Chapter Text
Elphaba stepped out of the bathroom she and Galinda shared in the dress they had found while shopping a few days before. She hadn’t tried it on until now, still deciding whether or not she would wear it. But thankfully, it was pretty comfortable, not too itchy or tight in ways she didn’t like. It was magenta, purple, and blue and went down to her knees. Galinda practically squealed when she saw her.
“You look amazing. I knew that dress was your type!” she said.
Elphaba smiled.
“Yeah, I like it a lot more than I thought I would…” she replied, walking to the mirror. It stood out nicely against her emerald green skin. She quickly tied her hair back and added,
“I hope Fiyero doesn’t make us late again.”
“Oh, we were only like ten minutes late last year.”
“I know, but…I don’t know. We have an hour.” She sat down on her bed. Galinda was wearing an orange, purple, and pink dress she had bought before the pride parade the year before. Elphaba hadn’t felt like wearing anything special that time around, and she was sure she’d probably end up stopping halfway through the parade to change into normal clothes.
Fiyero came in a few minutes later and threw his arms around Elphaba. She kissed his cheek, right under his pink, yellow, and blue face paint and leaned against his chest. He stroked her cheek gently.
“You just saw each other last night, no need to be so dramatic,” said Galinda, laughing.
“But today is special,” Fiyero retorted, “And she looks even more beautiful than usual today. I didn’t even think that was possible.”
Elphaba’s cheeks grew warm.
“Nessa’s on her way. Boq said he’d be a while,” he told them.
Elphaba leaned back to take in Fiyero’s outfit. He was wearing a cropped white T-shirt.
“You don’t look too bad yourself, Yero,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. He grinned.
Nessa came in a few minutes later, wearing a rainbow-colored t-shirt, and Boq finally arrived a few minutes before they left. He was smiling sheepishly as he walked through the door.
“What do you think?” he asked, gesturing to his face. He had a small amount of blush on his cheeks, dark blue eyeshadow and nail polish, and dangling rainbow earrings.
“Looks great,” Elphaba replied. Fiyero was staring at him with a huge grin on his face, making Elphaba laugh.
“I think the eyeshadow could use a bit of a touch-up,” said Galinda, “Mind if I…”
“Yeah, sure.” They went over to Galinda’s mirror.
“Fae,” Fiyero whispered to her, “Promise me you won’t try to push yourself too hard this year. I know you sometimes feel bad about not staying even when it's overstimulating, but you shouldn't do that to yourself,”
“I’ll try,” she replied.
“You still want to go to Crope and Tibbett’s afterparty?”
The year before, they had thrown an afterparty in their apartment and had invited them and some other friends of theirs to hang out. It was supposed to be chill, but it was still crowded, and everything had just become too much after the pride parade, so she had broken down in the bathroom. Sometimes(well, okay, fairly often up until a couple years ago), when everything was too loud and bright for too long, or there were too many people around, or if stress built up for hours, something would almost explode within her- which was how she explained it to her friends- and she would want nothing more to be alone, usually crying, screaming, almost shaking, rocking back and forth, and sometimes even not being able to speak properly. Plus, her magic would go berserk. Fiyero had been so worried about her the year before since he had never seen or heard her go through something like that. She had also, admittedly, not wanted to tell Fiyero about them since they were few and far between, and she was worried he would be weird about it. The only people who had known about it until then were Dulcibear, Galinda and Nessa, since she was worried the others wouldn’t understand. But she explained it to him(and the rest of them) later, and even though she hadn’t had one since, he knew how to help her now. She was honestly glad they did.
“I mean, it was pretty fun last year. Until my magic decided to destroy one of the tables and spill a bowl of punch on Crope.”
“We can have our own afterparty.”
She smiled, then sighed and said,
“I still feel really bad about that.”
He put his hands on her shoulders gently and said,
“Don’t. You didn’t hurt him, he was just surprised. Plus, I’m sure he and Tibbett had fun-”
“Fiyero.”
He chuckled.
“Just let me know if you get overwhelmed again. We can just leave, I won’t mind.”
She nodded. He kissed the top of her head.
“Is it all right if I ask…like, why you decided to start wearing makeup?” Elphaba asked Boq as they were walking out of the dorms.
“Well, I don't know how often I’ll do it. Feels nice, though, I kind of, uh, sometimes wanted to when I was younger, but…you know. My parents thought it was weird. Or they assumed I just wanted to be like my sisters and laughed it off. During the break I was bored, and decided to borrow my younger sister's makeup without her knowing. Just her blush, and I really didn't think I’d like it as much as I did. Then I kind of forgot about it until now. And I’ve had the clip-on earrings for a while.”
“Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable doing it here.”
Boq grinned.
“Do you think you’d get your ears pierced?” Nessa asked.
“Yeah, maybe. I mean, I’m guessing it’ll feel better than clip-ons. At least after the piercing heals.”
“That would look good on you,” Fiyero said.
“It would look good on you too, Yero,” Elphaba commented.
“Well…maybe I’ll try some clip-ons and see how they feel then,” he said, smiling. They walked the rest of the way to the parade hand in hand.
About halfway through the event, the five of them stopped to visit a couple booths further downtown. Galinda instantly went over to talk to a girl they had met last year at a jewelry booth(she definitely had a crush on her, but wouldn’t admit it).
“Close your eyes,” Fiyero told her a while later, holding something behind his back.
She did. He placed something soft in her hands, and she opened her eyes. It was a hand crocheted white blanket with rainbow flowers throughout.
“This is really- wait, is there something under the blanket?” she said, noticing a weight.
Fiyero nodded, grinning.
She removed the blanket from the item. A book, titled An Ancient History of Ozian Government. Which was an apparently very rare book- she suspected it was due to how much the government had changed since the ancient times, and the book had since been discouraged from being passed around- that she had been trying to find for ages.
“This is- how did you- where did you find this?” she asked in shock.
“Well, I knew you had been wanting to find it for a while, so I asked around a bit. Turns out it was sitting in a pawn shop here, locked away because of how controversial it is. So I went to pick it up while you were talking to Boq and his other friend. The blanket is just from a booth over there,” he said, gesturing toward it, “I guess I thought it would look good in our new apartment if we manage to get one soon.”
The two of them were planning to rent an apartment together for their last year or so at Shiz. Fiyero had found a job at a florist earlier that year to save up some rent money.
She laughed. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he replied, hugging her. She hugged him back. They hung out for a while longer until it started to get dark.