Work Text:
Rain | Elphaba/Galinda/Fiyero coming home from a date, protecting Elphaba from the rain
Three kindred souls sit around a table in one of Shiz’s cafes, whispering and laughing over steaming mugs, glitter from Galinda’s body spray shedding onto Fiyero and Elphaba like a territory claimed. The world seems warm and coffee-colored in the fog of love, a sheen rising across each face as they’re inevitably sent on their way.
Fiyero opens the door to a miserable sight: rain dusting the streets with an aquatic shine, fit for murder at the slightest touch. He and Galinda flinch from it with a fear far greater than Elphaba’s. She could never be as scared of losing herself as they are of losing her, after all.
She stares at it, an almost bored look overtaking her face. She’s already prepared. She’ll stay late, if they’ll let her, waiting for the rain to subside as Fiyero and Galinda return to Shiz. She’ll take the impact on her academics.
But of course, they’d never let her do that. Elphaba is still learning this. Her father would have hurried away with Nessa, leaving Elphaba to wait it out on her own. But Fiyero closes the door, and turns to Elphaba.
“Well,” he says, “we’ll have to figure this out.”
“You can go,” Elphaba says, provoking a high pitched gasp from Galinda.
“Never! Of course not, Elphie!” She protests, just as dramatic as always. Elphaba could almost snicker at the passion she says it with. “We’ll figure out how we can all get back.”
“I’d need something waterproof to cover my face, not to mention my hair.” Galinda had learned that lesson too well, after spritzing her own hair a little too close to Elphaba’s. It took forever to get the awful smell of burnt hair out of their otherwise cozy dorm. “And my hands, and my clothes incase it seeps through, and–”
Fiyero takes off his own coat, much more sturdy than the knitwear she gravitates (ha) towards, and pulls it around her shoulders. “Don’t put your arms in it, just let it hang like a cloak.”
Galinda nods along, pulling a rather flimsy scarf from her neck and tying it elegantly around Elphaba’s hair. It won’t do anything for the rain, but having it all in one place makes it easier to cover, anyways.
And so it goes on, with the duo stripping whatever parts of their outfits can be lost without violating late 1800s modesty and placing them around her, insulating her as if from the terrible world they live in. Once they run out of their own clothes, they turn to others who barely lend anything to the cause, and then to the cafe’s lost-and-found.
They luck out there, with a wicked cotton cloak, built to keep the moisture away. They pull it over Elphaba, who’s already considering keeping it for herself if it serves to keep her dry.
“Ready?” Fiyero asks.
They all nod, Elphaba’s gloved hands slipping out of her layers to grab onto their hands. They step outside, pausing for a moment to make sure that the rain isn’t soaking in. After a beat, Elphaba shakes her head. “I’m all good.”
They grin, continuing into the rain and back to Shiz.