A/N: Hey everyone! I've been a lurker on the Wicked internet for more than fifteen years, but I'm finally posting my first Gelphie story! This will have explicit content, and I haven't decided yet if it's going to be a short little thing or a full-length story following the rest of Act 1, or maybe more. We'll see what the response to this is :) Let me know if there is anything in particular you want to see.
Just for context, this starts later in the day after Popular. Everything is canon up to this point, except Galinda's choice to be with Fiyero is very much out of comphet. Enjoy!
"Elphie!" the blonde all but shrieked as her roommate entered the room they shared after many hours. She was clearly offended to not have been privy to where the other girl had gone after the attempted makeover. "Where have you been?"
Elphaba wanted to be angry at the audacity of the other woman to act like she were entitled to the older of the two's whereabouts, but the sight of Galinda's nostrils flaring and eyebrows raising wildly absolutely melted her, an uncomfortable reminder of why she had left that morning to begin with. "I just went for a walk, Galinda," she muttered dismissively, trying to avoid the concerned look in her eyes. That, if she allowed herself a look, would surely be Elphaba's undoing.
"For four hours?!" Galinda felt the need to corner her in case she tried escaping again. "I'll have you know that I was very worried about you, Elphaba."
Guilt crawled, hot and unyielding, up her fingers and through her hands, finding its way mercilessly up her arms and landing eventually in her heart. The last thing she thought her exit that morning would do was worry Galinda. She could barely process the idea that anyone would ever actually worry about her. But Galinda? Someone as beloved and desired and wanted as Galinda? Worried about her? That certainly didn't make sense. But if she were to take her at her word—Galinda wasn't much of a liar—and Elphaba had indeed worried her new friend, then what a shameful thing she had done to her.
Elphaba bowed her head, her shoulders rolling forward and her gaze reaching the floor of their dorm room. This was a familiar feeling. She'd felt it after almost every conversation with Nessa and after absolutely every conversation she'd ever had with her father, if she could call him ruthlessly lecturing her a conversation. "I'm sorry, Galinda. I didn't mean—"She cut herself off. Explaining her motives and intentions didn't usually go well for Elphaba.
The emerald-skinned woman audibly gasped when Galinda's warm fingertips wrapped themselves gingerly around her small, icy wrist and pulled her towards the blonde's bed. "Sit," she commanded, and though her voice was gentle, it offered no room for argument. "Talk to me, Elphie. We were having such a great time, and you just got up and left."
"I got uncomfortable," Elphaba started, straightening out her frock anxiously.
"Uncomfortable?" Galinda questioned. Her normally jubilant bell-chime voice lowered and became profoundly serious. "Did I do something that made you feel uncomfortable?"
The older of the two girls could see the genuine concern in those brown pools; she could drown herself in them and stay happy. But she chose to ignore it over the other emotion she saw evident on Galinda's perfect features—hurt. The blonde—Shiz's most popular student—felt rejected by Elphaba. The sorceress-in-training had always prided herself on being able to read the emotions of others, a necessity when you spend your entire childhood trying to avoid the anger of people who already hated you, but it just didn't make any sense. Nothing that Galinda seemed to be feeling made any sort of sense. She specifically wanted the affection and approval of Elphaba, and that was uncharted territory for her. But what Elphaba had begun to realize in the past twenty-four hours—much to her own dismay—was that nothing seemed to matter to her more than keeping a smile on the younger girl's face. Something about the way she saw her, truly saw her, at the Ozdust the previous evening pushed a button inside the green girl's soul that caused a new part of her to awaken. A desire for closeness. And as scary as dancing with the newly gifted hat had been, risking vulnerability and closeness with someone she was beginning to have confusing feelings for was the scariest thing of all. And that's why her words, Galinda's words—"Why, Miss Elphaba, look at you, you're beautiful"—had made her run. Far. Fast.
She pulled the remainder of her braids over one shoulder, murmuring a barely audible, "No." Elphaba shook her head. "You make me feel comfortable, Galinda. It's not you, it's—" Galinda widened her eyes in disbelief that Elphaba would make such a cliché statement. But still she finished— "it's me."
Elphaba visibly shivered at the tone of her friend's next statement. "You're hiding something from me, Elphaba. I'm not stupid, I can tell—"
"Of course you're not stupid! Galinda, you're brilliant," the Thropp third descending insisted. "I don't think you're stupid, not at all. Of course I don't think that."
Galinda seemed relieved at the reassurance. "But there is something you're not telling me."
Elphaba nodded. "You're right."
"And it's about why you had to go this morning."
"It is."
Elphaba absolutely believed Galinda was brilliant, as she had told her. She had a different kind of intelligence from Elphaba, sure; maybe she wasn't necessarily book smart, but there was much that Galinda was capable of that Elphaba would never even be able to entertain. She knew if she could give Galinda a hint about what she was trying to say—if Elphaba herself could even figure it out—that the blonde would be able to navigate the conversation would so much more grace. So she inhaled shakily, and then she lept. "I'm afraid, Galinda."
"Afraid?"
"I've never had a friend before."
Galinda nodded, reaching out to squeeze Elphaba's hand. "That's okay. I'm happy to be your first friend."
Elphaba squeezed back for a moment, and then she pulled her hand away. She heard a quiet whine of protest but couldn't bring herself to connect their fingers again. Was she feeling something in return from Galinda? Was Galinda just that touchy-feely? Did she have any idea what was going on? "It's more than that though. I have…I have feelings."
"Feelings." It wasn't a question. Galinda tested the word on her tongue and waited for Elphaba to lead the way.
"Yes," she sighed. "Weird ones."
Galinda's head tipped to the side in curiosity, and Elphaba could swear that she'd never seen the blonde girl look more invested in a conversation in all the time they'd been together at Shiz. "Weird, how so?"
"Like, like, um…." It wasn't like Madame Morrible's prodigy to lose her eloquence, and Galinda couldn't help but find it adorable. Galinda knew she had been drawn to Elphaba since the very beginning, and though the girl was far from her first crush on a girl, Elphaba was not anything like her previous girlfriends and didn't know how to reconcile her attraction to this deep, guarded, breathtaking woman with the kind of person people around her expected her to date. People like Fiyero. It had caused some less than desirable behavior, and the blonde was now determined to make up for it.
A small smirk played on her lips. "Go on."
"Like, I want to be close to you all the time. And…and I want to hold your hand. And—" She blushed a deep purple. "I want to hear you tell me I'm beautiful again." Elphaba covered her own face with both hands dramatically, burying any visible features into Galinda's pillow and inhaling deeply, though that didn't help much because the scent of Galinda's perfume reminded her of how much she desired closeness with the younger woman. "Oz, this is so embarrassing!" she whisper-screamed into the pillow. "I have no idea what's happening to me, and you must find it disgustifying. I'll speak to Madame Morrible tomorrow. I'll find somewhere else to sleep."
Elphaba felt rather than saw Galinda come to lay down beside her. "You will do nothing of the kind, Elphaba Thropp. You aren't doing anything illegal. You have a crush on me," she said matter-of-factly.
The shock of it caused Elphaba to pull some braids out of her face and allow Galinda to see one of her eyes. "I—I what?"
"You have a crush on me." Galinda gently pushed Elphaba's hands away from her face with pink fingernails and rested a hand on her cheek. "I have feelings for you too. It's a normal human thing, Elphie."
"Not me. I don't, I don't get crushes. I don't date people. People don't—people don't touch me."
Galinda mistook her self-hatred for a desire for space. She pulled her hand back. "Look, if you don't feel anything for me—"
"No, I do!" Elphaba's own arm flew around Galinda's waist and pulled her close without her own consent. The movement was involuntary and it caused a gasp to escape Galinda's parted lips. Neither woman knew what to say, but since Elphaba hadn't let Galinda's body go, the popular girl decided to rest her hand over Elphaba's cheek again, wanting to clearly communicate that these feelings were mutual. "I just don't understand. You like that I like you? You want to touch me? You want to be with me?"
"More than anything," she confessed. "I just, I just didn't want to scare you. And things got so complicated, and—" She sniffed, a few errant tears flowing down her cheeks. "Oh, Elphie, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. It's just…I don't always know how to be a person." That got a quick chuckle from Elphaba, the mercy of levity surrounding them as Elphaba wiped each streak off of her face.
"At least we have that in common. But Galinda, if this is something we're going to pursue, I have to warn you, I have literally no experience. Dulcibear is the only one who ever even hugged me. I don't know what closeness actually feels like. I want it, somehow. I do. I just—oz, Galinda, I have no clue what I'm doing, and I'm…" Elphaba considered whether it was worth the risk to be truly vulnerable. Galinda of the last twenty-four hours seemed to be trustworthy, and if that were the real Galinda, then… "I'm scared, Galinda. I don't know what I'm doing."
Elphaba felt the thumb of Galinda's hand begin to brush along her cheek. Is this what it felt like to be touched with tenderness? Was there more of this to come? "You can be scared, Elphie. I care about you and I want to do this right. Slowly. So you feel safe. You're safe with me, Elphie. You're so safe with me, Elphie. Everything you're feeling is okay. It's alright."
Not quite believing, but nodding anyway, the sorceress didn't fight her body's growing need to knead her fingertips into the flesh of Galinda's back, her own tears threatening to fall. A soft hum fell from Galinda's lips at the contact. "You can cry." Elphaba shook her head, refusing to go that far. "You don't know what it's like to be taken care of. I'm going to teach you, at your pace. Do you want this with me?"
"Yes, I definitely do, but it's not like I know how to kiss you, or, or give you what you deserve. I don't know how—"
"You're spinning, Elphie. Come here." Galinda held the back of Elphaba's skull against her soft chest, fingertips grasping at her braids, feeling the older woman instinctively resist for a moment before relaxing at her words. "Shhhh, don't question it right now. We'll talk about the details later. We'll figure it all out together, Elphie. Just feel me with you, my darling." Elphaba's stomach did a triple flip in response to the term of endearment, something that no one since her mother had used. The feeling of Galinda's arms around her as they held each other was intoxicating. All at once, Elphaba couldn't understand how people who were truly in love with each other could even stand in proximity without touching. She never wanted to let go. The thought that surely, she would one day have to caused a strangled whimper to explode out of her.
Galinda just squeezed her tighter to her chest. "I've got you, my love. I'm gonna take such good care of you."