinking, Fiyero wondered, and about her. What would people say? What would people think? No, who am I kidding, who else really truly thinks anymore? Mostly people just follow their desires, their lusts and whatever everyone else is doing. But I'm thinking, and Elphaba thinks. Elphaba, she's the only person who could ever read me so easily - like a book. I have to tell her, but what if she doesn't think the same way? Why am I still thinking?

I can't believe I'm thinking about him, possessed Elphaba's mind. It's horrible, to just take Galinda's boyfriend away like that. I couldn't cause her hurt, because, well, she's just so naiev. She doesn't know all the hurt and evil in the world, she's like an innocent little cream puff, waiting to get squished. But she needs to know, sooner or later all of us have to grow up. But I couldn't live with myself if I was the one who stole her boyfriend, it would break her little heart. But every time I'm around Fiyero, I...I feel different. Like my insides are filled with thousands of butterflies. Oh, listen to me, sounding like a silly girl with a crush on the handsome prince. He'd never have me, he's got Galinda. Then why do we keep ending up together...and alone?

They were back outside Crage Hall now. Fiyero and Elphaba would part ways again, and already it seemed like that was asking far too much. They stood outside the door that led into the building, both nervously eying each other. Elphaba placed her hand upon the door-knob to let herself in: at the same time, Fiyero moved his own hand towards the door to open it for her. They met, pale-brown upon green, just at the knob.

They both turned their faces back to one another, gazing into each others' eyes. They were once again touching. Elphaba's hand trembled just a little beneath Fiyero's fingers: his hands were rough, but his grip was firm. The whole world seemed to come to a halt, as the two savored this moment that seemed to last forever. The young green woman felt a little warm, despite the summer night being a comfortable sixty-nine degrees. It was the Lion-cub incident all over again, just without the fiasco that started it.

All too briefly, they parted.

"Well, uh," Fiyero said, clearing his throat. "Goodnight, Elphaba."

"Goodnight, Fiyero." She longed to look back up at him, but something inside her dared refuse that desire. Fiyero nodded then walked off into the darkness, back to Ozma Towers.

Elphaba sighed, then turned back to the door. She would go to sleep and have the weekend off to rest after today's event. The concert went well, she believed.

(AN: A little slow, and maybe a bit repetitive, but I had to make an after-party bit since I didn't make a bit about the show.)

(The combination of 'after' and 'party' is because the chapter adding feature won't include hyphens.)

(-sigh-)