Author's Note: This chapter might be rated M. I wanted Elphaba to get a little revenge on Frex, and this is the best (and funniest) way I could think of.

Chapter 5: An Inn Near Shiz, Several Hours Later

"Your lip is bleeding," Fiyero said softly, reaching for a handkerchief on the bedside table as he looked down at her.

Her tongue darted out and she tasted the blood. "Oh. I must've bitten it." She took the handkerchief from him and wiped the remaining blood from her mouth.

He pressed his lips together for a moment, as though considering something. "You bite your lip a lot when we're… like this."

"I do?"

"It's as though you want to make noise, but you won't let yourself. Sometimes you scratch or bite, instead... "

She winced. "I'm sorry."

"No, no. I don't mind that at all. But I wonder why you refuse to make any noise."

Oh. That. She sat up a little. "Fiyero, my father is just down the hall."

He grinned. "Exactly."

"Fiyero?"

"I saw the way he talked to you out there, and the way you reacted. Would it not horrify him to hear it? Besides, he wanted to be sure we're 'behaving,' as he put it. Why not prove it?" He gave her a devious wink. "Unless I'm wrong and you have no desire to make a sound."

She paused for a moment. Elphaba did hold back, and Fiyero probably knew it better than he cared to admit. And what Fiyero had thought of was brilliant. But she'd been silent mainly because she'd feared the lecture. Why should she? What could her father do to her? During the week, she was at Shiz and he had no choice but to lock her up with Fiyero in this room on weekends if he wanted his vision to come true.

Women weren't supposed to enjoy sex, as far as the Unnamed God was concerned (Elphaba supposed that had come as a shock and disappointment to her mother). Sex was meant to be solely about procreation. To like it was to sin. And Elphaba wasn't ashamed to admit to herself that she did like it. She wanted to scream sometimes, the way it felt, but…

"Are you asking me to loudly beg you to fuck me?"

At once, his eyes changed. The words affected him. She saw it. His lips twitched. "Whatever you want to do. I want you to let it go, stop holding back."

"I don't even know how to talk dirty, Fiyero. I've never done this. You know that."

"I don't care if the noises you make are wordless, Elphaba. Although if you want, I have a few choice words I might know."

"And how would you know them?" She challenged.

"I read… When I was a bit younger, there were these illustrated books and…" Nervously, he wiped at his forehead.

Elphaba reached out and brushed his cheek with her finger. There were moments she'd forgotten that once, he'd been a typical teenage boy, curious about sex. Of course, life would never be typical for either of them. "So what were these things I could say, then?"

He whispered a few choice things in her ear that made both of them blush and giggle a bit, adding, "You don't have to. Say anything. Or don't. Just… let loose, Elphaba."

She nodded, and then wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply. He kissed back immediately, with a fierceness that surprised her. As she tried to pull him back down to the bed, he resisted. Instead, his arms came around her body and lifted her. "What are you doing?" She asked in a low voice.

"I've had an idea," he replied. He put her on the floor, then walked her, still kissing, towards the wall and pressed her against it. He alternately ran his tongue over her lower lip and nibbled on it. Her hands got tighter around his neck.

Realizing that her father was just on the other side of that wall, she giggled - louder than she usually would've. "I like that," she said as he pressed his lips against her neck.

His hand cupped one of her breasts, his fingertips teasing her skin until it went taut. Even then, he kept pinching and fondling as his mouth pressed into the hollow of her neck. Their bodies were pressed tightly together and she could feel every movement he made.

She closed her eyes for a moment and purred as his hands moved lower, trailing her ribs and abdomen. His kisses moved lower, too, to the swell of her breasts. His mouth was so close to her heart; surely he could hear how rapidly her heart was beating. "Mmm," she murmured, "Fiyero."

His fingers traveled below her bellybutton, to her thighs and between them. At once, he was teasing her folds, dipping into her slowly. At her groan, he moved his hands faster. He bit down lightly on the peak of her breast, teeth grazing her skin. "The things you make me want to do, Elphaba…"

"Oh, really?" She replied playfully. "Why don't you just do them, then?"

He smirked playfully and took a step back, running his eyes over her. "Stand right there, just like that, then." And he got on his knees.

She gasped as he pressed a kiss to each thigh. He'd tried to do this once, their second week together. But she had stopped him and told him he was wasting time. Now, though, they had more time than usual. "What are you doing?"

In a low voice, he replied, "Making sure you make as much noise as possible." And then his tongue slid between her legs and began to trace each little bit of skin there, going in soft circles that got smaller as he went.

"Oh, sweet Lurline, Fiyero, that feels so good!"

And it did. One of his hands moved up her leg and he pressed a finger inside her. His tongue was eagerly caressing that soft nub of nerves as he continued to move his hand. Her hands wound into his hair as one of his other hands came behind her and dragged her hips even closer.

She was quivering as he went on, shuddering and whimpering. Each touch threw her body into deeper and deeper ecstasy and it began to overwhelm her until she cried out, "Oh, Fiyero, please!"

He slowed and stood then. His eyes were almost completely dark when she looked up into them. Fiyero pressed his lips to hers, teased his tongue into her mouth and grabbed her hip. He also grabbed one leg and hiked it up to his side. With a swift movement, he was inside her. "You feel good, too, by the way."

She could barely comprehend words at that point and wrapped her legs firmly around his waist. As he drew out and pushed back in, she moaned, "Just like that."

"That's right. You like it, don't you?" He was goading her, trying to get her to talk more. Their bodies crashed together, primed with a glistening layer of sweat.

"I like it," she said back, loudly. "Oh gods, that's good."

He slammed her into the wall again, but she didn't feel anything other than his body and hers moving together. She held his shoulders for stability. His hands were holding her by the waist and leg, keeping her up. They were both panting like mad, but none of that mattered. All that mattered in that moment was him.

"Right there, please. Faster." At some point, she'd told herself she'd just say random things that sounded sexy. But every word she said to him, she meant. It felt freeing, and added to her pleasure.

He obeyed her pleas, moving faster, rougher. She realized that she wasn't the only one who had been holding back. So had he. But something had come undone for both of them, and now they were here, raw and uncontrolled.

Each stroke of him drew her higher, climbing until she fell over that delicious plateau, crying his name, endlessly repeating, "Oh, yes. Fiyero, don't stop," until it had coursed its way through her veins and she was breathless as he spilled his seed inside her.

Their lips were centimeters apart. He cupped her cheek and gazed at her. "That ought to scandalize him, don't you think?"

She laughed quietly. "Oh, I would think so." As he helped her to stand again, her legs felt wobbly. "Wow."

"I should say."

There was more in his eyes than she could understand. What they had just done had changed something between them, something at a deeper level. She didn't know what it was, and why it was happening. But they had their little game now, their plan. They were co-conspirators, and it made her feel as though they actually knew one another better. But nothing had been said other than utterances of passion. She smiled carefully at him and ambled to the bed, collapsing onto it. "I need to catch my breath."

He followed and fell beside her. "As do I." Gently, he reached over and brushed her hair from her face, placing a soft, long kiss on her lips. Fiyero looked at her. "I didn't get overzealous, did I?"

"It was… it was fine," she assured him. It had been more than fine. "Get some rest. We can torment my poor father again in a few tocks."

He sighed. "I probably should study, though."

At this, she perked up. "Wait, study? You brought your books?" Her father never let her have her books, reminding her she wasn't there to study. But he couldn't monitor Fiyero's belongings…

Fiyero chewed on his lip for a moment. "I… well, I have been having a little trouble."

"You never say anything," she commented. But why should he? She didn't expect him to talk about his life. She'd never given him the chance.

"I'm not exactly proud of it."

"You seem smart to me," she told him. "And I think most people are idiots."

He laughed at that, and she couldn't help but feel a little warmth knowing she had cheered him a bit. "Thank you for that. The truth is, in the Vinkus, we had a very hands-on learning style. I learned by doing. I wasn't given technical names for potions or equations. I was just shown how to do things and did them. All of this lecturing isn't going through my head and sticking like everything I learned before."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," she said. "In Munchkinland, because there were a lot of us, it was more listening than anything else. I'm used to it. But you aren't. That isn't about intelligence. You're adjusting to new teaching methods." But she wanted to get back to the topic of books. "So you really brought your books?"

"It's a week-long holiday, Elphaba."

"What if I helped you?" If she helped him, she could go over the material as well. And her father would never know!

He seemed uneasy. "I'd been thinking of hiring a tutor."

"Why not just let me help, here in this room when we're alone?"

Fiyero wouldn't meet her eyes. "I don't know."

What was his problem? He'd admitted he'd thought about getting help, and now he wouldn't take it! "Why?"

"Well, you're my wife."

"And what? I'm a woman so I can't be smart enough to help?"

"No! No. You're plenty intelligent, Elphaba. But you're my wife. When I was young, my father would always tell me things he'd never tell my mother. He'd make me promise not to say anything to her. He told me that, as a husband, it was his job to handle the problems. Mother was only supposed to run the household. He said a man should never burden his wife with his issues."

"You're not your father. And I want to help you, Fiyero. It's not a burden. Women can solve problems, too."

"I know that. Things in the Vinkus can be a bit less progressive, sometimes." He shrugged. "I meant nothing about you or women in general. It was about the fact that you're my wife."

"In name and body," she reminded him. "But outside of that, and outside of here, we're not the same. And I've no household to run, as we don't even live together."

He nodded slowly. "I would love your help."

"Then what do you struggle with the most? We'll start with that."

"Sciences. It is the sort of thing that I learned by doing more than anything else, and now it's all by listening to some professor lecture on in the same tone for hours." He got up and went to the bag he had brought. He pulled out a few items of clothing before reaching one of his books.

She smiled. It was his Life Sciences book. Elphaba sat up and scooted over on the bed. "We've been studying animal and Animal biology."

Fiyero sat beside her with the book and a notebook. "Right. I know some of it, from hunting. We would skin or dissect. And my teacher always made sure I could look at what we were talking about somehow. But here, no one brings in dead animals or draws diagrams."

"You killed a lot of animals? What about Animals?"

"There aren't a lot of Animals in the Vinkus. I'd never even see one until I arrived here.. And we only killed what we needed for food, nothing more," he promised.

That comforted her a bit. "What if we found pictures, then? Drawings and sketches? Would that help? Perhaps at the Crage Library."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"But it would help?"

"I think it might."

Elphaba took his book from him for a moment, flipping to the chapter they'd been going over. "Unfortunately, these books are a bit old and there aren't a lot of good detailed illustrations."

"I've noticed. I thought the Vinkus was behind the times, but at least all of my school books were the most up to date."

"Do you ever go back there?"

"The winter holidays."

Why did that disappoint her? It meant she'd have time to herself. "Get all the books you can. Anything that you think is helpful." She looked at Fiyero for a moment. "I'd love to get a look at those books, too, for my own curiosity."

"I'll be sure to get them, then." He placed a hand over hers. "Thank you. I feel better just knowing that you'll help and that we've already got some ideas."

She felt warm, and her cheeks heated. It was a pleasant, sweet sensation. "I'm happy to help, Fiyero. And Life Sciences does happen to be my favorite class."

"I noticed you really like our professor."

"He knows what he's talking about. And… well, it bothers me the way the other students treat him just because he's different."

"I was wondering about that. Like I said, we never had Animals in the Vinkus. But I always assumed that if we had, they'd be treated equal to humans."

"That's what I thought. I don't know what the problem is. So he can't hold a piece of chalk in his hooves and has to have a special contraption. What's the big deal? As long as he knows the material, he deserves respect!" She realized her voice was getting louder and she caught herself. Her father wouldn't like it if he knew they were talking about school.

"I agree with you. He seems like a perfectly knowledgeable and respectful Animal. It's silly and rude that anyone would ignore him or taunt him." Fiyero commented.

"Exactly!" It was nice to be understood.

He drew her close to him and placed an arm over her shoulders. "I wish we could study outside of here…"

"I suppose we could. We could say you hired me as a tutor. But with who we are, people might get suspicious." She gazed at him for a moment, trying not to shift in his arms. It felt nice, safe and simple.

"And we can't afford that."

"I know." Unable to handle the tension, she turned back to the book. "You understand the difference between Animals and animals?"

"Animals can talk and feel complex emotions. But physically, there is no difference. Correct?"

"None that we know of. Most likely the main difference is in the brain, and that hasn't really been studied much. I don't know why. It's fascinating."

"Perhaps you can be the first to discover something," he said encouragingly.

Elphaba laughed. "No one would bother to listen to anything I did."

"I would."

She flushed again, and went back to the book, yet again. "Now, animal and Animal biology is similar to humans in a few ways…"

When the holiday was finally up, she found her father waiting for her in the same place. Fiyero nodded at her father, raised his eyebrows at her and left. Frex wouldn't look at her for a moment.

"Is something the matter, Father?" But she knew what it was, of course. As the week had gone on, she'd gotten even more daring in the things she cried out in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, of course, they weren't even being intimate, but were studying instead and didn't want to let on to her father.

"Are you through with your rutting like animals?" Her father asked, finally meeting her eyes with a scathing look. "That little… display… was unnecessary."

Elphaba only smiled and feigned innocence. "Oh, but Father, the bible says a woman is supposed to shower her husband with worship and praise. Was I doing it wrong?"

Frex was speechless.