Take the Glory Any Day (Over the Fame)

by athousandpeacocks

Summary:

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Glinda says so, so quietly. So quietly that Elphaba can barely hear the confession over the press of the rain on the roof. It’s an out, Elphaba realizes. She can pretend she never heard her admission, they can ride out the storm and then go back to being people who flirt harmlessly with each other. Glinda’s giving her the option to ignore it all.

Or she can do the messy thing, the tricky thing, and acknowledge it.
_________

Sir Chuffrey's wife hires Elphaba to be their landscaper so she can flirt with her. It gets out of hand.

Notes:

I'm back with another vaguely modern au in which the girls cannot stop flirting. This is, perhaps, more angst than I'm used to, but it's still not all that much. Title is from Fruits of My Labor (the waxahatchee cover, specifically).

 

“You’re not serious, are you?” Elphaba asks, trying and failing to push down her disbelief at the rolling lawns and manicured hedges of the property that Fiyero turns into.

 

“Deadly,” he replies with a quirked eyebrow and a dangerous little smirk, rolling down the window and leaning so far out to press the intercom that Elphaba briefly worries he’s going to tumble out of the truck altogether.

 

A few rings and then: “Hello?” All static-y and far away, as if in a dream.

 

“Hello. Missus Chuffrey?” Fiyero replies, put-on professionalism overflowing in his tone. Elphaba rolls her eyes. “This is Fiyero Tigelaar with Positively Emerald Landscaping. I believe your husband scheduled a consult with us today?”

 

There’s a short pause, a soft static. Elphaba examines the dirt beneath her fingernails, uninterested. “Um. Sure. Yes,” the voice fumbles over the speaker. “Well, you see, my husband was called away on urgent business—”

 

“That’s fine,” Fiyero interrupts, “we can come back another time.”

 

“Thank god,” Elphaba mutters next to him, not eager to traipse through the grounds of this verifiable manor in the midday heat - their truck, with its perpetually broken air conditioning, already proving to be too unpleasant, as her bare thighs stick uncomfortably to the seat.

 

The disembodied voice of this housewife spits out from the speaker again, “It’s fine, we can do this without him. I’ll meet you at the top of the drive.”

 

“If you’re sure,” Fiyero replies as Elphaba lets out a noisy sigh, and he waves a dismissive hand at her.

 

“I’m sure.” As if to illustrate her point, the wrought iron gate glides open soundlessly as the pristine lawn rolls out in front of their truck. “Please pull into the driveway on the left,” she instructs, “the right one is for guests.”

 

“Got it,” Fiyero says cheerily before putting the car back into drive.

 

Elphaba sinks further into the seat until her long legs are nearly curled into the footwell, chin against her chest. “What are we,” she wonders petulantly, “if not guests?”

 

“We are the help,” Fiyero informs her with unneeded emphasis and a sarcastic drawl. “Now, perk up, grumpy, this could be the biggest payday you see all summer. So, unless you’re content being broke as shit, I suggest you kiss ass starting immediately.”

 

Elphaba pushes herself back up, “Whatever you say, boss.”

 

“I know you’re joking,” Fiyero says, pulling into the driveway on the left, “but you do realize that I am actually your boss, right?”

 

“So fire me,” Elphaba bites, unbuckling her seatbelt.

 

“Have you ever considered being even just slightly more pleasant?”

 

“I have not.”

 

The house stands before them, all stone and ivy and imposing coldness. It looks like the kind of place that lives in perpetual chill, the kind that no amount of ornate fireplaces could warm. Elphaba steps down from the truck and, despite the humidity clinging thick to her skin, shivers in the shadow of the home. She turns to ask Fiyero if he was also picking up on the haunting vibes but finds him fixing his hair in the side mirror of the truck, unbuttoning his work-mandated polo as far as it will go.

 

“Can I politely inquire about what might be wrong with you?” Elphaba asks flatly.

 

Fiyero glances at her over the hood of the car. “Oh, we’re going to fleece her,” he tells her, as though it’s obvious.

 

“And why would we do that?”

 

He gives her a little look. “Elphaba. Housewife home alone? She’s got his credit card and no clue how to haggle. She’s not going to know any better and we’re going to get overpaid.”

 

“So why are you getting all…?” She gestures vaguely at his rolled sleeves and open collar, the intentional swoop of his hair.

 

“The housewives love when a hot, young guy flirts with them,” he explains with one last look in the mirror. “Brings a little excitement to their boring, rich lives with their ugly, rich husbands.” He finally rounds the front of the car, waggling his eyebrows at Elphaba suggestively.

 

“Gross. You suck, Fiyero.” She bites back a laugh as she says it, and he grins rougishly.

 

A door opens and they both look towards the grandiose front porch, all columns and portico and opulence. A figure stands on the first step up to the house, hands on her hips, the distance making her look small.

 

“Just - let me do the talking. And try not to look so horribly sullen all the time,” Fiyero instructs, stepping in front of Elphaba, who shakes her head but follows her friend up the gravel path from the visitor driveway up to the front door. “Missus Chuffrey,” he greets charmingly as they ascend the steps towards the woman in question.

 

“Please,” she says easily, “Chuffrey is my husband, call me Glinda.”

 

“Glinda, then,” Fiyero acquiesces, bounding up the last step to shake her hand. Elphaba watches the other woman give him a cursory glance - certainly not the lingering gaze that Fiyero had been hoping for. “Nice to meet you, sorry to ambush you—”

 

“And you are?” Glinda interrupts, gazing down at Elphaba, where she had stopped a few paces below Fiyero. Elphaba takes in the woman before her. She doesn’t look like the wife of a Baron; she’ll give her that. Not that Glinda isn’t beautiful, she is, Elphaba can tell immediately, even beneath the dark shades that sit on her face. But she’s dressed casually: a plain sundress, barefoot, blonde curls down and every so slightly frizzled by the weather. Elphaba’s not sure what she was expecting—maybe something that matched the gaudiness of the property—but it wasn’t this.

 

When her gaze returns to Glinda’s face, she sees that the other woman is still waiting for an answer to her question. “Oh,” Elphaba replies, “Elphaba. That’s my name. Elphaba.”

 

Fiyero gives her a wide-eyed, exasperated look, as if to say, "Please stop messing this up for us.”

 

Glinda nods and extends her hand, and Elphaba rises to the final step, taking her hand, suddenly aware of the heat and how sweaty her palms must be. “Nice to meet you, Elphaba,” Glinda says warmly, pushing her sunglasses to the crown of her head with her free hand. Elphaba’s pulse speeds up for just a moment before Glinda drops her hand and turns back towards Fiyero, “Both of you,” she corrects herself quickly, “Nice to meet both of you.”

 

Elphaba blinks and whatever strangeness that had seeped into the moment is gone, Fiyero off on his spiel, Glinda nodding intently.

 

Elphaba trains her gaze on the vast gardens, the verdant lawns, the meticulously maintained footpaths. This is going to take forever, she thinks, silently hoping the Fiyero does actually fire her before she can start in on this job for the summer. It’s only May, but with classes not in session and Dillamond on sabbatical, Elphaba had no choice but to look for work for the summer months. She spent one shift bartending at the student dive in town but handed her apron back to the manager at the end of the evening when they both agreed that “this was not the job for her.”

 

So, regretfully, she turned to Fiyero.

 

He taught her the basics quickly: how to start a lawnmower, how to use a hedge trimmer. Now, apparently, he’s teaching her how to flirt with the wives of rich men in order to squeeze more money out of them. She is pointedly ignoring this particular lesson.

 

“Would you mind if I…?” She asks, gesturing towards the property. Glinda cocks her head slightly, appraising Elphaba in a strange way. “I just meant - I was hoping I could take a look at the grounds quickly.”

 

“Of course,” Glinda says kindly. “Go ahead.”

 

Elphaba nods once and lopes back down the front steps, following a curving path around the corner of the house and out from under Glinda and Fiyero’s twin gazes. Elphaba lets her fingers graze over the top of a low hedge as the rest of the property unfurls beyond the house. She’s always had a bit of a green thumb—even she can appreciate the irony of it—and something about the Chuffrey estate reminds her of Colwen Grounds. The winding gravel paths and various stone outbuildings, hedges trimmed neatly - all of it is vaguely reminiscent of her childhood home. Except here there’s a sense that the gardens are lived-in, appreciated. Colwen Grounds was entirely for show, Elphaba thinks as she makes her way past a scuffed tennis court.

 

There’s a pool, sun glittering off the bright blue surface of the water, and a small pool house behind it. It’s stunning, really - the whole property is gorgeous. She could get lost in it if she really wanted to.

 

When Elphaba finally returns, she finds Fiyero and Glinda now on the back porch, overlooking a small rose garden, the pool she had seen earlier down the slope of the green lawn. She steps onto the porch noisily enough that she doesn’t need to announce her arrival.

 

Glinda turns her way. “How was it?” She wonders, sunglasses replaced now.

 

“Lovely,” Elphaba replies honestly. “You’ve got a beautiful home, Miss Chuffrey—Glinda,” she corrects herself at Glinda’s raised eyebrow. She looks to Fiyero. “What’d I miss?”

 

“Not much,” he grins at her. “We’re just hammering out our schedule for the summer. We’re thinking twice a week, just general maintenance and upkeep, right?” He glances at Glinda for confirmation.

 

“Right.”

 

Elphaba nods and Fiyero continues. “You’ll take the lead on this one, Thropp. I’ll join you once in a while, but there’s nothing you can’t manage on your own.”

 

“Me?” Elphaba points to herself.

 

Glinda places a placating hand on her arm, her pinky just barely falling past the edge of Elphaba’s sleeve. “You’ll do fine,” she reassures Elphaba, laughter high in her voice.

 

“She’ll do more than fine,” Fiyero confirms, a glint in his eye that tells Elphaba not to say anything else until they’re back in the truck. “So, Glinda, if it’s alright with you, we’ll start next week?”

 

“Wonderful,” she says, smile bright and easy, the place on Elphaba’s arm where her hand had been buzzes with a strange electricity. Elphaba does her best to ignore it.

 

_________

 

“She touched my arm, too,” Fiyero announces, hand braced against the back of the passenger seat as he backs out of the drive. “Don’t get a big head about it.”

 

Elphaba sputters. “I— What? What are you talking about?”

 

He glances over at her as he shifts gears. “Glinda? The hot housewife? She touched my arm too.”

 

“Okay,” Elphaba says slowly, question in her voice. “Are we fighting about it? Because I was actually hoping to fight about why on earth you’re making me take point on this job.”

 

Fiyero pulls out onto the street, tree-lined and idyllic, a far cry from her own neighborhood with its apartment buildings pressed tight against each other, balanced above pubs and bookstores. Here, it almost seems like each block is its own private oasis. Elphaba feels on a completely different planet.

 

“Because,” Fiyero explains, “I didn’t even have to scam her. She came right out with a number that was nearly twice what I was going to suggest. You’ll make as much on this one job as if you worked full-time.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really,” Fiyero confirms with a quirked smile. “I’m just looking out for you, Fae.”

 

For all their joke-slinging and rolled eyes and sarcastic drawls, Elphaba does find herself grateful for Fiyero and his uncomplicated approach to their friendship.

 

“Thanks,” she says quietly, genuinely. “I appreciate it.”

 

He looks up from the road for a moment, tossing a loose smirk in her direction. “Aren’t I just the loveliest ex-boyfriend you could possibly imagine?”

 

Elphaba levels him with an unimpressed glare. “You were never my boyfriend.”

 

“Your loss,” he shrugs, biting down on a laugh. Elphaba reaches across the center console and shoves him as hard as she can manage. “Hey! I’m driving!” He complains, shoulder thunking dully against the window. “Do you want me to crash the car?”

 

“Kind of, yes!”

 

Fiyero just laughs and turns the radio on with an affectionate shake of his head. “Just promise you won’t be this mean to the hot housewife.”

 

“I will promise no such thing,” she replies, fully aware of, and leaning in to, the huffy tone in her voice. 

 

“You are impossible, Elphaba Thropp,” he says brightly. “We’re going to have a fun summer, I can feel it.”

 

Elphaba just hums, drums her fingertips against her thigh. The sky is such a deep, deep blue that she feels like she might be able to get lost in it, that it might swallow her whole, swallow Fiyero and the old truck and all their shovels and spades along with her. She feels a buzz of electricity, a barely-there hum, right at the top of her bicep, where Glinda’s hand had lingered.

 

“Maybe we will,” she agrees.

 

_________

 

“Okay, so this turns it on, the throttle only has two speeds: slow and fast, and then this turns it off again. Got it?”

 

Fiyero is perched on the running board of a riding lawnmower, pointing out the two different buttons to Elphaba.

 

“I think so,” she mutters, confidence low.

 

“It’s easy. Think of it like driving an uncomplicated car. Or a Zamboni.”

 

“What about me suggests that I have driven a Zamboni? Be specific in your answer.”

 

Fiyero slaps the hood of the lawnmower cheerfully and hops down. “Great! Give her a whirl.”

 

Elphaba turns the engine over and the machine rumbles to life below her. “This is starting to feel like a bad idea,” Elphaba yells over the sound of the motor.

 

“Just start at the bottom of the hill and take it in nice, even rows,” Fiyero yells back, ignoring her concern. “You’ll be fine.”

 

Under Fiyero’s watchful gaze, Elphaba does, eventually, get the hang of it. “You can speed up, you know,” he tells her after another successful pass across the lawn.

 

“I think I’m fine here,” Elphaba confirms, lawnmower securely on the slow setting.

 

“Okay. Just keep doing that. I have to go check on the guys at Cherrystone’s place; apparently, there’s a tree-trimming issue.”

 

Elphaba panics, turns off the lawnmower, and whips around to face her friend. “You’re leaving me alone? With this behemoth thing?”

 

Fiyero jogs over to her. “You’re doing fine. Just don’t crash. Call me if you need anything,” he reassures her. He turns to go but swivels back on Elphaba before he can get too far. “Oh,” he says too casually, his trademark smirk betraying him, “before I go, I just wanted you to know that I think that hat looks great on you.”

 

Elphaba just sets her jaw and tugs the wide-brimmed straw hat more firmly over her head before letting the lawnmower roar to life once again, Fiyero’s laughter drowned out.

 

By the time she finishes with the expansive lawn, it’s nearing 5 pm and Elphaba is coated in a thin sheen of sweat, the fine hair at her temples stuck to her forehead as she makes her way back towards the front of the property. She’s holding her—admittedly ugly—hat in one hand and wiping at her face with the hem of her shirt, when Glinda startles her from the back deck.

 

“It’s a little…” Elphaba shoots her head up, wide-eyed and surprised to find Glinda standing just across from her. The blonde woman is looking out over the estate. “Well. It’s a little wonky, isn’t it?”

 

Elphaba follows her line of sight. Sure enough, the lines in the grass are haphazard at best. What was supposed to look like a well-manicured golf course resembles more closely an underfunded public soccer field. Elphaba surveys her work with dismay, a prickle of embarrassment itching in her gut.

 

“Well,” she starts. “Yes, well. I guess I’m still figuring it out, I suppose.”

 

When she turns back towards Glinda, she’s met with a bright smile. “So when your boss said you were experienced…?”

 

“He was lying,” Elphaba says honestly. “I’m really sorry, I’ll ask him to put someone else on this route. I really didn’t mean to mess it up that badly, I just…” Elphaba trails off, looking back out over the now-messy lawn.

 

“Have never used a lawnmower?” Glinda guesses, not unkindly.

 

“Yeah,” Elphaba nods slowly, drawing the syllables out until they land between them like syrup. “Like I said, someone will come and fix that first thing tomorrow, and I’ll be reassigned to ruin someone else’s home,” Elphaba reassures her quickly.

 

Glinda’s bright laugh throws the green woman. “It’s grass! Who cares?”

 

“I was under the impression that you cared,” Elphaba says haltingly.

 

Glinda waves her comment away with the graceful arc of her hand. “Hardly. As long as you don’t trample the rose bushes, you’ll have done better than the last guy.”

 

Elphaba lets herself study Glinda for a moment. She still has yet to meet Sir Chuffrey but his wife seems every so slightly incongruous in this place, this manor with its dark stone facade, its elaborate gardens. Elphaba thinks again of Colwen Grounds, how stuffy and severe her childhood was. Glinda seems too casual for this place - barefoot again with a careful finger holding her place in a paperback, leaning against the railing of the back porch.

 

“I don’t want to do a bad job,” Elphaba says eventually.

 

Glinda looks down at Elphaba from her perch at the top of the steps. “You did a terrible job. But that’s fine. Only one way to go from here,” she smiles easily, and Elphaba’s heart hammers out an unsteady rhythm. “Goodnight, Miss Elphaba.”

 

_________

 

The next Saturday finds Elphaba with a shovel and a bandana tied around her neck to wipe at the sweat that keeps sprouting at her brow.

 

“No hat today?” A voice asks from behind her. Glinda has materialized and Elphaba spares a moment to wonder how long she had been watching Elphaba’s ineffective strikes against the hard-packed dirt at the edge of the property.

 

“No hat,” the green woman confirms, doing her best to keep a grin off her face. “Fiyero made fun of me too viciously and I had to retire the hat.”

 

“Shame,” Glinda replies smoothly, not meeting Elphaba’s eyes, “it was cute.” Elphaba has always been a stranger to understanding how someone else’s mind may work. She’s never been fluent in reading people. Glinda’s comment, confusing as it is, sticks something in Elphaba’s throat. She moves on so quickly that Elphaba is left reeling for a moment: “Looked like you could use this,” she offers, a bottle of water held out between them, condensation collecting at the palm of her hand.

 

Elphaba leans the shovel against her shoulder and takes the bottle, suddenly parched. “Thank you.” She dips her head, unscrewing the cap. She watches Glinda track the bob of her throat as she swallows and feels a spark of pride, of haughtiness, at the act.

 

“Yes. Well.” Glinda replies without saying anything in particular.

 

“No Mr. Chuffrey today?” Elphaba asks with the sudden and keen sensation that she is poking a beast bigger than she has any experience of dealing with, a beast she doesn’t even particularly want to deal with. But the poke comes nonetheless.

 

Glinda gives her an odd look, like she understands. Her hair is up today, the soft sweep of her neck on display, the freckle at the corner of her collarbone. She’s wearing shorts, a linen shirt. “No, he’s out of town on business. Maybe you’ll get to meet him next week.”

 

Elphaba nods once. “Maybe so.”

 

Glinda appears for one moment as though she’s going to say something else, as though she’s right on the verge of asking a question but thinks better of it at the last second. Elphaba finds herself wanting badly, very badly, to know what went unspoken. Instead, Glinda says, “Yes. Sorry to interrupt, I’ll let you get to it.”

 

Elphaba nods, picking up her shovel. “Thanks for the drink, Missus Chuffrey.”

 

Glinda rolls her eyes hard, crosses her arms across her chest. “Jesus, Elphaba, how many times?” She mutters, shaking her head with a distinct edge of humor. “Not only is that insanely annoying, but it’s not even my name.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“Chuffrey? Not mine,” Glinda explains. “I didn’t take his name.”

 

“So what should I call you?”

 

“Glinda. Like I’ve told you thirteen times already.”

 

“Glinda…”

 

“Upland,” she fills in the blank.

 

Elphaba mulls it over. “Glinda Upland,” she says slowly, feeling the smooth swoops of the letters, the hard consonants over her tongue. “It’s nice.”

 

A full, true smile now, tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Nicer than Chuffrey at least.”

 

Elphaba laughs too loudly, caught off guard by her honesty. “I’ll give you that one.”

 

Glinda takes a backwards step towards the house, smiles again, softly, a tilt to her head. “Well. You know where to find me if you need anything.” Elphaba is about to respond and tell Glinda that she actually does not at all know where to find her, but Glinda seems to realize this, too. “I mean,” she corrects herself, “just knock on the back door or something. I’m around.”

 

“Will do,” Elphaba agrees, trying to pull herself out of Glinda’s gravity, out of her orbit, to reach escape velocity and leave whatever this strange, off-kilter feeling is on the ground next to Glinda. She nods once, too sharply, and spears the blade of the shovel into the ground once again. Elphaba doesn’t look up as Glinda’s footsteps retreat along the gravel. She lets out a shaky breath regardless, feeling ever so slightly undone by the encounter: the hard look in Glinda’s eye, the thunderstorm sense of latent electricity in the air.

 

_________

 

She does get to meet Chuffery.

 

Elphaba is finally getting the hang of the lawnmower and stops at the top of the drive to admire the clean lines pressed into the glittering surface of the grass. Her hair is pulled back into a thick rope of a braid, the wisps of hair at her temples blown up wildly by a warm wind that seems to settle into the city every evening that summer.

 

She hears a door open behind her and startles into movement, not wanting to be caught standing around when she was supposed to be loading up the truck. “Excuse me!” A voice calls out. Not Glinda’s. “Pardon me, um…”

 

“Elphaba.” Glinda’s voice—quiet—supplying Elphaba’s name when her husband couldn’t remember or perhaps never knew.

 

“Yes, of course. Elphaba, pardon. Do you have a moment?”

 

Elphaba straightens next to the bed of the truck, where her tools (Fiyero’s tools, she supposes) are piled. She blinks as Chuffrey makes his way down the front steps. Where Glinda may have surprised her, Chuffrey is exactly as she expected: handsome enough, a bit older, well-dressed, reeking of wealth.

 

Glinda is a few steps behind him but Elphaba can barely make her out against the glare of the sun. She’s tempted to raise a hand to shield her eyes but decides against it, lets Glinda be a bright spot in her vision, something a little hazy and blinding. And then Chuffrey is shaking her hand, ignoring the dirt along the creases of her palm, asking a question about the ground cover in the rose garden. Elphaba responds succinctly, telling Chuffrey that, more or less, she has no idea and that he’ll have to ask Fiyero next week when he’s here.

 

By the time Elphaba finishes her non-explanation, Glinda has materialized from the flare of the sun and appeared at Chuffrey’s side. She’s dressed so nicely - too nicely to be standing across from Elphaba in her soil-stained shorts and her work boots. She’s wearing a long dress, a slit high on the side, and Elphaba pulls her eyes quickly away from the pale slice of her calf, trying desperately to settle her gaze somewhere that isn’t the low swoop of Glinda’s neckline or the pull of fabric at her hip, and falling, finally, thankfully, on her face, painted with a soft grin. The wind flutters a pair of dangling earrings against Glinda’s jaw and Elphaba has the horrible and sudden desire to take one into her mouth, to feel the cold metal and cut gemstones on her tongue.

 

“Going out?” Elphaba wonders aloud. Chuffery answers and Elphaba ignores him in favor of watching Glinda’s expression shift to something a little confused and a little impressed. Elphaba doesn’t know what’s going on. Is Glinda flirting with her, or is she flirting with Glinda? Is anyone flirting, or is this just how the other woman interacts with the hired help? Is this some sort of power-trip - a rich person’s game? Will Elphaba play along if given the chance?

 

The answer to any of these questions is as fuzzy and blinding as the gilded halo behind Glinda’s head.

 

And then they’re gone, a driver pulling open the door of a sleek, black car for Glinda and her golden dress to slip into the back. Elphaba doesn’t watch long enough to see if there’s a glance thrown over her shoulder. The spade clatters loudly against the corrugated truck bed as she shuts the tailgate.

 

_________

 

Some weeks, Elphaba spends the whole day entirely alone among the pristine gardens. No Chuffrey interrupting her with questions she can’t answer. No Glinda, barefoot and lovely, with a twisted smirk and a bottle of water. Elphaba doesn’t mind the solitude. She learns a lot, honestly. About the grass and the trees and how often the roses need to be pruned and watered, and—if she is positive no one is around—spoken softly to. She learns that there’s a shady spot tucked behind the toolshed where she can stand with her back pressed against the cool siding as she eats her lunch.

 

Fiyero is with her today. They had to replace part of the fence around the tennis court - decidedly a two-person job. Fiyero is telling her something about a date he had gone on last week as they trail their way along the winding gravel paths back to the truck. Elphaba is halfway listening, humming when appropriate, asking a follow-up question here and there. Mostly, she’s thinking about her lab work, abandoned for most of the summer as her research stipend takes a dip with Dillamond on sabbatical. She’s thinking about the heatwave they’re supposed to get next week, and whether her roses will wilt. She’s thinking, all at once, about Glinda in a swimsuit.

 

It’s Fiyero who draws her attention to it, if she needs to blame someone for the way her mouth is suddenly too dry.

 

“Goodness,” he interrupts his monologuing as they skirt around the bright blue pool. Elphaba interrupts her own musing and finds words to be failing her most miserably.

 

Glinda raises a hand towards them from where she lies lounging on a pool chair, hair tied up, wearing a sheer cover-up and a dark, dark two-piece suit underneath, stark against the paleness of her chest and stomach. Elphaba, much too late, waves back.

 

“Thanks, Elphaba,” Glinda calls from across the lazy rippling of the pool, voice almost too loud for the moment. “It looks great,” she says of the new section of fencing.

 

Elphaba clears her throat, shakes her head, finds her voice. “Uh. Yeah, of course. Anytime.”

 

“See you next week, then.” Her smile is not entirely dissimilar to the passing glint of light off the water.

 

“See you.”

 

Fiyero grips her forearm tightly and Elphaba has to shake him off as they return to the truck, prepared for the ridicule that was to follow. Instead, Fiyero slides into the driver’s seat and flicks on his blinker in the opposite direction of his place.

 

“Should we get a drink?” He asks, even as his mind is clearly already made up.

 

“Sure, Yero.”

 

“Great. Then I can inquire about your crush on Missus Chuffrey.”

 

“Upland,” Elphaba mutters to herself quietly, slinking down into the vinyl of the passenger seat.

 

“What was that?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

_________

 

Fiyero is racking billiard balls when he asks again. “What’s going on with you and the hot housewife?”

 

Elphaba’s beer has a lime wedge in it, which is how she knows it’s truly summertime. Elphaba breaks, the clattering of pool balls standing in for an answer. “Solids,” she announces, lining up her next shot.

 

Fiyero bends down until he’s in her eyeline, nearly pressing his face against the green felt. “Did you sleep with her yet?”

 

Elphaba scratches.

 

“C’mon, Fiyero,” she whines, pressing a blue chalk smudge into his shirt where she taps his shoulder with the cue stick. “Don’t be so fucking crass.”

 

He takes the cue from her with a laugh that shouldn’t be quite as charming as it is. “Well? Did you?”

 

“No. She’s married, remember?”

 

“Yeah, to a weird old guy.”

 

“Could you just shut up, please?” Elphaba wonders, taking a long pull from her pint glass. “You’re stripes,” she reminds him needlessly.

 

He pockets two easily as Elphaba huffs at the corner of the table. Fiyero looks up when he finally misses a shot. “I thought I told you not to flirt with the hot housewife.”

 

“You told me not to be mean to her,” Elphaba clarifies, snatching the cue stick back from him, “which I am doing wonderfully, I might add.” She sinks the six ball - green. “If you’re worried about the integrity of your business, I can assure you that nothing untoward is happening.”

 

“Not yet.”

 

Elphaba straightens to look at her friend. “I cannot tell if you’re encouraging me or warning me.”

 

“I just mean that she’s into you, clearly.”

 

“Clearly?”

 

Fiyero pitches his voice higher, flutters his eyelashes, “Thank you so much, Elphaba, you did an amazing job, your polo is so hot.”

 

“The polo is remarkably ugly.”

 

Fiyero groans good-naturedly. “You’re missing the point, Thropp. She’s married to a weird, old, rich guy, and she wants to flirt with you! You! Mean, green you.”

 

Elphaba glares at him over the lip of her glass and presses the back of her knuckles against her mouth as she swallows. “Exactly,” she says finally, “she’s gorgeous, and I’m green. She’s not flirting with me.”

 

Fiyero leans the pool stick against the edge of the table and takes Elphaba’s shoulders in his hands. She rolls her eyes to avoid looking at him. “Elphaba Thropp. I’m only going to say this one time,” he says, too seriously. “You’re hot.”

 

And there it is, that age-old feeling that prickles in Elphaba’s gut, the understanding that it doesn’t matter what anyone says. She’s different, and despite all the empty platitudes she might hear, there’s nothing that could entirely convince her she’s worthy of the kind of affection that Fiyero thinks she deserves.

 

“Whatever, Yero,” she deflects, shrugging out of his grasp.

 

“Dude, I mean it. You’ve been selling yourself short for your whole life.” He says it with a type of sadness that Elphaba isn’t used to in his voice, a certain melancholy - like the way a gust of warm wind can swiftly and painfully remind you of your childhood.

 

Elphaba scoffs, trying to maintain an unaffected air. “It is what it is. And I don’t know why the hot housewife has anything to do with this.”

 

Fiyero’s grin unfurls slowly until it’s a bright spot in the dimness of the dive bar. “So you do think she’s hot!”

 

Elphaba groans loudly, holding herself up with the cue stick. “Shut up,” she whines, elongating the syllables. “God, I don’t even know why I hang out with you.”

 

“Because I’m charming and handsome and delightful. And you’re hot and cool, as mentioned.”

 

“Please don’t come onto me,” Elphaba begs, laughing into her beer. “It’s highly unsettling.”

 

_________

 

To be fair, Glinda had told Elphaba to knock on the back door if she needed anything. And Elphaba figures that there’s no better time to need something than right now, watching as red-black blood seeps out from between green fingers where her hand is clasped tight to the opposite forearm.

 

The door swings open as Elphaba is about to level her shoulder against it once more. Glinda is standing on the other side, looking slightly wild, eyes alight.

 

“Do you have a band-aid I could borrow?” Elphaba grits out.

Glinda’s eyes flick from her face down to the smear of blood at her elbow. “Jesus, Elphaba. Come in.”

“I mean—I don’t want to—”

 

She’s being pulled inside before she can finish any of her thoughts, which mostly center around not wanting to stain the marble countertop. She doesn’t even have time to think about the way Glinda’s hands flit over her own - a flighty show of concern.

 

They’re leaning over the large kitchen sink, Glinda holding onto Elphaba’s elbow. “Okay, on three, you’re going to take your hand off and we’re going to see how bad it is.” Glinda’s voice is lined with a sliver of panic, but her eyes are clear and honest, and she’s looking at Elphaba too gently so the green woman can only nod.

 

“I’m fine,” Elphaba says.

 

“Sure,” Glinda breathes. “One… two… three…” There’s a short silence when Elphaba doesn’t move. “Elphaba. Three.”

 

“Right. It’s just that I really don’t want to.”

 

“Goodness, you’re annoying. Ready, set, go.” And then Glinda is plunging her arm under the warm faucet, water running pink into the drain for a second as she finally lifts her hand. Glinda looks long and hard at the cut as Elphaba winces and grips Glinda’s free hand too tightly.

 

“Shit!”

 

“Oh, calm down, you. It’s not as bad as it looked,” Glinda reassures her.

 

“Says you.”

 

“Who knew you had such a flair for the dramatic,” the blonde mumbles, fingers fluttering over the edge of the cut, which, now that Elphaba looks at it, isn’t all that gaping. “I don’t think we’ll need to amputate but I’ll patch you up regardless.”

 

And then she’s gone, leaving Elphaba standing alone in the kitchen, pressing a towel against her arm as the bleeding slows. The green woman takes a moment to look around, to be nosy. The kitchen is huge and pristine. A large island with a stack of mail sitting on the corner, a perfectly tidy pantry, a window above the sink that looks out over the pool, and the sprawling expanse of their yard. The only thing that looks even remotely out of place is a bottle of wine set on the counter next to the sink, a corkscrew tossed haphazardly next to it, a single wine glass. Elphaba realizes quickly that she must have interrupted Glinda halfway through the act of opening the bottle.

 

Glinda’s back with a bandage that she wraps slowly around a green forearm. There’s a certain care in the act that Elphaba isn’t entirely used to. Glinda’s hands leave a trail of goosebumps along Elphaba’s arm that both women ignore.

 

“There,” Glinda murmurs finally, stepping back and letting Elphaba’s hand slip out of her grasp.

 

Elphaba’s throat feels constricted all of a sudden. “Thanks,” she manages. “I didn’t mean to bleed all over your kitchen.”

 

Glinda’s smile is teasing as she leans a hip against the marble counter. “Again, I think you’re sort of over-dramatizing the whole thing.”

 

Elphaba gestures to the bottle of wine, sweating slightly in the warmth of the room. “Well, I’m mostly sorry I kept you from your day drinking.” She can’t help the smirk that crosses her face.

 

“What, a girl can’t drink a glass of wine and admire her perfectly mown lawn?”

 

Elphaba bites down on a laugh. “Is that a euphemism?”

 

“It is not. And as your punishment for that joke and for bleeding all over my kitchen, you have to join me.”

 

Elphaba backpedals, as though abruptly aware that she shouldn’t be in the kitchen of her employer, accepting a drink. “Oh, that’s really nice, but I won’t intrude any more than I already have.”

 

Glinda waves off her concern and reaches for another wine glass, pushing up onto her toes to reach it, a thin strip of pale skin above her waistband. Elphaba looks away. “Would it kill you to have a tiny bit of fun?”

 

“It might.”

 

Glinda doesn’t respond with more than a level glare as she opens the bottle with a soft pop. "You do drink wine, don’t you?” She asks, pressing a low glass into Elphaba’s hand and then pressing a hand to Elphaba’s shoulder, urging her back out the door.

 

“If I have to.”

 

“You have to.”

 

Which is how Elphaba finds herself sitting in the shade of the Chuffrey estate, a glass of wine getting rapidly warmer in the heat of the evening, Glinda across from her, cracking jokes and offering stories and anecdotes. Elphaba is laughing more genuinely, more easily than she anticipated, and Glinda responds with a quirk of her head, a confusing little glance.

 

“So,” Glinda asks eventually, “how did you end up here?”

 

“Well, I cut my arm on the fence and you made me drink about it.”

 

Glinda’s eyes swoop gracefully, her fingers tracing the stem of her wine glass. “You’re not funny,” she says, despite the lopsided grin tugging at her cheek. “I mean, how did you end up a gardener? My gardener, specifically.”

 

Elphaba mirrors her smile unconsciously. “I’m not. A gardener, I mean.”

 

“I gathered that after you did a truly horrendous job.”

 

“Hey!” Elphaba cries, indignant, pointing out to her newly laid lawn. “You just said it was ‘perfectly mown.’”

 

“Practice makes less-horrendous, I’ve always said so,” Glinda answers primly, glint of teasing in her tone. “Now answer the question.”

 

Elphaba sips the wine, sweet and cool and she wonders if she’ll ever be able to drink white wine again without thinking about this strange moment. “I’m a student,” she admits. Glinda’s eyebrows arc across her forehead endearingly. “PhD candidate, actually. In molecular biology.”

 

Glinda lets out a low whistle. “Impressive,” she says, and the compliment blushes something fierce in Elphaba. “Which begs the question even more: what on earth are you doing here?”

 

Elphaba lets out a soft huff through her nose. “I, uh—I hit a bit of a snag in the research at the end of the year and then my dissertation advisor went on sabbatical for all of next semester. So I had nothing to do and no stipend for the summer. ”

 

“Ah,” Glinda says knowingly. “And thus…” she gestures towards her gardens.

 

“Exactly. Fiyero and I have been friends since high school but he was smart enough to start a real business, and I was dumb enough to beg him for a summer job.” Elphaba smiles fondly. “Why he’s letting me terrorize your home in particular? You’ll have to ask him.”

 

The corners of Glinda’s eye crinkle when she laughs, and Elphaba feels pleased with herself that she made it happen. “Well. I’m glad he did,” Glinda offers.

 

“Me too,” Elphaba concedes, perhaps too honestly, though she can’t quite find it in herself to care. The last sip of her wine goes quickly and she does her best to ignore the way Glinda’s looking at her. “I should get out of your hair, though.”

 

“Shame,” Glinda says softly. “You’re alright to drive home?”

 

Elphaba nods. “High tolerance. Thanks for the drink. And the bandage.”

 

“Of course. Thanks for the company.”

 

There’s something a little melancholy in her voice, a sort of mournful undercurrent that Elphaba can’t quite place. 

 

“Anytime,” Elphaba promises, pushing herself up from the chair and loping down the back steps towards the truck. She chances a glance over her shoulder as she slips into the cab and tosses a quick wave towards the blonde, who watches Elphaba leave.

 

_________

 

“Dude, she’s—” Elphaba pauses this thought to cough into her shoulder, “she’s not even flirting with me.”

 

Fiyero plucks the joint from between green fingers. “How is that possible?”

 

Elphaba watches the smoke waft up from between his lips. She’s always been sort of entranced by smoking in this way: holding something in your lungs until it hurts and then letting it out to disappear in thin whorls, back into the air.

 

She’s technically on her lunch break.

 

Fiyero stopped by ten minutes ago to pick up a hedge trimmer that was in Elphaba’s truck. Instead of leaving with the saw, he found Elphaba in the shade behind the toolshed on Chuffrey’s property, reading a book and finishing a sandwich. He announced himself by handing a tightly rolled joint to his friend and patting each of his many pockets until he came up with a lighter. Elphaba figured, if her boss was the one offering the blunt, she probably wouldn’t get in trouble for trading a few pulls with him.

 

And now they pass the joint between them slowly, letting the stickiness linger in their lungs for a few moments before having to return to work.

 

“I don’t know,” Elphaba replies to his question. “But I really don’t think she’s hitting on me. I think she’s just super lonely.”

 

Fiyero hums. “What makes you think that?”

 

“I had a drink with her last week,” Elphaba confesses. “Not like that,” she corrects as his eyes widen. “I had half a glass of wine with her on the deck. And, I don’t know, she just seemed sad. Lonely. I mean, she’s here all the time and her weird husband is never home. I’d be lonely too.”

 

“That’s sad,” Fiyero agrees, voice thin as he inhales again. “But that doesn’t mean she’s not also hitting on you.”

 

“Give it a rest, will you?”

 

Fiyero shrugs, handing the butt back to her. “Probably not. I gotta run. Thanks for the chat, love ya.” He’s gone before Elphaba can respond, footsteps crunching over the gravel until she’s alone with her thoughts and most of a joint.

 

“Okay, yeah. You too,” she mutters to nothing, to no one. “What am I supposed to do with this?” She whispers aloud, looking down at the cigarette in her hand. She takes one last drag, letting the ache settle before exhaling slowly. With her eyes closed and head tilted back against the wall behind her, Elphaba hears Fiyero’s footsteps on the gravel again, returning her way.

 

“Thank god,” she calls to him, eyes still closed as he rounds the corner. “Please take your astonishingly weak weed with you before I get caught with contraband.”

 

“I don’t think that belongs to me, but I also don’t think you’ll get in trouble for it.”

 

Elphaba’s eyes snap open and Glinda is in front of her, and goodness, she is so pretty. All gold hair and silver earrings and uneven smile. There’s a glint of something in her eye, mischief, maybe. Elphaba feels altogether helpless against the thudding pulse in her ears. Oh.

 

Elphaba straightens too sluggishly, hides the offending object behind her too slowly. Glinda’s eyebrow curves even higher as she bites her bottom lip with a sharp canine. Elphaba can’t look away.

 

“I am so sorry—Fiyero - and I - I’ll throw it out right now, I’m so sorry,” her apologies and excuses blend together into something incoherent as Glinda’s grin grows and grows. Elphaba finally tapers off, lets the silence yawn between them. “You’re going to fire me,” she predicts.

 

Glinda’s laugh is high and clear. “Only if you don’t share,” she says, stepping further behind the shed and into Elphaba’s space.

 

“Glinda,” Elphaba starts warily, “I mean it’s…”

 

“Marijuana? I’m familiar, Miss Elphaba,” Glinda chuckles, taking the cigarette from Elphaba’s hand. “How old do you think I am?” She jokes. Elphaba watches, spellbound, as Glinda places the filter in her own mouth and inhales until the tip glows an unnatural sort of orange.

 

“I’m not going to answer that.”

 

She laughs again, puffing smoke with each exhale. “I’m 30, Elphaba. Not so old that I can’t smoke anymore.”

 

“30? Seriously? What are you doing here?” The weed seems to be catching up with Elphaba, making her thoughts syrupy and slow. Or at least, she wishes she could blame her tactless fumbling on the weed, had she not just loudly suggested that the strain was ineffectual. “Sorry,” she says, “that was rude.”

 

“A little,” Glinda agrees with a grin. “But a good question nonetheless. And the answer is: I don’t really know.” Glinda takes another pull of the joint and leans against the wall next to Elphaba, their shoulders brushing. “It was a safe choice, I guess, one that was mostly made for me. But it’s not all bad.”

 

“It’s not?”

 

She shrugs, hands the blunt out to Elphaba, who takes it and very carefully lines her lips up to where Glinda’s had just been, feeling a strange thrill at the act. “No. There’s money and security and cute gardeners. And he’s not the worst guy to be married to. Gone a lot, which, honestly, isn’t that terrible. I do sometimes get a bit lonely but I’m sure everyone does.”

 

“What?” Elphaba asks stupidly, turning to face the other woman, her profile stark in the dappled light.

 

“I said I can get a little lonely.”

 

“No, before that.”

 

Glinda’s brow wrinkles as she looks over at Elphaba. “What part? ‘Money, security, cute gardeners?’ I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Chuffrey has a lot of money and with that comes some level of financial security, you know.” Glinda trails off and lets the unsaid thing sit heavily between them as a smirk unfurls slowly on her face.

 

Elphaba huffs. “Oh, you’re making fun of me.”

 

“Yes, a bit. Good catch,” Glinda admits, taking the joint back and watching the green woman with a steady gaze as she takes another long drag. “The blush is cute, though.”

 

Elphaba shakes her head, not sure what this conversation has been about, not sure what she wants to say next. So she doesn’t say anything. Glinda puts the joint out against the side of the building, flicks the ash onto the ground, and stands before Elphaba. She can’t do anything but steady her breath and try to read the ice-blue eyes in front of her.

 

Glinda drops her gaze and lets a hand brush against Elphaba’s forearm, cut mostly healed, just a thin scratch left behind. Elphaba is so stuck on Glinda’s hand against her skin, the contrast of pale on jade, that she’s not sure when her own hand made its way to the curve of Glinda’s hip. All she knows is that her thumb is running an unconscious arc across the fabric of Glinda’s dress, along the point of her hipbone.

 

Elphaba is startled when Glinda finally moves. But the blonde merely slips the remainder of the joint into Elphaba’s shirt pocket, places a palm against the logo of that god-awful polo shirt. The green woman hopes Glinda can’t feel the unsteady hammer of her heart below her hand.

 

And, oh, how Elphaba wishes the weed were stronger. How she wants to let these seconds last forever, melting like honey, sticky and sweet and amber. When Glinda leans forward and presses her lips to the hard bone of Elphaba’s jaw, she wants to linger in the moment forever. If not forever, at least a little while longer. She wants the chance to remember the flex of muscle at Glinda’s waist, the way she tugs gently at the pointed collar of Elphaba’s shirt with her thumb and forefinger, the smell of the humid afternoon and weed smoke and whatever perfume has mostly worn off of Glinda’s clavicle.

 

As it is, the moment is gone too soon. Glinda is whispering against her ear, “Thanks for the smoke, Elphaba,” and trailing her finger across the seam of Elphaba’s shoulder as she leaves.

 

_________

 

Elphaba doesn’t see Glinda again for weeks. Each time she pulls up the long drive, she tries to keep the erratic beating of her heart in check. It never works. But each time, she spends her day alone, watering the rose garden and trimming back overgrown hedges, finally getting used to the feeling of her muscles working in this new way. But there are no more drink invitations or shared joints or waves across the yard as Elphaba heads home.

 

It’s better this way, she tries to tell herself.

 

It’s better not to get involved, not to let her base desires run wild. Whatever this is, it’s no doubt bound to be messy, Elphaba reasons. So it’s better that Glinda has disappeared on her, is ignoring her, even.

 

She is, unfortunately, wrong. A low car with tinted windows pulls into the estate one afternoon while Elphaba is fetching a spade from the truck. Chuffrey gets out and flags her down, meeting her at the tailgate of the landscaping truck, a far cry from the glossy sports car he had just come from.

 

“Say, um…”

 

“Elphaba,” she supplies.

 

“Right, Elphaba. Everything fine here while we were away?” He wonders. And Elphaba feels a sort of disastrous relief. Despite all her affirmations that this weeks-long silence was for the best, she can’t help but feel a flicker of pleasure knowing that Glinda hadn’t, in fact, been ignoring her, just out of town.

 

“It’s been quiet here,” she assuages. “Actually, there’s a sprinkler acting up on the other side of the tennis court, but one of Fiyero’s guys is coming to look at it later today.”

 

He claps her on the shoulder uncomfortably. “Wonderful. I appreciate that.” Glinda steps out of the bar behind her husband. He looks like he might say more but his phone rings shrilly from his pocket, startling them both. “I have to take this,” he says needlessly. “Thanks again - looks great.” And then he’s turning on his heel, phone already pressed against his ear as he retreats up the wide staircase and inside.

 

Now it’s Glinda’s turn to make her way over to Elphaba’s truck. She pushes her sunglasses on top of her head with a quirked little smile and, yeah, Elphaba’s royally screwed. She knows this now.

 

“All good?” Glinda asks carefully. Elphaba has no idea whether she’s asking about her day, the broken sprinkler, or the fact that the last time they saw each other, Elphaba came much too close to kissing Glinda.

 

“All good,” Elphaba confirms without knowing what she means. There’s a spray of freckles across the bridge of Glinda’s nose, an echo of a sunburn at the tops of her shoulders, the white strap of her tank top stark against the blush of pink. “How was your trip?”

 

Glinda nods. “It was good. Hot.”

 

“I can tell,” Elphaba teases, pressing a finger to Glinda’s shoulder, watching it shift from white back to red as she releases her grip. “They don’t have sunscreen where you went?”

 

Glinda barks out a laugh. She’s so pretty. “You’re one to talk, Miss outside-in-the-sun-all-day. This is a far cry from your science lab.”

 

“You’re right, the pay is way better out here,” Elphaba jokes. “And I don’t get sunburnt. It’s the one benefit of the green.”

 

Glinda replaces her sunglasses and squeezes Elphaba’s arm too quickly, the slide of her thumb against Elphaba’s bicep. “And it’s pretty,” she replies, and Elphaba wants so badly to see the rouge flash in her eyes.

 

“You’re one to talk,” Elphaba repeats with a raised eyebrow, a faint smirk, as she finally hefts the shovel from her truck bed. Before she turns away, she swears there’s a flush on Glinda’s cheeks brighter than just a sunburn.

 

_________

 

Elphaba can’t sleep. Her apartment is too warm, her brain buzzes, and no amount of tossing and tangling herself in the sheets is getting her any closer to sleep. She gets up and drinks a glass of water, standing shirtless over the kitchen sink, the yellow glow of the streetlight making her skin a dull olive green.

 

She falls back into bed and runs a hand down her face. “Seriously?” She grumbles to no one, to herself.

 

Longing has historically been a tricky thing for Elphaba, who feels shame more quickly and easily than desire. But she feels it now and shuts her eyes against the sensation, even has her hand makes its way beneath the waistband of her shorts.

 

This has always been a clinical act, a means to an end. More utilitarian than pleasure. Elphaba just wants to be able to quiet her brain, fall asleep. Her fingers are met with slickness and she lets her mind wander. It’s only after a few minutes, when Elphaba feels the muscles in her thighs, in her stomach, pulling taut, that she realizes her mind had wandered to Glinda and stayed there.

 

All of a sudden, Elphaba is thinking about her shoulders, the clean sweep of her neck, the slit in her dress, her lips against Elphaba’s jaw. It’s too much and Elphaba tries to push it away, but the body has a way of betraying the brain and the only thing she can think of as she comes is Glinda’s name, the high arch of the G and the dot above the i.

 

She sleeps fitfully, but at least she sleeps.

 

_________

 

And then the lawnmower breaks. Elphaba, who is barely a gardener and nowhere near a mechanic, doesn’t know what the issue is but the machine belches black smoke when she tries to turn it on. She calls Fiyero, who says that it’s Chuffrey’s machine and he’ll have to hire someone to fix it. So she tells Chuffrey, who promises to send someone out soon.

 

A week later, with the lawnmower still unfixed and the grass becoming ankle-high and shaggy, Elphaba dusts off an old push mower from the back of the toolshed, watches a video tutorial, and takes an embarrassingly long time to pull the engine into a low rumble. It’s exhausting work. The sun is high and Elphaba is sweating through her shirt before she’s halfway done with the rolling lawn. With a quick glance around, she strips off her polo and tucks it into her back pocket. It offers little relief from the heat but she puts her head down and continues with her long, even lines.

 

As she, blessedly, nears the end of the lawn, she finally looks up. Glinda is standing on the other side of the yard, arms crossed, eyebrow raised in question. She says something but Elphaba can’t hear it over the lawnmower. She cups her hand to her ear, and Glinda shouts more loudly. Still nothing.

 

“Sorry,” Elphaba yells back. “I don’t really know how to turn this off, one second.” She flicks the correct switch after a moment of fumbling and the yard returns to its placid stillness. “Sorry,” she says more quietly, “what were you saying?”

 

“Can I…” Glinda points at the freshly mown grass with a question in her voice.

 

“Yeah, it’s your lawn.” Glinda picks her way gingerly across the grass, as though it’s a tile floor that Elphaba had just mopped and she’s wary of getting muddy footprints on it. “Did you need something, Glinda?” Elphaba asks, teasing lilt to her voice. “I’m kind of in the middle of a Sisyphean toil right now.”

 

“I can see that,” Glinda replies as she underhand tosses an ice-cold water bottle to Elphaba from a handful of steps away. Elphaba catches it easily.

 

“You’re a godsend,” she says dramatically, cracking open the cap and, forgetting her manners, downing half the bottle in a few quick gulps.

 

“You know, every time I see you, you’re committing some sort of fireable offense,” Glinda laughs.

 

Elphaba leans against the handle of the mower and presses the cold bottle to her forehead. “What did I do this time?”

 

“First the weed and now,” Glinda gives her a lazy once-over, “you’re half-naked in my yard?”

 

Elphaba debates taking the polite route: apologizing and slipping her shirt back on and being done with the whole interaction. Instead, she taps into a confidence, a cockiness she didn’t know she had. “You complaining?” She asks haughtily.

 

“Not yet, but you’re on thin ice.”

 

“You couldn’t have fired me before I did all that work?” Elphaba pouts.

 

Glinda’s grin slips into something just a little bit dangerous. “What can I say? I liked the show.” She drags her gaze across Elphaba again and the green woman swears she can feel the heat of it, as though the temperature kicks up a notch as Glinda drifts to her chest, to her shoulders. “And who could blame me, really?”

 

Elphaba makes a show of pulling the lawnmower back to life, not missing the way Glinda watches the ribbon of muscle flex in her arm. The blonde, caught staring, throws a smoldering look over her shoulder as she makes her way back towards the house, not caring to disguise her lingering at the back door.

 

“What am I doing?” Elphaba says aloud, sound lost to the whine of the lawnmower. She doesn’t know how to answer her own question but finds that the answer probably doesn’t matter, probably won’t change a thing.

 

_________

 

The first drops don’t bother Elphaba too much. She could tell when she woke up that there was rain on the wind - just a certain heaviness to the air, the low, roiling clouds. It almost feels apt, an outward manifestation of the tumult she seems to feel every time she’s on the property. But she ignores the fat drops that kick up dust around her when they land, on her knees in the dirt, pulling up weeds with gloved hands.

 

It’s only when the first crack of lightning casts eerie, unnatural shadows that Elphaba hurries back to the toolshed. The sky breaks open on her way there, and her hair is plastered to her temples, shirt heavy with rainwater by the time she arrives. She pulls her hair up and watches the storm from the doorway, willing it to subside. She does love this, though, a summer storm. The way the air turns green and hums with electricity, the rattle of the windowpanes as the thunder draws nearer, the knowledge that it will be over in a couple of hours, the world becoming bright and glistening again shortly enough.

 

She busies herself rearranging the shed, the one bare bulb casting enough light to see by in the gloom. The rain pummels the small windows. She begins organizing the gardening supplies, tidying the workbench. None of this is technically her job; the toolshed is not her purview, but she figures she spends more time in here than anyone else lately, so it might as well be her responsibility.

 

Another roll of thunder and the bulb blinks out. “Dammit,” Elphaba whispers. She pushes open the double doors for more light. The wind is picking up but blowing the opposite way, leaving the exposed entrance dry still. Elphaba wonders if maybe she should just call it a day, make a run towards the truck. A bright flash of lightning, brilliant and forking through the sky like a many-tongued creature, keeps her inside the shed.

 

Eventually, she gives up on her organizing project, letting the bags of fertilizer sit in the back corner next to a dusty and presumably broken lawn chair. She sits atop the workbench, leaning towards the window, trying to find enough light to read by, which is where Glinda finds her sometime later, squinting against the storm-made darkness. Her shadow in the doorway causes Elphaba to jolt upright.

 

“What are you doing?” Elphaba’s tone is harsh; the suddenness of her presence in the otherwise empty afternoon is alarming.

 

Glinda runs a hand through her damp hair. “The power is out and your truck was still here. I just  wanted to make sure you were okay.”

 

“So you ran barefoot through the thunderstorm to check?” Glinda nods, suddenly shy. “Did you at least bring a bottle of wine?” Elphaba smirks, putting her book down on the bench next to her.

 

“I must have forgotten that in my mad, shoeless dash, I’m afraid.” She takes off her thin coat and hangs it from a hook screwed into the wall. She’s wearing a tank top again, maybe even the same one from a few weeks ago, when Elphaba had pressed a finger into her sunburnt shoulder. A drop of water falls from a tight curl onto her collarbone and Elphaba watches it slide down Glinda’s chest until it reaches the fabric of her collar. She wants to taste it. Glinda steps closer. “What’re you reading?”

 

“Hm? Oh. Just a collection of short stories.” Glinda hums in response, picking up the book and reading the back cover. “What?”

 

“Nothing, I just expected something boring and science-y from you. Scoot.” Glinda taps her calf until Elphaba shifts, back against the window, knees hanging over the edge of the table. The blonde pushes herself up so she’s sitting next to Elphaba, the sleeve of Elphaba’s t-shirt brushing against Glinda’s arm.

 

“Even scientists can enjoy fiction every now and then,” Elphaba smiles. “Sorry to disappoint.”

 

Glinda knocks her shoulder into Elphaba’s. “Why didn’t you leave? This probably won’t let up for another couple hours,” she gestures outside where the grey-green storm still whirls.

 

“I thought about it, but I’m like, as far from the truck as I could possibly be, and I’m not crazy enough to go running around in this.”

 

“Rude.”

 

Elphaba just laughs loudly and Glinda keeps her shoulder pressed into Elphaba’s taller one. “You guys okay up there?” She nods in the direction of the house.

 

Glinda nods. “Yeah, it’s just me.” Elphaba raises an eyebrow in question. “I don’t know, he’s off somewhere for the weekend. Golfing, maybe? I stopped caring.”

 

Elphaba never knows how to do this, how to talk about Glinda’s husband when it’s clearly all much more complicated than she lets on. “Well,” she says slowly, “when you see him, tell him my lawnmower still needs to be fixed.” She gestures to the machine taking up most of the small space, covered by a tarp.

 

“Your lawnmower, now, is it?” Glinda teases. “And anyway, it is fixed.”

 

“What?”

 

“The lawnmower? That big thing you’re still terrible at using? It’s fixed. Got fixed last week,” Glinda admits. “I was supposed to tell you but I was hoping you’d take your shirt off again.” She says it so casually, with a shrug of her opposite shoulder, that Elphaba can’t do anything but laugh.

 

“Oh, god, you are so annoying. Really? I sweat my ass off for an extra week because you have the hots for your gardener?”

 

Glinda shrugs nonchalantly again, leaning back until her head thunks softly against the window behind them. “I mean, have you seen her?” She lets out a low whistle, and Elphaba’s laughing again.

 

Elphaba rolls her eyes, shakes her head. But there’s an affection there, a kindness. “You’re something else,” she murmurs. Glinda doesn’t respond and Elphaba lets herself lean into the other woman, just barely, just enough. Another burst of lightning and Elphaba sees their silhouettes plastered on the opposite wall for a stark second, Glinda's face turned in profile towards her.

 

It does sort of feel inevitable, now. Now that they’re here and a storm is battering the windows of this strange little sanctuary they’ve found themselves in. Now that Glinda’s finger is connecting a triangle of freckles on the top of Elphaba’s knee. The quiet lingers, fills the space. Elphaba can smell the dust, the rain outside, something citrusy and bright that she attributes to the woman next to her.

 

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” Glinda says so, so quietly. So quietly that Elphaba can barely hear the confession over the press of the rain on the roof. Glinda doesn’t look up; her finger continues its aimless pattern across Elphaba’s knee. It’s an out, Elphaba realizes. She can pretend she never heard her admission, they can ride out the storm here on this workbench, and go back to being people who flirt harmlessly with each other. Glinda’s giving her the option to ignore it all.

 

Or she can do the messy thing, the tricky thing, and acknowledge it.

 

“Glinda, I—” Elphaba turns towards her, surprised to find Glinda so close, already tilted towards her.

 

Later, Elphaba might blame what happens next on the simple gravity of another body close to hers, the unavoidable and undeniable pull of someone else. But to do so would deny her own role in things, would deny how desperately and all-consumingly she suddenly wanted Glinda. She’s nearly surprised to find Glinda’s jaw against her palm, her thumb running an arc over her high cheekbone.

 

She whispers it this time, “Glinda.”

 

“Please.”

 

Thunder crashes loudly overhead. Neither of them moves.

 

“What do you need?” Elphaba asks the other woman, forehead pressed to hers, a sharp, green nose brushing against Glinda’s.

 

“Please,” is all Glinda says again. Their lips are so close that Elphaba can feel the warmth of Glinda's breath against her. Her heart is wild. The clouds outside are billowing up something fierce. The storm is going to change her; Elphaba knows that now. She wants it to make her brave, make her sure. The blood in her veins is run through with the same electric power roiling just above them. She wants to drown in it. She kisses Glinda.

 

It’s magic. It’s sorcery. It’s terrifying.

 

The windows rattle.

 

Glinda’s hand anchors itself on the back of Elphaba’s neck, pulling her closer, closer, closer. It becomes clear that Glinda is not one of those things that start slowly and build up, crescendo, into something else, something greater. No, Glinda is the clang of the cymbal from the very first note. Her mouth meets Elphaba’s and nothing else seems to matter, just the slide of her lips on Elphaba’s.

 

All Elphaba has to do is part her lips and Glinda’s tongue is pressed against hers. A pale hand scrabbles against a green thigh, pulls at the back of a knee, trying to find purchase, trying to hold onto something in this river-sweep of sudden, immaculate desire. Elphaba takes Glinda’s lower lip between her teeth and tugs. The blonde gasps and Elphaba remembers to open her eyes.

 

They’re still sitting side-by-side, bent awkwardly towards one another. Glinda pulls back for a fraction of a second, enough for a bolt of lightning to crackle across the sky, enough to sit up and sling a leg across Elphaba’s hips, until she’s kneeling in her lap. Elphaba’s hands fall to Glinda’s waist, astonished to find her fingers slipping against the thin swath of skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her skirt. She doesn’t have time to linger on the thought before Glinda pulls her back in, hands solid and deliberate at Elphaba’s jaw. Elphaba presses her thumbs into the soft spot just inside Glinda’s hips and the blonde woman moans softly against her.

 

“Fuck,” she mutters, mouthing along Elphaba’s jawline, pressing her nose into the space below her ear. “So pretty. I’ve always thought so,” Glinda admits, voice muffled by Elphaba’s neck. It’s Elphaba’s turn to groan.

 

Perhaps Elphaba would deny it if someone were to ask, but there is, at this exact moment, a flicker of doubt in her, like a candle that holds stubbornly on to its wick. There is a half-second hesitation as she remembers Glinda’s husband, their entirely dissimilar and nearly contradictory lives. But unfortunately, this barely-formed thought is nothing against the scrape of Glinda’s teeth against her sputtering pulse and Elphaba is pulled once again into the stunning, brilliant present. A present that involves a firm grasp at Glinda’s thighs as Elphaba stands from the workbench and inverts their position, setting the blonde down too gently on the table and coming to stand between her knees, her skirt rucked up around her thighs.

 

Glinda’s breath hitches or starts or stops entirely. Elphaba doesn’t care as long as she keeps kissing her like this. Glinda is quick to do away with Elphaba’s shirt, pulling it over her shoulders and letting it crumple to the dusty floor.

 

“Even better up close,” Glinda mumbles teasingly, fingertips running over the gently defined muscles of Elphaba’s stomach.

 

Elphaba sputters out as much of a laugh as she can. “God, you’re so—”

 

Glinda pulls back, eyes dark and sharp. “So what?” She asks demurely, thumbs brushing below the elastic of Elphaba’s bra.

 

Elphaba cocks an eyebrow teasingly, leans forward until she’s almost entirely pressed against the other woman. “So fucking hot,” Elphaba husks at the shell of her ear, punctuating the words with a taunting bite to her earlobe.

 

Glinda tugs at Elphaba’s bra strap, not willing to be one-upped. “Take this off,” she demands and Elphaba regrets wearing one of her most threadbare sports bras as she ungracefully pulls it over her head. Glinda wastes no time palming at her bare tits and Elphaba hisses into her mouth.

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Mhm,” Glinda hums, leaning down awkwardly to take a nipple in her mouth. If Elphaba were less consumed by the act, she would be embarrassed by how loudly she moans.

 

She can tell Glinda is expecting to be kissed when Elphaba holds tight to her jaw and tilts her head towards her. Instead, the green woman dips lower, pressing sloppy kisses to the column of her throat, feeling the rumble of Glinda’s voice as she breathes out another plea: “Elphaba, please. I need you.”

 

It’s so desperate and wanton and world-endingly attractive that Elphaba worries she might die from desire. “I thought about you, too, you know,” she admits, embarrassingly, hands skating up pale thighs, pressing into the soft muscle there.

 

Elphaba taps her twice and Glinda lifts her hips at the unspoken prompt as Elphaba drags her underwear down and off, dropping them on top of her own shirt, puddled on the floor. “Good girl,” Elphaba praises, tone cheeky and just a little bit cocky.

 

There was, Elphaba realizes now, no world in which this did not happen. There was something set in motion that very first moment, when Glinda looked at her with an even, careful gaze, and asked her name. Not that Elphaba knew it at the time. She hopes Glinda didn’t know it either; she hopes she isn’t on the receiving end of a long game, the butt of a cruel joke about how rich women get exactly what they want. But it doesn’t feel that way. Elphaba doesn’t feel like a pawn but rather an active player making a disastrous, perfect decision.

 

Glinda screws her eyes up when Elphaba first touches her.

 

“Oh,” Elphaba murmurs so quietly, watching Glinda melt against her. “Yes?” It’s a question, somehow.

 

“Yes, yes. God, yes,” Glinda incants as Elphaba drags two sure fingers through her wetness. Elphaba moves slowly, too slowly for the current zipping through the hot air. But she’s sure she’s never going to get this again and wants to savor every long second of it, wants to memorize the bob of Glinda’s throat as she swallows back a low groan.

 

“You feel so good,” Elphaba praises.

 

Glinda’s hands fly to her shoulders, nails littering crescent moons into the skin on Elphaba’s back. “Kiss me,” Glinda demands. Elphaba complies easily, inhaling the small noise Glinda makes when their lips meet again.

 

Elphaba feels so astonishingly greedy, ready to take everything Glinda is willing to give her. Glinda’s mouth pants open when Elphaba presses her middle finger slowly against her entrance. “Can I?” Elphaba asks, hesitant suddenly.

 

Glinda lifts her hips again, a clear invitation. “Yes, fuck. Elphie, baby.”

 

Elphaba ignores both the nickname and the term of endearment and sinks a long finger inside the other woman. Elphaba is struck by the sudden and near-crippling desire to taste her but she knows this isn’t the time, knows there won’t be a time, resigns herself to fucking Glinda slowly with a finger, then two, until the blonde is threading her hands into Elphaba’s hair and pulling, hard.

 

“Please, Elphaba,” she whines as Elphaba's thumb circles her clit. “I’m close.”

 

Elphaba nods, face buried in damp blonde hair, breathing in the scent of her and the rain. “Yeah? What do you need?”

 

“Just like that,” Glinda begs. “Don’t stop.”

 

“I won’t,” Elphaba promises, “you feel so good.”

 

“Fuck - I’m gonna—”

 

Glinda comes hard against her and Elphaba carries her through it. The rain outside is a distant memory as Glinda’s grip in Elphaba’s hair gradually lessens. Elphaba slows the curl of her fingers and Glinda huffs when she pulls out, burying her face into Elphaba’s neck.

 

“Sorry,” she mutters into the small space, the silence stunning.

 

Elphaba’s stomach sinks. She knows it was a mistake, but she’s hoping for at least a few more suspended moments of pleasure before the reality of it sinks in. With this apology, Glinda, it seems, is giving her no such luxury.

 

“For what?”

 

Glinda runs her fingers through dark hair more gently, fingernails scratching softly at her scalp. “I think I grabbed you kinda hard,” she says with half a laugh, and Elphaba’s dejection is smoothed over just as quickly as it swooped in. 

 

“I’ll survive,” Elphaba promises, letting her hand slip up the back of Glinda’s shirt, laying a palm flat against her spine.

 

“You’re very good at that,” Glinda informs her, pulling away from the corner of Elphaba’s jaw and bringing the green woman back into a kiss, much softer than it has any right to be. Elphaba kisses back but wonders distantly why this feels much less than a furtive, clandestine hookup and something closer to genuine affection.

 

But when Glinda trails away, she’s looking at Elphaba with wide eyes, bottom lip worried between her teeth. The anxiety is back in the pit of Elphaba’s gut.

 

“Was that—” she starts, but Glinda kisses the rest of the question off her lips.

 

“Don’t. Please.” Elphaba sets her jaw and nods mutely. Glinda, for her part, merely runs her hands down Elphaba’s bare sides. “So beautiful,” Glinda whispers, hushed enough that Elphaba isn’t sure she was supposed to hear at all.

 

Elphaba wonders again how she could extend this moment and she feels a distinct sadness knowing that she will, one day, remember it differently, remember it wrong, remember it not altogether wholly. The thought is terrifying, that the stark and astonishing detail will eventually and not that distantly, become muddled and muted.

 

Glinda must sense the hesitation in her. “I should…”

 

Elphaba has no idea what she intends to say. “Yeah,” she confirms regardless.

 

Glinda hops down from the table on shaky legs. Elphaba takes a half step back and, for the first time since Glinda picked up her book, they’re not touching. Glinda doesn’t let it last long, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind Elphaba’s ear, her hand lingering, caressing the shell of her ear.

 

“I should go,” Glinda finishes her thought, finally.

 

“Yeah,” Elphaba repeats slowly, leaning into the touch despite herself. “Okay.”

 

Glinda fixes her with a look she can’t place and pushes up onto her toes to leave a kiss to the very corner of Elphaba’s mouth.

 

Glinda tugs on Elphaba’s earlobe as she turns away, an act that feels terribly intimate and private and tender. Much more so than her gasping orgasm minutes before. If anything, that little tug will haunt Elphaba more than the sex itself. Elphaba lets herself fall against the opposite wall as Glinda stoops to grab her discarded underwear.

 

She doesn’t watch her leave, so she doesn’t know if Glinda looks back over her shoulder through the abating storm.

 

_________

 

It happens again the next week, somehow.

 

Elphaba is trying to keep her head down, to do her job quickly and then go home where she can drink a beer in the sputtering AC of her apartment and try not to think about Glinda Upland.

 

The woman in question doesn’t allow Elphaba such solitude, appearing at the pool midway through the afternoon, a book open and left out on one of the chaise lounges as the blonde swims lazy laps. Elphaba stares for long seconds when Glinda steps out of the water, her navy suit dripping water against the stone and leaving nothing to the imagination.

 

Not that Elphaba needs to imagine much. She’s spent the last three days trying to forget the feeling of Glinda’s mouth on her neck and the sounds she made as she came. It’s driving her almost entirely insane.

 

The torture continues when Elphaba finishes coiling a garden hose neatly at the back of the poolhouse and turns the corner, only to find Glinda already there, leaning against the doorframe, a towel wrapped around her shoulders as she looks at Elphaba with an unreadable expression and her bottom lip worried between her teeth.

 

“Hi,” Elphaba offers, trying to quell the fright at finding the other woman there.

 

“Hi.”

 

They regard each other for a moment. Elphaba lets herself look at the blonde, lets her gaze run down her form. Glinda just watches her, steady, as the silence yawns between them. Glinda cocks her head, eyebrow raised in a silent invitation as she dips inside.

 

Elphaba has never been inside the poolhouse, only ever tended to the tall hedges on the far side of the building. It’s dim inside and as her eyes adjust, Elphaba notices a few things about the space. It’s small inside, just a built-in couch below the large window, a low counter, a door that stands ajar on the far wall, which Elphaba assumes leads to a shower. And Glinda is standing in the middle, back to her.

 

When Glinda turns to face Elphaba, her expression is nearly concerned. She pulls the towel tighter around her shoulders. “I—” She cuts herself off, and for the first time, Elphaba sees something around the edges of her confidence falter. Glinda shakes her head almost sadly. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Glinda confesses honestly.

 

She moves to walk past Elphaba and back out into the brightness of the day. Elphaba steps halfway in front of her, puts a hand out to stop her. “I think you do,” she says, voice low, hand coming to rest at Glinda’s hip, the dampness of her swimsuit cold against the warmth of her skin under Elphaba's palm. “I think you know exactly what you’re doing,” the green woman continues, egging her on ever so slightly.

 

“I really don’t,” Glinda admits in the half-second before Elphaba’s mouth finds hers again.

 

Elphaba takes the lead this time, pushing the towel off Glinda’s shoulders as she clumsily nudges the shorter woman towards the couch. Glinda isn’t wearing much but Elphaba still delights in tugging at the ties of her suit until it falls off her easily. It’s only a matter of moments before Glinda’s scant clothes are littering the ground and Elphaba has her pressed into the couch, mouth following the curve of her breast.

 

She wants, very badly, to bite down, to suck at Glinda’s skin, to leave a mark. But even with her brain addled by lust, Elphaba knows she shouldn’t — Glinda isn’t hers.

 

Still, she works her way down Glinda’s body, following the soft planes of her, pressing fingers into the space between her ribs, leaving messy kisses to the sharp points of her hips as Glinda squirms below her.

 

When Elphaba finally kneels on the ground and tugs Glinda until her knees bracket green shoulders, Glinda finally speaks up.

 

“Elphaba,” she whines. The woman in question looks up from where she had allowed herself to give in to that base desire and suck a bruise into the inside of her thigh, consequences be damned.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I was planning on fucking you,” she explains breathlessly.

 

Elphaba hums against her, pressed into the crease of her thigh. “Too bad, I guess,” Elphaba says, not even feigning remorse.

 

“Elph—” Glinda is going for stern, but Elphaba cuts her off with a quick swipe of her tongue, a kiss placed carefully to clit. “Fuck,” Glinda breathes.

 

“Mhm,” Elphaba murmurs into her. She wants to drown here, knees stinging on the cold tile, one of Glinda’s legs thrown over her shoulder. She wants to be the one making Glinda’s thighs shake, her breath unsteady. She can’t help but feel utterly greedy with her desire, blatant and misplaced and desperate as it is.

 

Glinda’s fist is tangled in her hair again, holding Elphaba close to her. Elphaba lets a hand skate up her nakedness and flicks a thumb across her nipple as Glinda gasps and presses harder into Elphaba. She could stay here forever.

 

When she comes, it’s with a choked sound that sounds nearly like Elphaba’s name, her chest bare and heaving as Elphaba rocks back onto her heels, soothing a hand over Glinda’s hip.

 

She presses a finger into the hickie blooming on Glinda’s thigh. “I probably shouldn’t have done that,” she admits, despite the thin flare of pride she feels.

 

Glinda glances down at the spot. “You can do whatever you want,” she huffs, still catching her breath.

 

Elphaba smiles, stands. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She leans down, braced against the back of the couch. “Thanks for the fuck,” she breathes, laughter high in her voice. She nips at the shell of Glinda’s ear teasingly and then leaves a much too lingering kiss to her cheek. “See you.”

 

Then she’s gone, leaving Glinda naked and flushed in the poolhouse. She knows it’s not the most mature thing to do, but she’s not ready to talk about what it means that they have now twice slept together in some backhouse while Glinda’s husband is away.

 

And if Glinda is able to waltz out, leaving her dazed and wanting, then Elphaba should be able to do the same, she thinks pettily.

 

_________

 

Glinda either isn’t there or doesn’t make herself known the next time Elphaba works. She swears it doesn’t bother her, but she slams the heel of her boot against her shovel so hard it reverberates painfully up her shin bone.

 

_________

 

It’s early on a Saturday when Elphaba sees her next. The grass still holds onto last night’s dew and Glinda’s sitting on her sprawling front stoop when Elphaba pulls up the drive, anxiety boiling in her gut at the sight of Glinda’s small frame curled against her knees on the top step.

 

At the sound of Elphaba’s truck, Glinda unfolds herself and Elphaba can see the tension in her posture even from this far away. Elphaba throws the car into park and rolls down her window as Glinda approaches. She tries to school her face into a smile that comes off more confident than she feels.

 

“Hi,” Glinda says softly. Her hair is thrown up messily and she’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt. Elphaba finds the whole look much too adorable.

 

“Hi there,” Elphaba replies, feigning coolness.

 

Glinda sighs, leaning her forearms against Elphaba’s open window. “Sorry about last week.” Elphaba’s breath is caught in her throat. She thinks she knows what’s coming next, but then Glinda says, “I was out of town again. I should have said something.”

 

Elphaba is reeling, trying to keep up with what Glinda is apologizing for and why.

 

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” Elphaba replies, too evenly.

 

Glinda reaches into the cab of the truck and tugs at Elphaba’s sleeve. “I do,” she says, not meeting Elphaba’s eyes. “And I would like to. Will you have a drink with me?” She asks so earnestly.

 

Elphaba can’t help the smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know, Glinda, it’s a little early.”

 

The blonde levels her with an unamused glance. “That’s not what I meant. Obviously. When you’re done today.”

 

In an uncharacteristic act of affection, Elphaba covers Glinda’s hand with her own, squeezing lightly. “Sure,” she says, trying to imbue her voice with tenderness. “I’ll come find you this afternoon?”

 

Glinda nods. “I’ll be around.” Elphaba swipes a thumb across her knuckles and Glinda pulls back from the open window.

 

The rest of Elphaba’s day is essentially a wash. She gets the bare minimum done while trying to keep the imposing shadow of the house out of sight, hoping that Glinda isn’t watching her putter around uselessly for most of the day.

 

By the time it becomes acceptable to throw in the towel, the sun is beginning its long descent towards the horizon and Elphaba, despite doing very little, tugs off her sweaty polo and replaces it with a faded t-shirt advertising a book fair at Shiz that she doesn’t remember attending. She cuffs the sleeves and tries to smooth out the wrinkles, set deep into the fabric from where it’s lived in the bottom of her bag for a month.

 

She knocks on the back door before she can talk herself out of it. Glinda swings it open a few moments later. Her grin is wide and honest. “So you do own clothes that aren’t a work-mandated polo.”

 

Elphaba rolls her eyes but returns the smile more softly. “Unfortunately, not much of an upgrade, I fear,” she gestures to the old t-shirt, cropped slightly at the bottom from an ill-advised encounter with a pair of scissors her sophomore year.

 

“It’s cute,” Glinda promises, holding open the door so Elphaba can pass through. “You went to Shiz?”

 

Elphaba nods, toeing off her work boots. “Yeah, for undergrad.”

 

Glinda hums, blinks at Elphaba in the dim kitchen light. “So did I.”

 

“Really?”

 

“How did we not know each other?”

 

Elphaba pretends to consider the question. “Well, probably because I only left the lab to sleep, and you seem like someone who was wildly popular.”

 

“Not wildly,” Glinda corrects with a smirk. She turns on her heel and the light from the fridge casts the room in a cool-blue glow. “Can I interest you in a glass of wine?” She calls over her shoulder. “Or perhaps a g and t? I also have water.”

 

“How accommodating,” Elphaba teases. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

 

“Bad call, Miss Elphaba,” Glinda announces, turning from the fridge with two bottles of cheap, light beer, the brand one Elphaba recognizes from her time at Shiz as being a favorite amongst broke college students.

 

Elphaba barks out a loud laugh, accepting the bottle. “You just happened to have this on hand?”

 

Glinda pops the top and holds out her hand out in front of her. “A fancy life does not a fancy woman make. Cheers.” She clicks the neck of her bottle against Elphaba’s. “Come on, sit with me,” Glinda demands, pulling Elphaba back into the heat of the evening and towards the pool.

 

Elphaba settles into one of the lounge chairs under a wide umbrella. Glinda, instead of choosing to sit in the chair next to Elphaba’s, perches at the foot of the same chaise, tucking a leg underneath herself so she can face the green woman.

 

“Nice to be on this side of things,” Elphaba smirks, leaning against the back of the chair, elbow bent behind her head. Glinda merely picks at the label on the bottle as the paper slowly dampens from the condensation. “What did you study at Shiz?” Elphaba asks, trying to navigate a conversation neither of them knows how to begin.

 

Glinda, appreciating the out, answers, “Architecture. And I really wasn’t that popular. I was very studious, I’ll have you know.” Elphaba raises a questioning eyebrow. “Mostly,” Glinda amends.

 

“Did you work as an architect?”

 

Glinda shakes her head. “Not really. I interned at a firm right out of college and loved it.”

 

“But…?”

 

Glinda takes a slow sip of her beer to buy time. Elphaba allows it. She makes a face. “This really is gross. I love it. Anyway. Um. I always felt a lot of… pressure, I guess. From my parents, from my friends, to be something else, something different. And this is just sort of how it’s done,” she gestures to the property around her with an open palm, as if holding her life up on display. “The rich husband, and the utter and total lack of a real job, and the fancy parties—”

 

“And the fancy beer,” Elphaba interrupts, raising her glass towards Glinda slightly.

 

“Yes, correct, I knew you were paying attention,” Glinda smiles. “I don’t know,” she continues, grin faltering slightly. “Frottica—where I’m from—is still very traditional. My parents are very traditional. Chuffrey asked them before he asked me, and by that time it was already a done deal - a merger of two prominent families and a way to brush my dalliance in higher education under the rug.”

 

“So you had no say in your marriage whatsoever?”

 

“Not in any way that mattered.”

 

Elphaba sucks her teeth. “That’s really sad. I’m sorry.”

 

Glinda shrugs it off. “Just sort of what it is, at this point. I mean, my life is far from unpleasant.”

 

“You’re still allowed to complain about it.”

 

“Thanks,” Glinda murmurs, letting her hand fall to the inside of Elphaba’s knee.

 

“But how do I factor into this? Is this some strange way for you to get revenge on a life you didn’t want? By fucking the help?” It comes out harsher than Elphaba means it to, but the sentiment remains. Elphaba isn’t interested in being a pawn for a more powerful woman to get what she wants out of her marriage.

 

Glinda blinks in surprise at the change in tone. “If I recall correctly, the help fucked me. And no, Elphaba. That’s not what this is.”

 

“Sorry,” Elphaba says, rather shamefully.

 

Glinda squeezes Elphaba’s calf pacifingly. “You’re fine, it’s a fair question. And the answer is no. When it became clear that Chuffrey and I were in no way compatible, we had to think up a workaround. We’re still married, and we appear together for optics and the sake of his political career.”

 

“Chuffrey is a politician?”

 

“He’s a baron, technically. And no, I don’t know what that means except that sometimes I have to be seen on his arm in order to appease both of our families.”

 

Elphaba hums, as though she could potentially understand. “Okay. So you have some sort of… arrangement, then?”

 

Glinda nods slowly. “More or less.”

 

“And where do I stand in all this?” Elphaba asks around the mouth of her beer bottle. “Are you doing damage control after a hookup, or are you asking me to be your dirty little secret?” She says it with a smirk so Glinda knows she’s teasing, at least a bit.

 

Glinda’s palm skates down her calf and she leans towards Elphaba almost imperceptibly. “Well, it just feels a little rude to spend all that time coming onto you and not make good on it.”

 

Elphaba sits up, putting herself in Glinda’s space slightly. “I think we definitely made good on it.”

 

Elphaba flicks her gaze down to Glinda’s mouth; she can’t help it. “We should probably do it again, though,” Glinda suggests, hand climbing higher on Elphaba’s thigh. “Just to be sure.”

 

The green woman leans in, helpless to stop it. “So you do want to fuck the help?” She drawls.

 

Glinda shakes her head fondly. “No,” she corrects. “I want to ask her if she is interested in a reprise.”

 

“I could be convinced.”

 

“Good.”

 

Glinda’s lips find hers again easily. Elphaba’s free hand is at her cheek, Glinda’s fisted in the thin fabric of Elphaba’s shirt. Elphaba breaks the kiss to set her beer bottle on the ground and takes the opportunity to pull Glinda further into her, until the blonde is more or less lying halfway on top of her, stretched out against the chaise.

 

“Come here,” Elphaba mutters, lifting Glinda’s chin with two fingers. Glinda lets a hand slip beneath Elphaba’s shirt, palm curled tight to the curve of her waist. The sound she makes against Elphaba’s mouth is enough to drive anyone insane.

 

Glinda sits up and peels her own shirt off, suddenly topless in Elphaba’s lap. “Glinda,” she hisses, hands falling quickly to bare skin, “Out here?”

 

Glinda pulls her hair over one shoulder and kisses Elphaba so softly. “It’s just us,” she murmurs against the other woman. Elphaba knows she means there’s no one else around, no one else at home, but the sentiment, spoken quietly into Elphaba’s skin, feels heavier somehow. And it does—now that Glinda is easing Elphaba’s shirt off and Elphaba is running her hands across Glinda’s chest—feel like it’s just them, alone in this strange slice of the world.

 

Glinda’s mouth follows the long line of Elphaba’s body until she’s dragging Elphaba’s shorts off and situating herself between toned thighs. “God, I’ve been wanting to do this for so long,” Glinda admits as she licks a broad stroke against Elphaba.

 

From then on, Elphaba feels remarkably close to manic. Glinda’s mouth on her and working in ways that have Elphaba writhing beneath the blonde. “So good,” Glinda says at some point, to herself more than anything, but Elphaba melts at the praise anyway. Elphaba’s hands make their way to Glinda’s hair eventually, threading gold between her fingers as she grounds herself in the touch. Glinda squeezes tight to Elphaba’s hip as she comes, keeping the green woman steady.

 

When Elphaba finally blinks back to herself, dazed and breathless, Glinda is still there between her legs, resting her cheek to the inside of Elphaba’s thigh. There’s a smile curling the corner of her mouth.

 

“You’re very pretty,” Glinda says with a tint of awe in her voice.

 

“Com’ere,” Elphaba nearly slurs, drunk slightly on the other woman. Glinda slinks back up Elphaba’s body, dipping her head to lick at the luster of sweat at her collarbone - an act that shouldn’t be attractive but Elphaba finds herself immediately turned on again.

 

Glinda tucks herself into Elphaba, pressed too close on the lounge chair. Her hand traces aimless patterns across her ribs as Elphaba’s breathing returns to normal.

 

“Should we do rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to run away this time?” Glinda asks with a straight face.

 

Elphaba laughs loudly and genuinely, caught off-guard by the joke, and pulls Glinda tighter against her. “Maybe not this time, I’m kind of enjoying this,” she admits. “Sorry about that, though.”

 

Glinda huffs, her breath a puff of warm air against Elphaba’s neck. “Sorry I did it first.”

 

“Now we’re even.”

 

“I think I still owe you an orgasm.”

 

“Perhaps another time, Glinda,” Elphaba placates, dropping a kiss to her forehead, an act that feels much too easy, much too intimate, for whatever this is.

 

Elphaba stands to tug her shorts back on, and Glinda makes an affronted little noise. “Easy, tiger,” Elphaba assures her, “I’m just putting my pants on.”

 

“Tragic,” Glinda mutters, giving her shirtlessness a long and obvious once-over.

 

Elphaba rolls her eyes and hands a half-empty bottle back to Glinda and keeps one for herself. “Not sure whose is whose, but I figured it can’t matter that much,” she teases, settling herself back down next to the blonde, “given that your tongue was recently inside my mouth.”

 

Glinda levels her with an unimpressed glare and Elphaba winks theatrically, taking a swig of the now-warm beer.

 

“You’re something else,” Glinda says, astonishment and affection clear in her tone.

 

Elphaba knows they’re probably going to have to have more conversations about it, about whether or not they’re having an affair or a relationship or a somewhat clandestine hookup. But she feels better than she did before, knowing that Glinda’s marriage is mostly just for show, and she isn’t walking around their property as the homewrecker. She’s not sure what it will be, but she knows that, right now, the sun is setting. Glinda is leaning against her, asking Elphaba a question about her workout routine and drinking a too-warm light beer because it reminds her of being in college. Elphaba knows that if she turns her head, she can kiss Glinda just once, in the middle of her sentence, and the blonde will blink in surprise and forget to finish her thought for a long moment. So she does.

 

And when she goes home that evening, she finds traces of Glinda’s lipstick smudged against her neck and, for the first time in weeks, she doesn’t feel that pit-of-the-stomach anxiety that’s been following her around. Instead, she just feels warm.

 

_________

 

And that’s sort of how it goes. For a while, at least.

 

Elphaba comes to work and more often than not, Glinda interrupts her day at some point. Stopping by with a bottle of water or crunching sharply down the gravel towards Elphaba’s half-hidden lunch spot. And usually, in these situations, nothing happens. They throw teasing jokes and lingering glances at one another.

 

In other, bolder moments, Glinda makes her intentions clear; dropping her voice and stepping into Elphaba’s space, slipping a hand under her shirt, pressing up onto her toes to kiss Elphaba solidly, hungrily.

 

Usually, Glinda will catch Elphaba on her way out, offering a drink or a quirked eyebrow or a toothy smile. And then Elphaba will be invited inside or to the pool house, and they’ll strip each other bare, and pull breathless orgasms from the other, never lingering too long afterward. They don’t talk about it, not really, not after that first conversation by the pool. Elphaba learns not to ask about Chuffrey and Glinda doesn’t offer anything up.

 

The most confusing moments, Elphaba finds, are the ones that don’t involve sex at all. Sometimes, Glinda will invite Elphaba in for a drink, and that’s really all it is. Sometimes, they’ll sit beside each other, shoes off and the hems of their pants rolled up, feet dangling in the bright blue water of the pool, and simply talk. Elphaba has no idea what to make of these liminal moments but she finds she enjoys them just as much. Glinda’s quick to joke, quicker to laugh, and Elphaba lets the contentment of it roll over her. She’s not going to question it, not if it means disrupting whatever strange balance they have found.

 

_________

 

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Elphaba asks as her shadow blocks the sun that has been, for the last hour, turning Glinda’s skin the warmest gold where she sits at the side of the pool.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Elphaba,” Glinda says flatly, not even looking up from the pages of her book, with a smirk she’s unable to temper despite how hard she’s clearly trying.

 

“It’s sort of unfair,” Elphaba grumbles, “to be lying out here, looking like this, all day while I’m trying to work.”

 

“Sorry, darling,” Glinda drawls with a distinct lack of sympathy. She finally glances up at Elphaba with a level expression, pushing her sunglasses down her nose until she’s gazing at the other woman from over the top of the lenses. “Aw, I’m kind of missing the polo. You looked very… smart, don’t you think?” She says of Elphaba’s decidedly non-work t-shirt.

 

The green woman responds with a glare. “I beat Fiyero at pool four times in a row and now I get to wear whatever shirt I want for the next two weeks.”

 

“Boo,” Glinda pouts. “Did you need something, Elphaba? I’m trying to read.”

 

“I’m sure you are.”

 

“And what’s that supposed to mean, I wonder?”

 

“That you’re clearly angling for something if you’re out here, barely dressed, just waiting for someone to come by and swoop you off your feet,” Elphaba jokes.

 

Glinda’s smile is crooked and bright. “Is that so?” Elphaba gives her a cocky little shrug. “Do you have your phone on you?” Glinda asks suddenly.

 

Elphaba blinks. “Uh, no, it’s in the truc—”

 

In a blur of movement, Glinda is up and wrapping her arms around Elphaba’s waist, pushing them both from the flagstone tile and into the pool.

 

Elphaba sputters as she surfaces. “Glinda!” She yelps, pushing long strands of hair from her face. “What are you—”

 

Glinda just laughs and laughs, and Elphaba is helpless against the grin that works its way over her face.

 

“Come on, you look like you could stand to have a bit of fun every once in a while,” the blonde teases. Elphaba’s shirt floats uselessly around her in the water until Glinda peels it ungracefully off her, tossing the soaked fabric onto the edge of the pool. “I’ll wash that for you,” she promises, arms looping around Elphaba’s neck until she’s pulled flush against the green woman, legs circling her hips. Elphaba feels a lightning strike of pleasure at the feeling of Glinda’s skin on hers, their chests brushing underwater as Elphaba does the work of keeping them both afloat.

 

“Don’t be mad,” Glinda mutters at Elphaba’s lack of response. “A little tomfoolery never killed anyone.”

 

“Is that what this is?” Elphaba hums, hands sliding across Glinda’s thighs, squeezing lightly at the soft muscle of her ass. “Tomfoolery?”

 

Elphaba never hears Glinda’s answer as the blonde’s mouth finds the corner of Elphaba’s jaw. “God, I’m so into you,” Glinda murmurs into her skin. Elphaba knows she doesn’t mean it, can’t mean it. But something in her melts at the affection in Glinda’s voice, regardless.

 

She hefts Glinda out of the water and onto the side of the pool, standing between her knees, water up to her hips. “This looks familiar,” Elphaba smirks, thinking of the time, just a few weeks ago, when she had first fucked Glinda in the toolshed, in the middle of the storm.

 

She knows this dance fairly well by now; she knows how Glinda likes to be touched, she knows where to kiss her to pull a strangled little sound from her throat, she knows that Glinda’s thighs will shake and she’ll pull hard at Elphaba when she comes. So Elphaba falls into this now-familiar pattern and delights in doing so.

 

Glinda’s suit is off and tossed somewhere behind her, blonde hair dripping water onto her chest and shoulders. Elphaba licks at her skin as she parts her with fingers that feel steadier than she does. In fifty years, Elphaba wants to die in a bed that smells like this; like Glinda in the summertime, saltwater and sunscreen and sweat and whatever is under there that is distinctly Glinda. Elphaba leans back, out of Glinda’s orbit for the briefest of seconds. Glinda whines at the loss, despite the fact that Elphaba still has two fingers inside her.

 

“Shh,” Elphaba teases, voice only slightly shaky. “I want to look at you,” she admits.

 

And look she does. Without Elphaba there to grab onto, Glinda leans back on her hands, face turned towards the sky, as she bites down on a groan when Elphaba curls her fingers just so. She’s radiant. All golden and mussied. Her resplendent form on full display. Something tightens in the very center of Elphaba’s chest. She knows, all of a sudden, that she’s in too deep, knows that she shouldn’t feel this way about a woman who could never reciprocate it.

 

“Harder,” Glinda demands breathlessly, shaking Elphaba of her revery. She steps back into Glinda’s gravity and fucks her harder.

 

_________

 

Elphaba’s waterlogged work clothes spin in the dryer as Glinda makes good on her promise to wash her clothes after having pulled her into the pool. She’s standing, fully naked now, in the middle of Glinda’s bathroom. She’s never made it this far into the house before, always staying in the kitchen when Glinda has invited her inside (except for the one time Glinda had pulled her into the living room and gone down on her on the couch that was too nice to be comfortable).

 

The shower is running and filling the room with steam. Elphaba is a green smudge in the mirror.

 

She wipes a hand down her face, worried that maybe she’s not doing as good a job as she had hoped in keeping this clinical and physical. Not when Glinda presses close to her, kisses her so tenderly, like maybe she means it.

 

Elphaba is pulled from this thought by the click of the door opening. Glinda slips in, her hair up, still naked and flushed.

 

“Hi,” she says, regarding Elphaba from across the warm room, gesturing to the running water, “what are you…?”

 

“I was waiting for you,” Elphaba says quickly, to cover for whatever lingering emotion Glinda may have seen flicker over her face when she came in.

 

Glinda looks hard at her, gaze lingering. “You’re so stunning,” she says plainly, and Elphaba’s chest aches with want.

 

Elphaba is no stranger to desire, having spent much of her life pushing it down, ignoring her own want to pacify those around her. And really, what kind of green girl gets to want? Certainly not Elphaba, who grew up making herself smaller in the shadow of her father, and to make her sister’s life more comfortable.

 

This is not to say that Elphaba has avoided sex and relationships and attraction; that’s not necessarily the case. But she isn’t used to this: someone standing before her, open and honest in her desire.

 

Glinda holds a steady hand out, as if hearing the doubt creep in, and invites Elphaba to come to her. Elphaba reaches out too slowly, trying once again to suppress her wild want. Glinda waits, sturdy and constant, until Elphaba slips her palm against Glinda’s. And then, with a soft tug, they’re suddenly pressed together from hip to shoulder.

 

“Hi,” Glinda murmurs faintly against Elphaba’s lips.

 

“Hi.”

 

They’re kissing again, so softly and slowly that it feels heavier somehow, more charged. Elphaba blames it on the strangeness in her chest every time she thinks about the other woman. It’s not a crush, Elphaba thinks, that’s too infantile. And it’s not love, that’s too insane. But it’s something more than a hookup, she knows that now.

 

“Come on, you,” Glinda urges her towards the shower with a half smile, and Elphaba lets herself believe, for just one second, that this could possibly be something it isn’t.

 

Glinda has her pinned against the tiled wall of the shower a few moments later, hips slotted against Elphaba’s, hand working against her almost lazily.

 

“God,” Glinda breathes, voice tinged with awe, “look at you.” Elphaba is, of course, looking at Glinda, but she can imagine that she looks wrecked, undone. It’s certainly how she feels. “So good for me,” Glinda continues, and Elphaba can’t help the whine that falls from her mouth.

 

She wants Glinda closer. There’s a hand at her ribs, pushing her against the shower wall, doing most of the work of keeping Elphaba upright. She wants to melt into her; she wants Glinda to hold her so hard that her hand comes away green, stained by their proximity.

 

“So beautiful,” Glinda whispers, mouth at the soft spot below Elphaba’s ear. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

 

“Don’t stop, please.” Elphaba knows she’s begging at this point but she can’t help it as Glinda moves so slowly and so deliberately into her. She feels driven halfway to insanity. “You feel so good. Please.”

 

Glinda nods against her and Elphaba swears she can feel the blonde woman's smile into her neck. “I’ve got you,” she says. Elphaba’s breathing stutters. “Just like that, come for me. Good girl.”

 

When Elphaba returns to herself, legs unsteady, Glinda is still propping her up against the tile. She pulls her first two fingers from her mouth and kisses Elphaba firmly. She can taste herself on Glinda’s tongue.

 

“Really, it’s so good every time, Elphie,” Glinda says brightly, smile blinding from this close.

 

“You really do know how to flatter a girl,” Elphaba huffs back, still holding tight to Glinda’s hip.

 

“I mean it. You’re…” she waves a hand generally towards Elphaba, as if at a loss for words, “very lovely.”

 

“It doesn’t bother you?” Elphaba wonders. “The green? You’ve never asked about it.”

 

“Of course not. I like it,” Glinda looks slightly dumbfounded by the question. “Everyone on earth looks mostly the same, and you look a little bit different. It’s nice. You’re incredibly pretty.”

 

Maybe it is that easy, Elphaba thinks. Or maybe that’s just how Glinda is.

 

They finish showering slowly and Elphaba’s fairly sure that there is no one moment in which they’re not touching in some way; a hand at the small of Glinda’s back, Elphaba’s face buried in gold curls, Glinda pressed entirely against Elphaba, the soap suds making their skin slick, Glinda’s hands weaving through Elphaba’s long hair.

 

When they finally emerge, Glinda tosses Elphaba a towel, warm somehow, and wraps one around her own shoulders.

 

“You should stay,” Glinda says softly, backing Elphaba up until she’s trapped between the bathroom counter and Glinda’s hips. Elphaba feels a look of surprise cross her face before she can tame it. Glinda sees it and tries to backtrack. “I just mean…” she starts, her voice smaller than Elphaba is used to, “yeah, that you can stay. If you want to.”

 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Glinda,” Elphaba says carefully.

 

She nods once, pulling away. “Yeah, no, you’re right. Sorry. I’ll, uh, I’ll grab your clothes. One second.” And then she’s gone before Elphaba can say anything else.

 

She would, actually, like to stay. She wants very badly to wake with Glinda pressed against her. But she knows it wouldn’t be real, knows it would be just playing house, and she can’t let herself want that. Glinda is slightly more composed when she returns and makes no mention of her previous ask or Elphaba turning it down. She just kisses Elphaba long and hard before she leaves.

 

_________

 

“Jesus, when did you become so good at pool?” Fiyero wonders.

 

“Corner pocket,” Elphaba announces, slotting the 8-ball home. “And I didn’t become good, I just have to wait until you finish your drink and then you become terrible.”

 

“Whatever,” he pouts. “One more?”

 

Elphaba rolls her eyes, pulling her hair up. “No, Yero, you’re not going to get better with a second beer. And I’m exhausted.”

 

“Yeah, well—hey, what the hell is that?” He interrupts himself, suddenly very close to Elphaba.

 

“Dude, get off. What are you talking about?”

 

“That,” Fiyero states, pointing at Elphaba’s neck. “A run-in with the curling iron, perhaps?”

 

Elphaba slaps a hand over the hickey Glinda had left on her pulse point yesterday. “Must be,” she sneers, not telling him about the ones on the underside of her breast and below her hipbone.

 

“Elphaba Thropp. With whom are you sleeping?” He asks, feigning sternness. “And why are you keeping it a secret?”

 

“Yero, leave me alone. It’s nothing. No one. I’ve got to go home.”

 

“Hmm,” he pretends to think. “No.” He steers her away from the exit she had been heading to and back towards the bar, motioning to the bartender for two pints. Elphaba groans so obnoxiously that a couple heads turn their way. “Shut up, I’m buying you a beer and you’re telling me everything.”

 

Elphaba sits across from her friend in the booth, arms crossed against her chest, fixing him with an unimpressed glare, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

 

“Fae,” he cajoles, “who is she?” Elphaba says nothing, regrets the unthinking act of tying her hair up that led her to this moment. “Oh my, are you back on men?” Fiyero wagers.

 

At this, Elphaba scoffs. “I’m not doing this with you. There’s nothing to talk about.”

 

“So it is a girl, got it.” He narrows his eyes in thought. “Don’t tell me you’re back with Sarima.”

 

“No. God, no.”

 

“Good, that on-again-off-again shit was too complicated.” Wait until you hear how complicated this one is, Elphaba thinks humorlessly. “Just tell me this,” Fiyero bargains for information, “do you like her?”

 

Elphaba sighs, unfolds her arms. “Against my better judgment, yes,” she admits somewhat sadly.

 

She watches Fiyero’s eyes harden, something dark crossing over his expression. He furrows his brow and says, too gently, “Elphaba… not the housewife?”

 

Elphaba sucks her teeth. Her mouth is a thin line. “The housewife,” she confirms with a mirthless grin.

 

“Elphaba,” Fiyero repeats, just as delicately. “I knew you were dumb, but this is really fucking stupid.”

 

“Yeah. I know.”

 

“Then why are you doing it?” He asks carefully.

 

Elphaba opens her hands, palms raised. “I don’t know. Honestly. It just sort of happened and I know it’s a terrible idea but it keeps happening.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Three months, maybe?”

 

“And you have feelings for her?”

 

The silence yawns between them. Elphaba finally reaches for her beer, something to buy time. She takes a long pull and hopes she’ll have an answer by the time she finishes. No such luck. So she decides to tell the closest thing to the truth that she knows.

 

“I think so, yeah.”

 

Fiyero shakes his head. “Elphaba,” he chastises.

 

“Listen, it was just supposed to be sex. She’s barely even with that guy; it’s mostly just a front to like, protect both of their images or something,” Elphaba finds herself defending her actions all of a sudden. “So she came onto me, and I let it happen. And the sex was—and is—incredible, but now the line is sort of murkier and we’re spending more time together and she’s just so… yeah, I caught feelings.” Fiyero is left blinking, startled by the rambling confession from his notoriously tight-lipped friend. Elphaba continues in his silence. “And while we’re here, let’s be totally fair and remember that you encouraged this, so be careful before you get all disappointed and holier than.”

 

He holds out his hands in front of her. “Whoa, easy does it. No, you’re right,” he capitulates. “I did, kind of, encourage it.”

 

“You can fire me now, I guess.”

 

“Your affair with a married woman actually has very little to do with landscaping,” Fiyero says. “I’m not going to fire you, I just want you to be careful. This seems like a pretty surefire way to get hurt.”

 

Elphaba shrugs. “Probably. But I figured, once I’m not working and I start my research back up in January, it would just end. Not a lot of time for things to go wrong.”

 

“But then…” He lets her fill in the blank.

 

“Yeah, then the feelings. Those are newer, though, and I’m planning on squashing them.”

 

“Does she feel the same way?”

 

Elphaba sips at her beer again. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not that it matters, this was only ever going to be a fling.”

 

“You’re allowed to want,” he tells her.

 

“Maybe. But not this, not her.”

 

_________

 

The late August sun is just beginning to creep towards the horizon as Elphaba rounds the corner to her apartment. The morning started humid and sluggish, and she was filled with a sort of strange energy, a buzzing just below the skin. Coffee didn’t help. She tried reading but found herself gazing, eyes unfocused, out the window several times before she gave up on that, too. Eventually, she decided, despite the heat, to don her shorts and running shoes.

 

She goes for a few miles and, halfway through, when the endorphins kick in, remembers why she used to like it so much.

 

So when she comes around the corner, shirtless and sweaty, headphones playing something pop-y and loud that she would deny if confronted about, she doesn’t expect to collide with Glinda Upland.

 

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she grumbles, holding a hand out to steady herself against the other person. Instead of receiving a sharp retort for nearly running over someone, Elphaba is faced with blue eyes and a crinkled brow that she is becoming all too familiar with.

 

“Elphie?” Glinda seems just as surprised to see her.

 

Elphaba blinks. “What are you doing here?”

 

“There’s a bookstore up the street that I love,” she explains, gesturing behind her with a new hardback clutched in her hands. “What are you doing here?” Her smile is bright and easy.

 

Elphaba takes her headphones out and points at her building. “I live here.”

 

“Oh.” Glinda looks around again at the neighborhood that is so unlike her own. Elphaba feels a tinge of embarrassment at the shabby brick building she’s about to enter, the three floors she’s about to walk up to a one-bedroom with a barely-there AC unit and too many posters on the walls. Instead, Glinda says, “I didn’t know you ran.”

 

Elphaba shrugs. “Not very often anymore, but I felt a little antsy.”

 

“Do you want to get a drink?” Glinda says suddenly. “There’s supposed to be a newish cocktail bar a few blocks from here. I was going to go read, but you’re better company, I’m sure.”

 

Elphaba tosses a half smile in her direction. “Glinda, I’m…” she trails off, gesturing to her sports bra and running shorts.

 

“Oh. Right, sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll just—” she starts but Elphaba cuts off her rambling apology with a hand against her elbow.

 

“Slow down,” Elphaba instructs with a lazy grin. “I’d love to join you. Just let me clean up a bit first?” Glinda’s smile could light a small city. She nods. “Great.” Elphaba encants her head towards her apartment and holds open the door to her building, leading Glinda up the three flights of stairs, kicking herself for not tidying up earlier. “Welcome to chez Thropp,” she smirks, unlocking her apartment.

 

“It’s cute,” Glinda says, looking around.

 

Elphaba comes up behind her, bends down slightly to rest her chin on Glinda’s shoulder. “It’s tiny,” she whispers, laughing.

 

“It’s cute,” Glinda doubles down. “I didn’t know you had so many plants,” she says, looking around at the potted houseplants littering the windowsills.

 

“Well, you know, green thumb,” Elphaba jokes.

 

“You’re not funny.”

 

Elphaba kisses her cheek quickly and immediately regrets the act, somehow both too casual and too intimate for whatever this is. “Give me like ten minutes, okay? I’d invite you to join, but I don’t actually think two people could fit in my shower.”

 

“Take your time,” Glinda says, “I’ll just be out here snooping.”

 

When Elphaba emerges from the bathroom, freshly showered and buttoning a short-sleeve shirt Fiyero had once told her she looked really good in, Glinda is on Elphaba’s couch, feet tucked underneath her, book open on her lap.

 

“What? Done snooping so soon?” Elphaba ribs.

 

Glinda looks up at her. “You look nice,” she says warmly. “And yes, turns out you only read historical fiction and science tomes, so it didn’t take too long. Also, your taste in beer is almost as bad as mine.”

 

“Well, I didn’t know I had the world’s most efficient and judgmental snooper in my home.”

 

Glinda laughs. “It’s nice, Elphaba, I mean it. Shall we?”

 

“Lead the way.”

 

It’s a date, basically.

 

Elphaba had dressed up slightly, and Glinda almost always looks well-dressed and expensive. They order cocktails with ingredients that neither of them can pronounce and take turns sipping from the other person’s glass. They sit too close to each other, and Elphaba lets her knee knock into Glinda’s under the table so many times that Glinda eventually just puts her hand on Elphaba’s thigh and keeps it there.

 

Elphaba buys their second round despite Glinda’s insistence that she put it on her tab. “Think of it as an apology drink,” Elphaba says, setting the coupe glass down in front of Glinda when she returns from the bar.

 

Glinda’s face contorts in confusion. “Why are you apologizing?” She asks slowly, as though Elphaba is about to deliver bad news.

 

“Because I nearly ran you over earlier.”

 

Glinda’s entire body seems to relax slightly. “Oh, right. Well, you looked so good doing it that I couldn’t possibly be mad.”

 

“Are you hitting on me?” Elphaba laughs, knowing the answer and toeing the line a bit for what is appropriate during this not-actually-a-date date.

 

Glinda rolls her eyes over the lip of her glass. “Obviously.”

 

By the time they burst back into the evening, the day has grown cooler and Glinda shivers against the change. Elphaba, perhaps emboldened by the two cocktails, perhaps just victim to a moment of insanity, tosses her arm across Glinda’s shoulder. The blonde leans into her.

 

“Can I walk you home?” Glinda asks and Elphaba could laugh, could melt, could combust with affection. She wants her so badly and she’s doing a terrible job of squashing her feelings.

 

“Sure,” Elphaba offers, “but I’m not going to invite you up.” It comes off as a joke, but she means it.

 

“Of course not,” Glinda agrees, “I’m not that easy.”

 

Glinda does, though, kiss her deeply, Elphaba’s back pressed into the brick of her apartment building. They’re in public, and Elphaba feels both a thrill and a fright at the prospect that this has transcended the boundary of Glinda’s property line.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

 

“You will,” Elphaba promises.

 

“Goodnight, Elphaba,” Glinda breathes against her lips, the amber glow of the streetlight making the scene that much more golden.

 

_________

 

Elphaba doesn’t see Glinda the following day, despite her assurances.

 

She arrives at work that morning and Fiyero informs her that she’ll have to hop on a different job site today, citing an illness among his crew.

 

“I’m not punishing you, I promise,” Fiyero says under his breath when he pulls her aside. “Avaric is genuinely sick, and I need hands on this other project.”Elphaba huffs her annoyance but agrees—what else can she do?

 

“How’s the squashing going?” Fiyero asks on their way to the job site.

 

“Supremely fucking terribly, thanks for asking.”

 

He nods once. “I’m here. You know, if you need anything.”

 

She shoves his shoulder affectionately. “Thanks, Yero.”

 

They don’t talk about it again, but Elphaba is grateful for her friend. His steadiness, his understanding, his years of devotion to their friendship. She loves him, she really does. But she’s annoyed to be covering for Avaric today. The job is more tedious and unpleasant when there isn’t something to look forward to, when there isn’t a beautiful woman offering a drink or an easy grin.

 

When she’s finally back at the Chuffrey estate later in the week, Glinda announces herself midway through Elphaba’s day.

 

“Hi there.”

 

Elphaba looks up to see Glinda silhouetted in the brightness of the shed door.

 

“Hey,” she says as Glinda steps into the toolshed. She’s wearing a giddy little smile, something new and softer than Elphaba’s seen on her before. She finds it inexplicably adorable.

 

“Missed you on Saturday,” Glinda says, leaning a hip against the workbench, the very same one where plenty of improprietous events have taken place.

 

Elphaba holds out a hand and Glinda takes it without a second thought. “Yeah, sorry. There was some emergency, and Fiyero had me working somewhere else for the day.”

 

“You’re fine,” Glinda assures her, stepping closer, “just missed you, is all.” Elphaba brings their joined hands to her mouth and kisses Glinda’s knuckles. Glinda blushes and it’s terribly pretty. “You’ll come by later?” She asks and it’s so earnest that Elphaba wonders when the over-confident veneer was replaced by this: something genuine and honest.

 

“Of course, G.”

 

Glinda kisses her once and too chastely. “Perfect,” she says when they part, eyes still closed. “See you then.”

 

Elphaba finishes late, a rusted-out section of the back fence needed replacing, and she thought she could do it herself. She could, eventually. But the sun is dipping low in the sky by the time she knocks on Glinda’s back door.

 

The blonde doesn’t let Elphaba get a word in before she crashes into her, all teeth and tongue. Glinda’s hand is fisted in Elphaba’s shirt as she bites at her bottom lip. “God, Elphaba,” she nearly growls, voice low, “I have been wanting to fuck you since I ran into you on the street.”

 

“That’s what did it for you?” Elphaba chuckles against her. The hitch in her breath does not go unnoticed.

 

“Mhm,” Glinda hums and Elphaba feels it more than she sees it. “You should probably always be shirtless.”

 

Elphaba strips off her polo and drops it to Glinda’s kitchen floor. “Like that?”

 

Pale hands find her waist immediately. “Like that.” Glinda drags her upstairs and Elphaba lets it happen. Glinda only stops kissing her to push Elphaba onto a plush bed, sheets stark white and of an ungodly thread count.

 

“Is this…?” She looks around and doesn’t finish her question.

 

Glinda knows what she’s asking, though. “No, separate bedrooms. This is mine,” she explains, stradling Elphaba and unhooking her bra with ease. Elphaba doesn’t ask any more questions, just lets Glinda’s mouth follow the soft muscle of her stomach.

 

Glinda is situated between her thighs when she speaks next, one of Elphaba’s legs over her shoulder. “You’re driving me kind of insane, Elphaba,” she says before running her tongue up the length of Elphaba.

 

And then it’s her turn to drive Elphaba insane, working her up until she’s right on the brink of delirious, two fingers inside her. It’s not rough but it’s not gentle, either. Glinda has become adept at reading Elphaba, knowing precisely how she needs to be fucked. Only this time, as Elphaba tumbles over the edge of her orgasm, Glinda slows slightly but doesn’t let up.

 

“Glinda, you’re good,” Elphaba pants, “I don’t—”

 

“Can you go again?” Glinda asks, her chin is slick with the other woman. The question is punctuated by a precise curl of her fingers. Elphaba whines. “Please, baby. I know you can take it. Let me make you come again,” Elphaba just nods, letting her head fall back again. “Good girl,” Glinda praises, replacing her fingers with a deft tongue.

 

It doesn’t take long. Elphaba should be embarrassed by how quickly Glinda is able to make her unravel again but she finds she can’t bring herself to care. Not when the woman in question is leaving a too-tender kiss to the inside of her quivering thigh. Not when Elphaba urges her higher, higher, until her knees are bracketing Elphaba’s head. Not when Elphaba pulls her hips down to meet her.

 

Glinda rolls her hips into Elphaba’s mouth. “Fuck, baby. No one’s ever made me feel like this. No one’s ever fucked me like you do,” Glinda confesses. The admission shoots to Elphaba’s core, somehow turning her on again, despite it all.

 

Glinda hasn’t ever been silent, gasping out a stuttered curse or biting down on a moan. But this is new. Elphaba is, unfortunately, hopelessly attracted to her. She gazes up at Glinda, who has her head thrown back, one white-knuckled hand gripping the headboard as she tries not to rock against Elphaba’s mouth. When she comes, it’s with Elphaba’s name on her lips, her eyes screwed up tight against her own pleasure.

 

She swings herself off Elphaba with unsteady legs, collapsing against the headboard. “Elphaba, I think we’re, like, really good at this,” she says, laughter high in her voice.

 

Elphaba barks out a sharp laugh, wonders if Glinda will ever cease to surprise her, if she’ll ever be able to predict her next move, her next thought.

 

“You certainly seemed to enjoy yourself,” Elphaba mutters, turning to press her face into the curve of Glinda’s waist.

 

“Sorry. Was it too much?” Glinda apologizes. “I sort of can’t help myself, though. You do this thing with your tong—”

 

“That’s plenty, Glinda,” Elphaba says, voice muffled slightly.

 

“Oh, now you’re a prude?”

 

Elphaba bites at the skin of her waist. “Would you just come here, please?” Elphaba demands, tugging at her arm so Glinda slinks further down the bed until she’s level with the green woman. “That’s better.”

 

“Much better,” Glinda agrees, folding herself into Elphaba’s space. Another strange first: they’ve never actually slept together in a bed before, always working on stolen, secret time, orgasms rushed, pulled from each other quickly, pinned against door frames or bent over kitchen counters. So this is new. Glinda looping an arm around Elphaba’s waist, their chests rising and falling together, their legs tangled beneath too-soft sheets. It’s all so foreign and lovely.

 

As is Glinda’s next sentence: “Stay, please.”

 

“Glinda, I…”

 

“No one’s here. It’s just us. I can make you dinner.”

 

“You know how to cook?”

 

“I can order takeout,” Glinda amends. Elphaba chuckles and Glinda lays a palm on her chest. “But really, he’s not going to be home for a couple days, and I would love to pretend, just for a bit longer, that it really is just us.”

 

It’s too honest, too sincere, for Elphaba to do anything but give in and nod. “Okay.”

 

An hour later, Elphaba is sitting on Glinda’s kitchen counter wearing a t-shirt of Glinda’s, slightly too tight in the shoulders, and balancing a container of pad thai between them. Glidna has her phone plugged into a speaker somewhere, something slow and acoustic playing quietly, as though from another room altogether. She mouths along to the words as she roots around in the fridge for a bottle of sparkling water. It shouldn’t be this easy, Elphaba thinks later, watching Glinda crunch down on a bean sprout, wearing an oversized shirt and socks.

 

Glinda brightens suddenly, cutting herself off mid-sentence. “Oh god, I love this song.” Elphaba hadn’t realized the music had changed, but Glinda is pushing the pad thai out of her hands and yanking Elphaba to her feet. “I always said that if I ever got married, this would be my first dance song.”

 

“Aren’t you… already married?”

 

Glinda waves her off. “Legally. Come on, you have to dance with me.”

 

The song is slow, almost crooning, sounding distant and dreamlike. “This doesn’t really seem like a danceable song, Glin.”

 

This doesn’t deter the blonde woman, who pulls Elphaba to the center of the kitchen, tile floor cold under her bare feet. “Come here,” she repeats, shuffling Elphaba around for a second, placing her hand at Glinda’s waist, and then, suddenly, they’re dancing. The lights are low and the song is slow and their movements are lazy, swaying slowly in the middle of the room. Glinda lays her head against Elphaba’s shoulder and the green woman can hear her humming along with the chorus.

 

Elphaba is suddenly struck by some sort of preemptive nostalgia. She knows this will be a moment she yearns for often, that every year when the weather shifts, something in the wind will carry a memory of this moment, and she’ll be struck with such a deep sense of longing that it may as well cripple her. She knows this, somehow. She wants to drink it in. Wants to remember the way Glinda laughs, loud and clear and so totally herself. She wants to remember the series of astounding and magnificent mistakes it took to get here. She wants to remember the way being around Glinda makes her feel: lucky and warm and a little bit giddy.

 

“You’re not making this very easy,” Elphaba says, slightly choked, as the song dies out.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I was under the distinct impression that we were supposed to keep this casual,” Elphaba ventures.

 

Glinda lifts her head from Elphaba’s chest, threads her fingers into the dark hair at the base of her skull. “It takes two, sweetheart,” she says, bringing Elphaba down to kiss her too softly. “Come on,” she says when they part, “let’s go to bed.”

 

_________

 

Elphaba wakes to a square of sunlight tracking across the wall. The window is open, and a warm breeze filters in, the sheer curtains billowing slightly. It’s still early. Glinda is gone.

 

Elphaba pushes herself up onto an elbow, running her free hand through her hair. “This is not the type of squashing I was supposed to be doing,” she says to herself softly as she watches dotes motes float in and out of the beam of morning light.

 

There’s a muffled conversation from somewhere in the depths of the house - Glinda on the phone, maybe even just talking to herself. Elphaba grins. She’s about to rise and follow the voice, hoping to find Glinda in the sunlit kitchen, making coffee or reading, when something shifts. The low hum of conversation changes, becomes sharper, as though a door has been opened and now Elphaba can hear with near-perfect clarity.

 

“How is this different?” She hears Glinda asking, her tone unfamiliar, an edge of anger in it. Elphaba isn’t expecting to hear a response, convinced Glinda is on a phone call.

 

“It’s entirely different.”

 

Fuck, Elphaba thinks concisely. Chuffrey is back early and Elphaba is naked in his wife’s bed.

 

“Let me remind you how this works,” Glinda counters, “you can fuck whomever you like and I can fuck whomever I like.”

 

“That’s being slightly reductive, don’t you think?” There’s a pause. “This is clearly more than just sex - I mean, she spent the night. Is she still here?”

 

Elphaba’s heart is hammering against her ribs so hard she worries Chuffrey might be able to hear it from down the hall.

 

“Don’t you dare,” Glinda says firmly, her voice razor sharp and mean.

 

“Do you love her?” He asks haughtily.

 

Elphaba wants to be anywhere else, wants to get up and run out of this house despite her nakedness. She wants to melt into the floor and die rather than hear how Glinda answers this question. But she can’t move. Every muscle is frozen. She’s bolted to the ground.

 

“So what if I do?” Glinda says, finally, voice smaller than Elphaba’s ever heard it. “What does it matter to you if I love her?”

 

He scoffs and Elphaba feels utterly inconsequential. “You thought your family gave you a hard time after you went against their wishes the first time? Imagine what they’ll say about this, about her. The green thing aside, she is a woman and she is your gardener—how cliché can you get, Glinda?”

 

“Fuck you,” Glinda spits.

 

His voice is fainter when he replies, “You need me more than I need you. Fix this.”

 

A door slams and the house is shushed silent again. The breeze blows cool over Elphaba’s bare skin. She sits up finally, sheet pooling at her waist. It’s a few minutes before the door clicks open and Glinda peeks her head in.

 

“Hi,” she says softly, voice so different than the hard, hot anger Elphaba had just heard. “You’re up.” Glinda enters the room, leaning against the door as it closes behind her. In her hand is Elphaba’s polo, wrinkled from having spent the night where she had dropped it on the kitchen floor. Glinda sees her looking. “You, uh, you left this downstairs,” she holds it up.

 

“So that’s how he found out,” Elphaba says.

 

“You heard that, then.”

 

It’s not a question but Elphaba answers anyway. “Yeah.”

 

“Elphaba,” Glinda says, still standing at the door. She’s quiet for so long that Elphaba begins to think she’s not going to complete her thought. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she finally finishes.

 

“I know.”

 

“I wasn’t supposed to fall for you.”

 

Heartbreak isn’t like they say it is, Elphaba realizes. There is no yawning pit of anguish to fall into, no snapping of her heartstrings, nothing is rending her apart. Elphaba would love to be angry, to be hurt and sad and have someone to blame. Heartbreak doesn’t feel like that, apparently. It doesn’t feel like anything except the morning light throwing drifting shadows across the face of the woman she loves.

 

Elphaba breathes deeply and turns her gaze from Glinda to the window, the manicured lawn, the rose bushes, the cypress trees at the edge of the property.

 

“I should go,” she says.

 

It’s Glinda’s silence here that hurts most of all.

 

_________

 

They don’t see each other again.

 

_________

 

Fiyero informs her the next morning that Chuffrey had cancelled their contract. “Do you know anything about that?” He asks, too kindly.

 

Elphaba bites the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes the copper of her own blood. “That might be my fault,” she confesses and she watches the fact of it dawn on him.

 

“Fae,” he says, hand at her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

 

“I’m really sorry,” she says, swallowing her emotions, ignoring his question. “I know that was a big contract, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

 

“I’m not worried about that, I’m worried about you,” Fiyero redirects. “What do you need?”

 

Elphaba shrugs, hands open. “I don’t know, Yero. A distraction? A girlfriend who isn’t married? A stipend for my dissertation?”

 

“I can do distraction. The others might be more on you.”

 

_________

 

The summer bleeds into autumn and Elphaba is grateful for the change, for the sweatshirt she now has to wear when she runs in the mornings, for the distance she gets to put between her and what happened over the summer.

 

She understands that there is blame to share, that they both fell towards the other in a situation that didn’t allow for falling. She did it, too. She felt that first spark of affection and instead of leaning away, she let the fire of it burn and burn.

 

But she does hold a piece of anger with her, it’s small and knife-sharp and she nestles it into the space between her lungs. She’s mad. She’s mad because Glinda was the only one with a choice in this situation, and she chose Chuffrey over Elphaba. She holds onto that anger because it’s easier to understand than the sudden and exact loneliness that Glinda leaves in her absence.

 

October rolls around, and Elphaba petitions the head of her department for more funding. She gets it, barely, and is told in no uncertain terms that if the research hits another snag like this, she’ll be out of luck. So suddenly she’s back in the lab and putting whatever pent-up energy she has into making sure that it works this time.

 

Elphaba barely even registers winter when it hits. She’s in the lab by the time the sun rises and crawling back into bed well after it sets. But it’s working. The time and effort, her singular focus, is paying off. When Dillamond returns from sabbatical in January, she has everything she needs to begin writing her dissertation. He looks at her with a mixture of awe and concern when she walks him through the last four months of progress. She ignores that, too. It’s only when Dillamond forces her out of the lab early on a Friday afternoon with resolute instructions not to return until Monday that Elphaba has time to breathe again.

 

There’s a wet snow falling by the time Elphaba gets back to her apartment. She’s wearing her heaviest coat and her breath fogs white into the blue afternoon. She thinks about the time, only a handful of months ago, when she ran into Glinda on this same street corner, the bar down the street that Elphaba passes by quickly, Glinda’s mouth on hers right here, the red brick of the building pressing into her shoulder blades.

 

She misses her.

 

She pushes the thought down for long enough to climb the stairs to her apartment, where the thought catches her completely off guard in the form of her neighbor hailing her down as she unlocks the door.

 

“Hey, Elphaba, right?”

 

She doesn’t know his name. “Yeah, what’s up?”

 

“There’s this girl that’s been asking after you… girlfriend, maybe?”

 

“I doubt it.”

 

He shrugs. “Well, someone has. She asked me to give you this last week.” He slips a scrap of paper into Elphaba’s palm and is taking the stairs two at a time before she can respond.

 

“Thanks, I guess,” she mutters into the empty hallway, shoving open her door.

 

Elphaba has never seen Glinda’s handwriting before but she hopes this is it: ten numbers in black ink on a corner of torn paper. The looping G at the bottom is a decent indication.

 

Elphaba dials the number before she can talk herself out of it. Half of a year has gone by since they saw each other last and Elphaba knows she didn’t make a good final impression, rushing out of Glinda’s house without so much as an apology or a glance backwards. How is it that she’s spent six months aching for someone she only knew for a season, she wonders.

 

The line rings for long seconds. Elphaba’s palms are sweaty despite the cold. Glinda’s voice, when she answers, feels like those first few moments of relief, blinking awake after a nightmare, letting it fade into the safety of forgetfulness.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hi,” Elphaba breathes, voice sounding smaller than she would have hoped. There’s a short silence and every doubt that Elphaba had comes flooding back in.

 

“Elphaba?”

 

“Yeah,” she confirms needlessly. Glinda’s breath snags on something. “I got your note.”

 

“Elphaba.”

 

“I’m here.”

 

“Can I come over?” Glinda asks. Elphaba could laugh. Six months and Glinda is still entirely herself, asking after exactly what she wants, not willing to mince her words.

 

“Right now?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Elphaba looks around at her apartment, mostly empty mugs of coffee littering the counter, notebooks and printouts strewn across her living room, a haphazard start to her dissertation analysis.

 

“Sure,” she says, against her better judgment. But really, everything about her relationship with Glinda has been against her better judgment, so why should this call end any differently? “You remember where I live?”

 

“I do. I’ll be there in twenty.” Neither of them hangs up. Elphaba can hear Glinda’s breathing on the other line. “Elphaba?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Elphaba gives herself a once-over in the small mirror above her bathroom sink. “God, I look like shit,” she says to herself, pressing a finger to the bags under her eyes. Maybe this is why Dr. Dillamond insisted she leave for the weekend and kindly suggested she get some sleep. It’s been a while since she took care of herself, she supposes.

 

With nothing to do but accept how horribly exhausted she looks, Elphaba turns her attention to creating a marginally more systematic pile of her research findings. By the time there’s a knock at the door, she’s brushed her teeth and pulled her apartment mostly together.

 

She swings the door open, and there’s Glinda.

 

Elphaba has spent months trying not to imagine this, and thank god. Because nothing could come close to the real thing: Glinda, flushed and radiant and here, standing in her doorway with a nervous half-grin.

 

“You look terrible,” Glinda says before she can stop herself.

 

“Thank you, Glinda.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” she backtracks quickly. “You just look tired.”

 

Elphaba steps back and sweeps Glinda into her apartment. “I am tired,” she agrees, shutting the door behind the blonde woman and gesturing for her coat. Glinda slides it off her shoulders and Elphaba hangs it next to her own. “You got lucky, this is the first time I’ve been home before 10 in months.”

 

“I know,” Glinda says flatly, “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for a while.”

 

Elphaba gives her a confused little look but Glinda doesn’t explain further. “Yes. Well. I just finished up my research and there was a hard deadline I had to meet. I’ve been in the lab more than I’d like to admit.”

 

Glinda’s expression brightens. “You finished?” Elphaba nods. “That’s amazing. Congrats, Doctor Thropp.”

 

"Not yet." She shrugs sheepishly. “I have to write the damn thing now.”

 

“That’s huge,” Glinda praises. “I’m proud of you.”

 

Elphaba does wonder for a second what they’re talking about. The last time she saw Glinda, she was dressing haphazardly and trying to put as much distance between them as she possibly could. She was running away from a very hard conversation, from a woman she had accidentally fallen in love with. This is the first time they’ve seen each other since then, and they’re talking about Elphaba’s dissertation? It seems rather disparate.

 

Elphaba redirects. “What are you doing here, Glinda?” She asks, not unkindly.

 

“I missed you.”

 

Elphaba shakes her head. “You don’t get to do that. You chose him—and that’s fine, I get it—but you don’t get to miss me. Not anymore.”

 

“I’m sorry, Elphaba.”

 

“I know. Me too,” she says softly. “But are you really so worried about your reputation, your family’s reputation, that you’re comfortable living a lie for the rest of your life?” It’s the question she’s wanted to ask since the beginning. “Why do you care so much?” Why can't I be enough, is what Elphaba is really asking.

 

Glinda crosses the room, sits gracelessly on Elphaba’s couch. “I always have,” she admits with a shrug. “I was raised to care about my image, about how my actions reflected back onto my parents, my family. They instilled in me, very early, the importance of keeping up appearances. And then, suddenly, I was not the perfect daughter. I was getting a futile education and sleeping with women and being loud and funny, and all of these things were totally improper.”

 

Elphaba slowly sinks into the couch next to her, watching her talk with her hands. Glinda won’t look at Elphaba as she speaks but the green woman is finally beginning to understand. She wishes she had asked earlier, wishes she had cared more.

 

Glinda continues. “So yeah, my parents threatened to cut me off unless I ‘reigned myself in,’ as they put it. Chuffrey offered to marry me despite being a fallen woman, and I couldn’t say no. I figured, even though this was so far from the life I had wanted, I could be fine.” She wrings her hands together, gaze focused on the opposite wall. “So we came up with a solution - I could be myself secretly and my family was none the wiser. I was no longer a stain on their reputation and, for the first time in a long time, I felt like maybe they loved me for it.”

 

“Glinda,” Elphaba whispers sorrowfully.

 

“It’s okay,” she says, still not looking at Elphaba. “My life wasn’t terrible, honestly. I was cared for and comfortable. I thought I could live like that forever.” Finally, finally, she swings her gaze back towards Elphaba, eyes dark. “You kind of fucked that up for me, darling.”

 

It’s supposed to be a joke, Elphaba thinks. But Glinda’s jaw is clenched against her tears and Elphaba feels a horrible sinking in her gut.

 

“And the funny part is that I knew you would,” Glinda goes on. “The second I saw you, I knew you were going to be a problem. I didn’t think I was going to fall in love with you, but I knew you were trouble. It’s my fault for not listening to that.” Glinda clears her throat with a wet sound, blinks up at the ceiling. “So anyway. I guess that explains it. I should have told you earlier but it all just felt too good to ruin with my sorry excuses.”

 

“It’s not an excuse, it’s just the truth,” Elphaba says, surprised by the strain in her own voice.

 

“I’m sorry, Elphaba.”

 

“Me too. I let myself get too deep even though I knew exactly what you wanted from me.” They’re quiet for a moment. “It takes two,” Elphaba says with a sad smile, echoing what Glinda had told her the night they danced together in her kitchen.

 

“That’s the thing, I wanted so much more from you than a series of messy hookups. But I’m not someone who has the privilege of wanting in that way.”

 

Elphaba understands that sentiment all too well. It must be novel for Glinda, though, who, to the outside eye, has all she wants and then some.

 

Elphaba takes a sharp breath. “That doesn’t really answer my question, though. What are you doing here, now?” She wonders again.

 

“Oh,” Glinda says, as if the answer is easy. “I guess I’m here because I love you.” Elphaba’s gasp of breath is almost comically loud in the silence that follows. “And because I left him.”

 

“What?”

 

Glinda's smile is wide and genuine for the first time all evening. “Which part of that is surprising to you?”

 

“All of it, I suppose.”

 

“Elphaba,” she says with a gentle, teasing lilt, “I have loved you for some time and I think you know that.”

 

“What about the other thing?” Elphaba asks carefully.

 

“Yes, well, the tricky thing about having an affair is that I didn’t have your phone number, and there’s only so many times I can bang on your door before your neighbors call the cops.” Elphaba missed this, Glinda’s joking little tone, her way of using a joke to plaster over what she really means to say. “I left him. Not necessarily for you, although you did instigate it, but because you’re right. I can’t live the rest of my life like that, catering to someone else’s idea of me.”

 

“Hey,” Elphaba says so softly. Glinda turns to look at her again. “That’s really hard. I’m happy for you.” Elphaba is surprised to find Glinda’s hand in her own, a thumb tracing over green knuckles.

 

“So anyway, that’s what’s been going on with me,” Glinda says with forced cheerfulness. Elphaba huffs out a laugh, shakes her head affectionately. “I do love you, though,” she says again. “Like, a lot, probably.”

 

“Glin—”

 

“You don’t have to love me back. I mean, I will probably die if you don’t, but I’ll get over it eventually. I just needed you to know how I feel.”

 

“Glinda Upland, please stop talking for one second… Thank you.” Elphaba takes a steadying breath, intertwines their fingers. “I do love you, of course.”

 

Glinda leans close, as though pulled in by gravity. “You do?”

 

“Yes, my sweet. It’s sort of impossible not to. Believe me, I tried.”

 

Glinda’s face is open and hopeful and Elphaba loves her, despite her best efforts. Glinda’s thumb brushes over Elphaba’s lips before they kiss, soft and familiar, like Elphaba’s world didn’t just shift on its axis, like Glinda didn’t cause the shift.

 

“So what do we do now?” Glinda asks when she pulls away. Elphaba loves her, it’s true.

 

Elphaba’s answer is easy: “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

 

 

 

Notes:

Thanks, pals xx