This was always one of my favorite chapters. I hope it's one of yours too. Let me know how you like it.
His head was pounding. Loud pounding. Loud, sharp pounding. Loud, sharp, rapid pounding…
No, that wasn't his head, Fiyero realized, pulling his face from his pillow to wipe the drool from his mouth groggily. He nearly fell back asleep but the knocking at his door persisted, seemingly without end, and he stumbled out of bed, hitching the waist of his pants up his hip and shuffled to the door, his movements more mechanical than purposeful. He opened the door just enough to stick his head in the gap.
He really didn't see Elphaba so much as he saw the color green through his crusty lashes.
"Morning," he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes. His vision cleared enough to see her brow arched judgmentally.
"Good afternoon, you mean."
"Huh?" he grunted stupidly, his headache taking precedence over his usual compulsion to be charming.
"You missed Life Sciences and lunch," she said. She sounded fretful, like she was worked up by something. "I copied my notes for you."
He rubbed at his face aggressively, trying to wake himself up, but all he could think about was his splitting headache. It was going to make him throw up or topple over.
"How many drinks did I have last night?" he asked, leaning against his open door for support. The room was spinning; he was honestly going to retch if he had to stay upright any longer. She seemed to realize this and slipped in, grabbing him under the arm to guide him back to bed.
"Only about half of one."
"So…I'm not hung-over?"
He could hear the papers she held rustle and crinkle as they moved and delirium made him pleased that she was more concerned for him than the schoolwork, but then she dumped him on the bed unceremoniously.
"Probably not," she said down to him, helping him roll onto his back. For all her work with her crippled sister, she didn't seem to be very good at handling him, but then again, he probably weighed almost twice as much as delicate little Nessarose. "Oh, look at you—you bled on your pillowcase."
Fiyero lifted his head enough to see the small dried brown stains that had not been there the day before and frowned. It took him some time to differentiate the pulsing in his lip from the other throbbing, to feel it swollen with his tongue, and to taste the bitter dried blood. "Well, that would explain why my face hurts." And indeed it did. In particular, the side of his head where the brute slammed his burly fist really smarted. Part of him had been hell bent on believing that scuffle at the bar last night was just one of his bad dreams.
His eyes were falling shut again of his own accord, but opened slowly when he felt the weight of the bed shift. She had sat down on the edge, one leg tucked underneath the other so she could face him, and he could see the anguish on her features.
"You probably have a concussion," she pointed out ruefully. "I thought that, when you didn't come to class, that…" He hated how her brow was knitted, marring her face with worry. He wanted to reach up and smooth it out. "This shouldn't have happened. You shouldn't have done this for me."
"Don't be ridiculous," he murmured with a sleepy half-grin. "Wasn't for you. Been itching for a good, masculine rumble."
She breathed out a shaky laugh at him. "You're a terrible liar."
He wished it were true. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to be himself. He wanted to say the three words that caught in his throat every time they were alone.
He stretched his neck to let it sink back into the fluff of his pillow more comfortably. The nausea and vertigo were subsiding but his head continued to ache and he knew that Elphaba's hypothesis about his injury was probably correct.
Her hand was lingering on his shoulder, barely making contact with it, but her gaze fell down to the opening of the dress shirt he never removed the night before. She tentatively picked up the collar and pulled it back slowly, as though she were scared of what she was doing. "Those markings… They're beautiful. What are they?"
Fiyero felt himself smile. That game he played? The one in which he teased her with his diamonds? He was more than happy to end it, for her expression at that moment was worth it. "Tribal tattoos."
"Do all the men there have them?"
"Just the royal ones. Tradition."
"Were they painful?"
"At first." She reached for the small, blue jewels embedded in the skin above his breastbone but hesitated. "You can touch, I don't mind."
"I… It's just…other people…they don't like it when I touch them."
"I'm not like other people."
The corners of her eyes bunched a little at this and he returned the sincere expression as he watched her gently slide the shirt up – as if she was afraid of what she was doing – and look down at the design of diamonds that flowed down his chest. She reached out one of her fingers to gingerly touch one of the raised gems, then another, then another. His skin erupted with heat, even with the subtlest of movements of her timid touches, and without thinking he grabbed her hand and held it flattened against his stomach.
Her hazel eyes, dark in the dimness of his curtained room, locked onto his and for a second, he felt himself totally lost in them. It was if he could see the vitality of her very essence, the horrors of a neglected past, the hope for her future, and the absolutely confounding mystery that was intrinsically Elphaba Thropp. He couldn't explain how she could seem so innocent and so pure when she radiated raw passion and instincts the way she did, or the softness and stillness of her hand in his when he knew, as probably nobody else did, the staggering power that sought escape under her velvety skin.
But then she dragged her hand from under his and he felt cold with the loss. It was a reminder that she was here because of her crushing guilt about the fight he was in last night on her behalf, not because of anything romantic, and making any kind move on her probably wouldn't be properly received.
Not to mention he felt like shit and could barely keep his eyes open. It was a sad, sad day when Prince Fiyero Tiggular was nodding off at an attractive woman's caress, especially when she was literally the woman of his erotic fantasies.
"Just wait 'til everyone finds out how you were all over me in my bed."
She released a light scoff. "As if you'd tell anyone."
And his chuckle was throaty, no doubt unattractive, but he didn't care. Her presence was soothing and distantly familiar. He didn't know for how long his eyelids had been closed before he felt the corner of her thumb drag over the baggy skin under his eyes. "Why don't you sleep at night, Fiyero?"
He thought about all the possible answers to her question, about his nightmares, about how sleep had become less and less acceptable since he graduated Shiz, about how he spent so much time worrying about letting the horrors of the future repeat themselves, and about how at night he would wake with an accelerated heart rate – be it from fear or pleasure – and a state not conducive to sleeping. He thought about saying anything, nothing, everything, but the breath he conjured to utter them came out flat, barely a mumble.
"Sleep now then," Elphaba said softly, and added in a whisper so quiet that he almost wasn't sure it wasn't a real, "and thank you."
When he woke up later that night, she wasn't there, and it all felt like it had just been a dream. But there were papers on his desk that hadn't been there before, and even across the room in the dim light from the half-moon, Elphaba's spindly handwriting was unmistakable.
Was it possible for him to fall further for someone he was already head-over-heels for? He didn't know but it certainly seemed like it, for every day he broke through her carefully guarded barriers not only revealed more to him than he had ever seen but also made him warmer inside. He didn't know if she felt the same way, but he knew now that she was beginning to care for him. There were only a few weeks left of the semester, and while he didn't know if it was enough to make her love him, he only hoped that what he was doing was enough to get her to trust him.
He had to save her.