Elphaba gets back to their dorm room tired. Pleased with today’s productivity — she had managed to finish and note down an entire obligatory book and got midway through another — but also feeling emotionally exhausted.
The sun has gone down but it is not night yet, the clear blue has a light sheen of dark shade to it and Elphaba marvelled at it before getting under the covered stairway to the dormitories. So there was still no need for artificial lights and therefore Elphaba hadn’t noticed Shiz’s electricity had gone out.
She opens the door to their dormitory and finds Galinda, still in her coloured uniform, out in the balcony. Her back to Elphaba, she’s propped up on the balcony’s metal support bar by her elbows, seemingly looking out and about over Shiz’s quarters. There is a yellow warmth to the room that feels different than normal and when she finally lets her gaze wander off of her roommate, curiously outside, she understands why.
There are several lit candles all over Galinda’s side of the bedroom and unlit ones — that weren’t there before — on Elphaba’s. The flickering of the flames paint the walls and the ceiling’s drawn vines with a pretty moving yellow gleam. Elphaba loses herself in the moving shadows of object against the wall for a little while. It is like a lullaby, along with the light smell of vanilla mixed with fire, comforting Elphaba’s already tired mind and effectively lulling her body into wanting to lay down.
“Elphie!” Her eyes find Glinda’s turned head, “Oh, thank Oz you’re here.” She spins around and walks inside their room, “I was starting to think I’d have to come rescue you with a lamp had you not returned before sunlight went down.”
“What’s going on?”
Glinda groans, “Shiz’s electricity is down.” She says, sauntering to her side of the room and picking something up from her bed, “Should I light your side?”
Glinda’s golden hair seems to thrive spectacularly by the flickering of the candles and Elphaba feels herself entering the same state she had been before Glinda spotted her. She watches how Glinda’s glossy full lips shine with the candles as well, how her skin seems to glow, how every single movement Glinda made, her hair seemed to move with her — dreamily, beautifully.
She watches the soft features of Glinda’s face enter her field of vision, smiling at her, coming closer, and then there’s a crease on her eyebrows and a little downturn of her pretty lips. Elphaba suddenly feels hands on her shoulders and she startles, gasping lightly. Glinda’s right in front of her now and Elphaba laughs — giggles! — at how Glinda goes cross-eyed.
“Elphaba, are you okay?” Glinda asks.
That makes Elphaba turn inwards and she hears the question inside her head, in her own voice.
She feels… Light. She feels okay, yes. She feels… drunk? No, this doesn’t feel like she does after two drinks at Ozdust. It feels similar like that in terms of control, perhaps, but not the effect itself. That feels different.
“Yes,” She nods, pursing her lips, “I feel weird…?” She laughs again, this time because she can’t seem to understand or describe what she’s feeling.
Then, there’s a hand on her cheek and she hears Glinda’s little giggle, “Oh—yes. I—What is happening?”
“I don’t know? But it feels good, does it not?”
Glinda frowns in front of her, it brings Elphaba back down, to the present and she takes a look around the room.
“Where did you get these candles, my sweet?” She feels a gust of air and focuses back on Glinda who stares at her, “What?” She’s a little breathless at the gorgeous smile that blooms slowly on Glinda’s lips.
“Did you just call me sweet?” Glinda giggles again and Elphaba feels powerless under it, smiling back.
“Well, you are sweet,” She lays her hand over Glinda’s on her cheek, hooking her thumb over Glinda’s palm. She grabs the hand and laces their fingers, lowering their joined hands down so she can walk forward to inspect one of the candles.
As she reads the labels on it, she feels Glinda behind her — one of the pointy parts of her shoulder in the middle of Elphaba’s back, she runs the hand that’s not intertwined with Elphaba’s over her arm, covering the back of Elphaba’s hand with her own and laying her head over Elphaba’s shoulder.
“Glinda.”
She feels Glinda’s breath over the side of her neck, “Yes, Elphie?”
“These are drug-infused candles.” She murmurs.
Glinda is off of her in a second, “What?” She all but screams.
Elphaba sets the candle down and rushes forward to where she now stands. Her eyes wide, “Glinda, shhh. It’s okay,”
“It is not okay, Elphaba.” She puts her hands in her head then she’s quickly going around the room and blowing out some of the candles on her way. Elphaba has to stifle a laugh. “Well, are you going to help me?” She asks, hands going to her waist as she stares incredulously at Elphaba.
Elphaba does laugh then. It’s impossible not to when Glinda, her best friend, looks so adorable, so tiny and so angry. So high.
“Elphaba, so help me Oz—!”
She springs into action then, her laughter calming off to a grin as she walks to Glinda. On her way there, she takes one of the candles and brings it closer to her nose, careful not to let the end of her braid fall near the fire. She swirls the candle around a bit and closes her eyes. It is a nice smell.
“Elphie!” Glinda reprimands.
When she opens her eyes, Glinda is right in front of her, frowning. Elphaba laughs again, then a little more when the frown furthers, “Relax, my sweet. It’s harmless,”
She tilts the candle towards Glinda in a silent question and observes how her face softens, the couple of candles she didn’t get to blow out still casting a warm glow to the left side of her face. Elphaba’s breath catches when she realises just how beautiful she finds Glinda Upland.
Glinda, who was watching closely Elphaba’s face, lowers her head and sniffs the candle once. She seems to like the smell because one of her hands comes up to circle Elphaba’s, the one she’s using to hold out the candle. She sniffs again, closing her eye.
“It smells nice, right?” Elphaba asks, softly so as not to break the spell.
Glinda doesn’t answer but the gentle rise of one side of her lips answer Elphaba’s question. She opens her eyes and smiles at Elphaba. Then she blows out the candle. Elphaba laughs.
Later, when electricity still hasn’t returned and they had given up waiting for it, they changed clothes and sat on the floor, near Galinda’s bed.
“I just can’t understand why he would give these candles to me. He had to know what they were, right?”
Elphaba hadn’t been able to stop laughing once she remembered to ask where Glinda got the candles from and heard her answer. She leans forward, her back sliding against the side of Glinda’s bed, “I can’t believe this—”
“Elphie, it’s not funny,” Glinda laments but she’s smiling as well, “How am I going to tell my parents that they supplied my first time getting high?”
“I don’t know, Glinda but,” Elphaba laces a hand over Glinda’s bicep, “when you do, thank them for me, will you?”
Glinda hits her hand weakly, smiling still, and then she lays it over it, running her thumb over Elphaba’s fingers before intertwining them and laying their joined hands on her thigh. There’s a lull between them then.
Elphaba sighs, closes her eyes and rests her head on the bed behind them.
After what feels like minutes, she hears Glinda whisper, “You’re so beautiful, Elphie,”
When she looks at Glinda, she’s breathless again. Although they had blown out the remaining lit candles, the moonlight is perfectly lined with where they sit, its shine allowing Elphaba to see the emotions Glinda’s gaze possess.
She’s once again powerless under Glinda. She covers the back of Glinda’s hand and leans forward, resting her forehead millimetres away from Glinda’s, “Thank you, Glinda.”
It’s funny that they’re here now after everything and how they started but Elphaba is not laughing and she couldn’t even if she wanted to because Glinda’s nose nudges hers and Elphaba realises… Glinda is going to kiss her.
Their lips meet, just a brush, and Elphaba’s heart soars under her rib cage. They separate but stay close and Elphaba feels greed growing incessantly inside of her. Their hands disentangles and one of Elphaba’s finds purchase in the back of Glinda’s neck. Tugging her forward, their lips slant together, sliding slowly against each other, experimentally. And it’s all so slow, bathed in moonlight, it’s so perfect. Elphaba feels the need to breathe.
Glinda is smiling at her, eyes glued to Elphaba’s lips, “So beautiful.” She murmurs again.
Elphaba smiles, thanking Shiz and Oz and candles, Glinda’s parents and everything else that led them to this here, right now.
She tugs Glinda forward again, their lips open now, tongues meeting tentatively, and Elphaba confirms her suspicion, smirking at the taste of Glinda Upland in her mouth, “My sweet.”