Chapter 4 - Wounds…
NOTE: This chapter was incredibly difficult to write, so it will be difficult for many to read.
THESE TRIGGER WARNINGS MAY SPOIL THINGS FOR YOU, but if you need them, here they are. Trigger warning for drug use, unwanted sexual advances in the second (italicized) section, and heavy implication of violence/torture.
Elphaba rammed her shoulder into the barnhouse hideaway, sending the door flying open. She stumbled on a twisted ankle to the fireplace, losing her balance and taking Glinda to the ground with her. She spun just enough to break the fall on her own elbow and not Glinda's head. The witch hissed through her teeth at the impact. Every bone and muscle in her body begged Elphaba to stay there on the carpet and sleep, but she couldn't. Not yet.
With a flick of her hand, a fire rose in the fireplace. The flames took on breath, and Elphaba allowed herself a second to do the same. The mere force of her own rising chest lifted the full weight of Glinda on top of her. Her shoulder was hot. Her right ankle had twisted in the landing and tried to burst out of its boot with an instant swell. But Oz, they had made it.
"Glinda, we're here," Elphie breathed. "We're going to get warm. There's a fire…there's a bed, blankets…" Rolling to the side with Glinda's head under her hand, she lowered the unconscious blonde gently to the rug.
A soft flutter of wings hummed outside the window, followed by the shuffle of a light landing. Four taps on the glass, then another two.
Qaurel's signal.
Unable to divert attention to any more than she was doing right now, the witch waved to throw her broom at the small curtained window. Another four knocks, then two. Elphaba huffed and summoned her broom to her hand. She had to bite back a cry in bringing herself to her feet. Using the broom upside-down like a crutch, she approached the window. The sun was just rising over Kumbricia's Pass in the distance. Elphaba flung the small pane open, but stood in a way that blocked the view of her houseguest. A small Bird stumbled back in surprise, but managed to keep his footing on the windowsill.
"Miss Fae–"
"Now is not a good time," the witch interrupted. The Bird narrowed his eyes at her and craned his neck to see what she was standing in front of. Even in his small, black-eyed expression, Elphaba could tell that he knew. She shifted her grip on her broom, just in case. "Qaurel, it's not what it looks like." The Bird leaned in and lowered his voice.
"Elphaba, I have no interest in the appearance of things, only what things truly are. And if you have who I think you have in that room with you, you're putting a target on more than just your own back. You're endangering everyone here."
The witch bit the inside of her lip to keep from smacking the Bird out the window with her broom.
"Suppose she was the one in danger," seethed Elphaba. She spoke through her teeth but otherwise tried to keep her tone even. "Suppose it was just as much a rescue as every Animal in a cage we've brought to safety."
Qaurel furrowed both his brow and his feathers, then took another attempted glance around her. Elphaba stepped in front of his view, but maybe a touch too late. Qaurel looked down grimly.
"Miss Fae," he said, returning to Elphaba's alias. "Even if that were so, our organization is not for women in crystal gowns."
Elphaba could have burst a blood vessel with the fury that twisted in her forehead. She grabbed for the window and leaned into the Bird.
"Remove yourself, or I will remove you."
Qaurel was solemn, but obliged. She slammed the window shut the second his talons were clear, and ripped the curtains closed.
With a glance towards Glinda and a promise to only be a minute, Elphaba limped into the bedroom and rid herself of soaked wool and cotton. Freeing her swollen ankle from her boots, she forced herself to stretch it through the pain. Not broken. There was that, at least. She replaced her wet chemise with a dry sleeveless one, fought the chill, piled her arms with the warmest clothing she had, and returned to the fireplace.
"I'm going to get you in something warm and dry, okay?" Elphaba dropped the clothing on the rug and, minding her ankle, sat behind Glinda. "I'm going to take the coat off you." She slipped Glinda's arm out of one leather sleeve, then gently positioned the blonde slouched between outstretched green legs. The other sleeve of the coat dropped off, and Elphaba set it aside. Under the leather gloves, Glinda's hands felt like ice. Elphaba, entwining her friend's fingers with her own, reached both of their palms out towards the fire.
She was trying not to look down at Glinda's face again. Trying not to feel the pulse radiating through porcelain hands that raced past anything remotely normal. Trying not to think of the powder in the vial, or of what Glinda told her in the alley.
And then it only works for a day.
Then only for a few hours.
Then you can't stay awake without it.
This felt better–talking to her as if she wasn't potentially trapped in some nightmare of her own drug-addled mind. Elphaba just willed that her voice and her touch could break through, and Glinda could know somewhere in there that she was with someone who loved her. She leaned her head forward so that her cheek touched Glinda's, looking over her shoulder to see the discoloration of dampness on her friend's sleeves.
"Alright," Elphaba sighed, pulling their hands back in. "The jacket took the brunt of it. Your slip looks dry, I'll leave that on. I'm going to change you out of your corset and, um…" She paused to try to put words to whatever Glinda was wearing - a long sleeve with an open shoulder that was more of an addition to the corset than an actual blouse or top. As usual, fashion confounded her. "…whatever this is."
A smile crept onto Elphaba's lips just a moment, remembering Glinda's ridiculous attempts to make her more stylish. There were many times Elphaba had taken less than two steps into their room before being attacked by some dress or accessory or lipstick color that Glinda simply had to see on her. One lavender dress in particular - pastel lavender, nonetheless - made the green girl look like an upside-down flower. And not in a good way. But Glinda had squealed and jumped up and down saying,
"Astoundifying, Elphie! It's your color!"
Elphaba looked at the dark blue woolen dress at her side as she pulled Glinda's wet sleeves off.
"I know this isn't your color, but it's warm."
And then, Elphaba saw something that she had to pretend not to see. Because if she processed what she saw in this moment when her friend desperately needed her, she would be flying right back to the Emerald City to drive the mangled root of her broom through the skull of anyone who ever touched Glinda.
Glinda had learned quite quickly that if she just nodded at the right times around the Wizard, he would rattle off his own conversation without her even needing to participate. And if she kept her Captain of the Emerald Guard nearby, she could even avoid the unwanted, unnecessary hand on her waist. But her dearest was delayed, so Glinda opted to stay on the opposite side of the workbench. The Wizard was filling four clear vials with a cloudy blue liquid.
"That'll make all the difference in the night guard, huh?" Glinda opted not to respond, and as expected, the Wizard answered himself. "Yep. Yes it will. It'll do just fine. Take a look at that, Miss Glinda. Come on over here with me." Before she could even decide to walk over or not, he crossed around the table in a slight tap dance. He presented one of the vials to her by pulling her in at the hip, holding the liquid out in front of both of them. "Yeah, that's something. What do you think, Miss Glinda?"
The Wizard's head turned towards her, dropping warm breath by her ear like fog settling on the ground, leaving a warm spot on her shoulder that made her want to bathe immediately. But she froze. A sandpaper hand traveled up her waist, scratching against silk fabric. It snaked behind her blonde waves and slithered upward until it found the skin on her back.
"What do you think?" he asked again, his lips on her ear, his moustache against her skin sending a chill down her entire core. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. The Wizard laughed into her curls. "What do you think, huh?"
The hairs on her neck stood on end as his finger danced across them. Glinda tried to tilt herself away with a plastered smile, but then the finger became the grip of the Wizard's hand on the back of her neck.
"Nuh uh, stay." His voice rose in a lilting song, humming with the motion of his thumb.
His nose in her hair…an inhale that could have sucked her away… Glinda stared at the wall and tried not to be there.
Then the pound and subsequent echo of the large double doors gave Glinda an opening to push herself off the Wizard by his chest, forcing a playful chuckle while she wanted nothing more than to break one of those ozdamn elixir bottles on top of his head.
Fiyero entered the room, clad in green and gold. Glinda watched as he went to take a slight bow towards the Wizard, then stopped. The prince processed the energy in the room and opted instead to reach out a hand towards Glinda. She gratefully quick-stepped over to him, heels tapping lithely on tiles. The Wizard retreated behind his desk. She felt Fiyero try to make eye contact with her. She ignored it. She instead forced a giggle and attached herself to his chest, planting the hand she actually needed - Fiyero's - in its place on her back.
"A minute's delay makes the day run away, dearest," Glinda sang to him. She tilted her chin up and let him kiss her, but then she returned the eye contact he was trying to start before. "But an hour? Well, might as well try again tomorrow," and she patted his chest a touch too hard, "Because the day's already run off without you."
"Nothing to be concerned about, Captain," interrupted the Wizard. "Our Miss Glinda is always an entertainment."
"That, my Miss Glinda is."
Glinda's frustration began to melt a little and she let her shoulder sink into the space under Fiyero's arm. She took a breath. He took her hand on his chest and held it.
"Now," the Wizard said. "Try these out. Have them take it midday. See if we can't get some of these guys to stay awake on the night watch." He put the four vials in a small case, separating them so the glass wouldn't touch. The Wizard spun his hand and made a foppish bow with the case, handing it out to Fiyero. "For you, Captain." The prince took it with his free hand.
"We'll give it a try. Any side effects to worry about?"
"Oh, only as much as anything that actually works," the Wizard said dismissively. He returned to his workbench, running his ruddy fingers through his hair and looking into his next project. As he began to get lost in his work, Glinda looked up to Fiyero and gave him a couple pats on the chest. Fiyero took the hint.
"If that'll be all…" The couple started to turn and make their exit, but the Wizard muttered something and waved them back.
"Oh, Captain! The, uh…your idea!" The Wizard snapped his fingers like he was summoning a thought back into his brain, ending in a point at Fiyero when the thought came back to him. "Powder! Takes quick, hits quick. If this liquid stuff works for the boys, I've got a process to dehydrate it. So you just let me know how it goes, and I'll get right on that."
Fiyero nodded.
"Sounds like a plan."
In the early afternoon, Elphaba finally heard the familiar hoofbeats of Feldspur outside. Fiyero barrelled through the door before she could meet him there.
"Elphaba?! Elphaba, I think something's happened to Glinda. They're saying you–"
Elphaba quickly intercepted Fiyero, took his hands into her own, and tried to shush him. When he calmed in her touch, she led him to the doorway of the adjoining room, favoring her ankle.
"Are you limping?"
She hushed him again. Fiyero's eyes - in their deep Winkie blue - remained on Elphaba's for explanation until she gestured over her shoulder at the bed where Glinda the Good was sleeping. Fiyero lingered on his ex-fiance first in shock, then concern, then his confusion brought him back to Elphaba. She nodded in understanding and gently closed the bedroom door, bringing him to sit with her at the table on the other side of the room.
"She'll be alright," Elphaba said evenly, despite being well aware that she couldn't know that for sure.
"So…" Fiyero paused to choose his words carefully. "How much of what they're saying is true?"
Elphaba ignored the question and set the brown vial of Morrible's - or perhaps the Wizard's - drug on the table between them. She watched Fiyero try to place a memory. As if to trigger it, she spilled a small amount of the vial's powder for him to see. He rubbed the substance between his fingers, inspecting it.
"Haven't seen this in a while."
"You know what it is?" Elphaba asked.
"I think so." Fiyero put the smallest amount of the powder up to his nose to smell it. "It's whitewake, right?"
"I don't know what it's called."
"That's just what we called it."
Elphaba narrowed her eyes at him with a furrowed brow.
"Who's 'we'?"
"The Emerald Guard. But that stopped…probably a year ago, give or take," Fiyero explained. He absent-mindedly turned the vial over in his hands. "After I asked that we switch to a powder. Something they can inhale. Quicker effects, lighter to carry. Less noisy than vials." He set the glass upright on the table. "We had ours in bags. But the powder version had even worse side effects than the Wizard's botched elixir. No one could hold their muskets without shaking, one of the men had a heart attack, and it was addictive for most. They wanted to take it again because coming down from it was such a nightmare, seeing things and hearing things in their sleep that even had them paranoid when they woke again. So we–" Fiyero looked up to see Elphaba with absolute fury in her eyes. He continued more slowly when she didn't say anything, scanning her face for explanation. "...so, I…sent the remaining bags back to the Wizard. Well, I gave them to Morrible to give–"
Suddenly, the vial flew against the wall and shattered. The glass pane of the window cracked. Elphaba slammed her hands on the table and shot to a stand.
"I can't look at you right now."
"Elphaba, what–" He tried to take her hand, but she snatched it away and stumbled towards the bedroom.
"Fiyero, I cannot FUCKING look at you right now!" Elphaba stopped at the door, grounding her footing and kneading her hands in fists at her side. She lowered her voice, but did not turn back around. "Just…stay there. I don't want to hurt you."
Fiyero stayed. Elphaba stood still for several minutes. He just waited while she slowly began to unclench her fists. She kept her eyes closed. She still didn't turn to face him.
"Madame Morrible was forcing Glinda to take that," she said in a leveled tone. Elphaba heard Fiyero shift in his chair.
"What?"
"She was sick, and instead of just letting her rest, Morrible gave her that. She didn't give her a choice. I saw Morrible strike her across the face when she tried to refuse. Knocked her to the ground."
A pause. Then Elphaba heard the grind of wood against the floorboard and retreating footsteps. She turned to face Fiyero, only to see him going for the door. She intercepted, grabbing his hand before it could reach the doorknob and pulling him back in a way that made him stumble slightly.
"Just where the hell do you think you're going?"
Fiyero glowered back at her.
"I'm going to kill her."
"And then what?" Elphaba spat. "Get yourself killed? When she needs you? When I need you?!" She gestured emphatically to the bedroom, then to herself. "I spend eleven hours flying her here through Morrible's storm, through yet another call for my death across Oz, spending half of that flight holding her unconscious body and hoping my shoulders don't dislocate and send us both to the ground, and you go right for the fucking door?!" Watching the words sink in for the prince, Elphaba released a breath, letting tension pass through outstretched fingers at her side instead of balling up her fists again. "Look, I was prepared to sit here absolving you of guilt for leaving her, just as I left her there…" The witch pointed a crooked finger and a long, green nail at his face. "But the things they did to her on your custom drug…you're going to have to live with that forever."
And though she'd never show it, Elphaba felt the swell of regret with each word that fell out of her mouth, watching them sink into her lover like rocks dropped in a pond, knowing she was planting something permanent. Logically, she knew he didn't create it. He wasn't the one to force her to take it. He wasn't the monster who…no, even in thought, Elphaba couldn't face that right now.
Fiyero's voice came out in a whisper.
"What did they do to her?"
Elphaba's pointed finger dropped, and she lowered to grip the collar of his shirt in a way that was ambiguous between affection and frustration.
"She needs us. So you're staying here, and so am I, no matter how much I want to go back for another crack at Madame Morrible's head. One that will stick." And she locked her eyes on Fiyero until he nodded in agreement, despite her not having answered his question. Only then did she release him, softening, passively smoothing his collar back out. The temptation to melt into his chest, to smell him, to be held by him was almost too great. She didn't resist because of her anger anymore, but out of necessity. Out of certainty that if he touched her, she would melt.
Elphaba took a step back.
"Glinda told me what she could while she was still lucid, but I don't know what I'm doing. You should go see her." She gestured towards the broken glass. "I'll clean this up."
Elphaba found a rag to collect the shards with. She had her back to Fiyero, but felt his presence linger on her. She turned her head, not fully facing or looking at him there, planting her chin on her own shoulder.
"Please go be with her. Hold her hand. Talk to her. I don't want her to be in there alone."
"What do I even say?"
With that, Elphaba turned.
"Fiyero, brainless, you spent six years at her side. Think of something."
Elphaba left Fiyero alone in the room with Glinda. He had kept the door halfway open, but the witch still opted to stay in the main room, listening to the low, unintelligible murmurings of his voice. Not to hear what he was saying, but just to make sure he was talking to her while she cleaned up the glass. The murmurings eventually became softer, choked, until it was quiet beyond an occasional sniffle. Elphaba continued to wait beyond that. The room eventually fell silent.
Fiyero emerged some moments later, the blue of his eyes taking on a bolder color, his lashes dark and damp. He sunk into the couch at the wall, looking pale. Elphaba observed him from the table. Fiyero dropped his head into his hands, carding his fingers through dark gold hair.
"It's hard to see her like that," he released. He took his hands out of his hair, but his fingers stayed restless when they dropped to his knees. He rubbed his palms up and down his thigh.
"I know. Morrible."
"Not just the bruise."
"...I know."
Fiyero stood and began pacing by the table where Elphaba sat.
"I didn't…I left her under the covers and just held her, talked to her. I didn't see…I didn't want to check her for other… Elphaba, you didn't answer me before, what did they do to her?" Fiyero was shaking. Elphaba rose from the table and put his hands in her own.
"There wasn't much she could tell me–"
"Elphaba, you said I'm going to have to live with what they did to her forever. Now tell me what you meant by that because right now, I'm not thinking about them keeping her awake. My mind is filling with some of the sick reasons why someone would want her unable to move or speak or see anything so that they could do whatever they…and she could still—" Fiyero gagged, then pushed through the front door and vomited outside the house. Elphaba rushed to put a hand on his back, prepared to stabilize him if needed.
"Fiyero, I never should have said that." The witch wiped a tear away from each cheek and willed the other ones to stay back.
Fiyero heaved again, but nothing came out. He breathed. Spat. Slowly, he straightened himself in a stand.
"You can't take it back," he said, gripping her shoulders for both stability and emphasis. "So tell me what you know." Elphaba's olive green eyes met his.
"It's not something I can–"
"Elphaba!"
Elphaba glared at him a moment, then took his face in her hands.
"Love," she whispered. "I just mean to say that it's something I have to show you. Are you sure you want me to show you?" Fiyero's tears returned, but he nodded.
Elphaba led him by the hand to their bedroom where Glinda slept. The blonde was much like Elphaba left her, with covers tucked up to her shoulders, wearing the witch's blue dress underneath. Ringlets of blonde curls and a few longer strands had fallen out of her braid, feathered around her face. Her head fell slightly off the pillow, tucked into her chest.
Leaving Fiyero in the middle of the room, Elphaba joined Glinda on the bed and pulled her into her lap. She scooted her friend slightly upright. Elphaba's cheek met Glinda's forehead. She took Glinda's right arm into her hands.
"Glinda, I need to show this to Fiyero, okay? He has to see it." Elphaba's voice broke as she pulled her friend's sleeve back, where she had, hours ago, applied a wraparound white bandage.
Elphaba removed the bandage that went from wrist to elbow. She just brought Glinda's delicate hand to her lips and kissed it, holding it there, warming it with her breath. Then she looked down and noticed a tear making its way out of Glinda's sleeping eye. Elphaba crumbled, dropping her head into her friend's shoulder. "Oh Oz, Glinda, I'm so sorry…I love you, I'm so sorry."
She felt Fiyero sit at the edge of the bed and reach out a hand to her leg. Elphaba looked up with tears streaming down her face. She removed the fair hand from her lips, and handed it gently to Fiyero. Turning it over, in sharp, imprecise cuts, he could see that someone had carved "GOOD" into Glinda's arm.