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Fiyero wasn’t jealous.
That would require insecurity. Uncertainty. A crack in the foundation of what he knew to be immovable truth.
And he knew Elphaba.
He knew the architecture of her mind, sharp and deliberate, arguments stacked with such precision that opponents often realized they had lost only when the applause began. He had sat through countless late nights while she paced dormitory floors, dismantling imaginary rebuttals, anticipating counterpoints three steps ahead like a chess master with ink-stained fingers. He had listened to her practice openings over dinner, over dessert, once memorably while he was halfway through kissing her and she had pulled back to refine a thesis statement.
He had never recovered from that.
He knew the way she cared. Fierce and undiluted. When she committed to something, it was not half-hearted. It was full body. Full spirit. She did not dip her toes into causes. She dove.
He knew she was beautiful in a way that made poetry feel insufficient. Not fragile beauty. Not ornamental beauty. Beauty that commanded attention the way lightning commands a sky. The sort of presence that shifted the air in a room. He had always understood that one day Oz would be forced to confront its own foolishness. That the world would blink, startled, and realize it had been overlooking something extraordinary because it had been too busy staring at color instead of light.
He knew her humor. Dry as parchment and twice as cutting. The offhand comments that left him choking on laughter hours later. The way her mouth curved when she was pleased with herself.
He knew her walls. Every brick laid in self-defense. Every barb sharpened by childhood and reinforced by cruelty. He admired the fortress because he had been invited inside it.
He would graciously overlook the know-it-all streak. The imperious tilt of her chin when she declared a conclusion final. He adored arguing with her. It was foreplay disguised as intellectual sparring. She would marshal facts like soldiers, and he would counter with charm and audacity until she rolled her eyes and kissed him just to silence him.
And making up afterward…
There were no footnotes in that conversation. Only hands mapping familiar territory. Only breath turning ragged. Only her fingers in his hair and his name falling from her mouth like something claimed.
So no.
Fiyero wasn’t jealous.
Intellectually.
Which made it profoundly inconvenient that something primitive and warm flared low in his chest as he watched the Oz Dust revolve around her like she was the axis of the universe.
The cavern pulsed with celebration. Ice formations overhead fractured the lantern light into shards of blue and silver. Music reverberated through stone, through skin, through ribs. Victory had turned the student body feral with joy.
And at the center of it all was Elphaba Thropp.
Midnight blue draped her like a secret. The fabric hugged her waist and flared when she spun, catching the light so that she seemed to move through liquid starlight. Against her green skin, the color was devastating. Intentional. Defiant. Beautiful.
He watched hands reach for her.
Watched classmates who had once dismissed her now lean close, eager for proximity. Watched admiration bloom openly where there had once been discomfort.
A boy with ink on his cuff held her hand as she laughed, free from the victory and the glittering pink drinks she and Galinda had been drinking all night loosening her inhibitions. A girl with silver pins in her hair brushed a curl from Elphaba’s temple. Galinda twirled her dramatically before relinquishing her to another eager partner.
Elphaba laughed. Head thrown back. Eyes bright.
Fiyero’s jaw tightened before he could stop it.
Not jealousy.
Possessiveness, perhaps. The ancient instinct of someone who had chosen and been chosen in return. Not ownership. Never that. But recognition. That is my person. My equal. My match. My late-night conspirator and early-morning comfort.
He leaned against a crystalline pillar, arms folded, watching with a gaze that had made more than one rival reconsider a decision. He was proud. Oz, he was proud. He wanted to carve her victory into marble. To toast her brilliance. To tell every gawking spectator that they were witnessing something historic.
He also wanted to steal her away.
Just for a moment. Just long enough to press his mouth to her temple and murmur how magnificent she had been without anyone eavesdropping.
Another hand hovered above her waist.
Another admirer.
The small hot thing in his chest flared brighter.
He straightened, posture sharpening. The crown prince of the Vinkus reduced to glowering at a debate team scholar as though contemplating the consequences of fighting another kingdom’s citizen. It was not dignified.
As if tugged by invisible thread, Elphaba paused mid-spin.
Her gaze lifted.
Green met blue across the crowded dance floor.
The music dulled. The ice cave narrowed.
Her lips curved.
Not the public smile. Not the triumphant one.
The private one.
Slow. Certain. Dangerous.
She disengaged from her partner with effortless grace and crooked her index finger at him.
Come here.
It was not a request.
It was a summons.
His irritation dissolved instantly. Replaced by heat. By inevitability.
He crossed the floor toward her, weaving through bodies, drawn forward as though the space between them had collapsed. Each step felt less like movement and more like surrender.
When he reached her, she slid her hands onto his shoulders and up into his hair without preamble. Fingers threading through blond strands. Claiming.
“Jealous?” she murmured against his ear.
Her breath ghosted over his skin. He shivered despite himself.
“Hardly,” he replied, voice steady but lower.
Her eyebrow arched.
He exhaled. “Perhaps a touch territorial.”
Her nails traced lazily along his collar. “Good.”
His heart stumbled. “Good?”
“I like being wanted,” she said, leaning back just enough to study him. “Especially by you, Yero.”
His hands settled firmly at her waist, thumbs brushing the curve of her spine through silk. “You are wanted,” he said quietly. “By half the room.”
Her gaze sharpened. “That wasn’t the point and you know it.”
The music surged around them again, but the space they occupied felt sealed off. Suspended.
“Yes,” he said, voice stripped of teasing now. “By me. Always.”
The armor softened. The sharp edges eased.
“Then stop plotting imaginary duels with my teammates,” she whispered. “And dance.”
“As my brilliant general commands.”
She rolled her eyes but stepped back into him fully.
They moved together easily, her body fitting against his like something designed. He guided her through a turn, caught her at the small of her back, pulled her flush against his chest. The blue fabric shimmered between them.
He bent his head close. “You were magnificent, love. Every point. Every rebuttal. I’ve never seen a room surrender so completely.”
Her arms tightened around his neck, pressing closer. “You listened to every practice run. Even the ones during dates.”
“I consider that foreplay.”
She laughed softly against his throat. “Thank you, Yero. For all of it.”
The way she said it undid him. Even now, surrounded by praise and applause, she chose to acknowledge him. To fold him into her triumph.
His chest felt too small to contain what swelled there.
“I’d sit through it all again,” he murmured. “And I wasn’t that jealous.”
“Of course not.”
“And if you happen to wake up to a bouquet of poppies tomorrow, it’s not because I felt like an absolute fool for glowering.”
“Definitely not, your highness.”
He smiled against her hair. “Next semester is tennis, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And I’m going to need you to excavate your racket from that avalanche you call a closet. I require a practice partner.”
“Are you recruiting or conscripting?”
“Both.”
He spun her once more, catching her when she came back to him, breathless and glowing.
As the final notes of the song faded and the crowd began to thin, he rested his forehead against hers.
She was still flushed with victory. Still luminous.
And when the club emptied and the lanterns dimmed, she would leave with him. Not because of territory. Not because of pride.
Because they chose each other.
Again and again.
And later, in the quiet privacy of dim rooms and tangled sheets, when her sharp tongue softened into sighs and his hands traced the map of her back without audience or applause, he would remind her just how wanted she was.
Even when there had been nothing to make up for at all.
Weeks into the new semester, it happened.
Fiyero missed tennis practice.
Elphaba told herself not to panic.
It was only one session. He had likely overslept, tangled in sheets and dreams, or been detained by some overly ambitious professor eager to charm the crown prince of the Vinkus with long-winded lectures on agricultural reform. They were still new to this. To courting. To loving each other in a way that felt both reckless and inevitable. Occasional missteps were allowed.
She bounced the ball once. Twice. Served.
The crack of racket against felt echoed sharply across the empty court.
Galinda had declared tennis “unflattering to one’s glowfulness Elphie!” and refused to participate. Nessa and Elphaba had mutually agreed to retire from ever competing against one another again after their last match devolved into a vicious exchange of strategic insults that required Boq, Fiyero, and a deeply exasperated Galinda to intervene before someone weaponise a racket.
So Elphaba practiced alone.
The court felt larger without him. Too much sky. Too much space. No prince draped lazily over the fence offering commentary about her “devastating backhand” with that infuriating grin. No dramatic removal of shirt under the excuse of heat, muscles catching sunlight in ways that made concentration nearly impossible.
She told herself she preferred it.
More focus.
Less distraction.
She served again.
And again.
The sun began to dip, turning the edges of the court gold.
He still hadn’t arrived.
Concern crept in quietly at first. Then louder.
She did not go looking for him.
She absolutely went looking for him.
She checked the usual places. Feldspur hadn’t seen him. The poppy field was empty save for wind stirring the red blooms. Their clearing in the woods, where arguments softened into kisses and kisses sometimes softened into something far less structured, lay undisturbed.
With every failed location, the worry sharpened.
By the time she tried the library in desperation, her stomach was tight and her imagination unhelpfully vivid.
She found him in an aisle between towering shelves.
Seated close to another student.
The girl leaned over an open textbook dense with annotations, her sleeve brushing Fiyero’s arm as she gestured animatedly at a passage. Fiyero was bent toward the page, brow furrowed in concentration, lips parted slightly as he listened.
Engaged.
Focused.
Smiling.
Elphaba stopped at the end of the aisle.
Relief hit first. He was safe. Whole. Uninjured.
Then something else rose up to take its place.
Studying.
That was theirs.
Late nights sprawled across his bed, books abandoned on the floor when discussions turned heated. Him reading political theory aloud in an exaggerated drawl until she corrected him between laughs. Her quizzing him ruthlessly while he clutched his chest in mock despair. Ink-stained fingers tracing arguments that dissolved into fingers tracing skin.
Studying had been their thing.
She watched the girl reach for his quill to adjust a margin note.
Their fingers brushed.
Fiyero laughed.
It was not flirtatious.
It did not matter.
The word came unbidden.
Mine.
It startled her with its intensity.
Before she could reconsider, she stepped forward, shoes squeaking decisively against the stone floor.
Fiyero looked up first.
His handsome face transformed instantly. “Fae!”
The girl blinked, startled.
Elphaba inclined her head politely. Perfectly composed. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Fiyero said quickly, glancing at the clock. His eyes widened. “Wait. What time is it?”
“After five.”
His expression shifted from confusion to horror. “Practice. I completely lost track. I’m so sorry, Fae. I didn’t mean to ditch you.”
The apology was immediate and earnest. He began gathering his papers in mild chaos.
“It’s fine,” she said evenly. Too evenly. “You seemed busy.”
The girl cleared her throat. “We were just going over Professor Haverston’s rubric. The comparative analysis section is brutal.”
“Mm,” Elphaba replied. Of course it was.
Fiyero stepped closer, reaching for her hand instinctively. His fingers wrapped around hers with familiar ease.
It did not quiet the ember beneath her ribs, simply settled it and the magic thrumming underneath her skin a bit.
“I should’ve sent word,” he said softly. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“That’s quite all right,” she replied, lifting her chin slightly. “I managed.”
He searched her face as though looking for cracks.
She gave him none.
The days that followed were filled with Fiyero being Fiyero, a boyfriend always at his most attentive.
He carried her books without being asked. Slung her satchel over his shoulder as though it belonged there permanently. Kissed her temple when she furrowed her brow over reading. Laced their fingers together in hallways. Walked her back to her room each night, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips before leaving.
He planned dates. Made her laugh. Needled her for sport. Listened to her strategize for upcoming matches. Endured detailed groans of the wardrobe Galinda had put together for her tennis season with impressive patience.
He was, as always, infuriatingly, perfect.
And still the possessiveness lingered.
She did not ask about the girl.
She did not mention the library.
But she noticed when he excused himself for “study time.” Noticed when he tucked papers away a touch too quickly. Noticed the ink smudges along his fingers and the faint exhaustion under his eyes.
The irrational part of her imagined whispered conversations between shelves.
The rational part despised that insecurity.
He was hers.
Not owned. Not possessed like an object.
Chosen.
And yet the word persisted.
Mine.
(Fiyero noticed everything.
He noticed how her grip tightened subtly and her eyes shone with pride when someone praised his academic improvement. How she stood a fraction closer to him in crowded corridors. How her eyes sharpened when other students lingered too long in conversation.
He liked it.
Not because he wanted her insecure.
But because he saw what it meant.
She cared.)
The surprise came a week later.
Elphaba returned from tennis practice flushed and slightly breathless, braids askew from exertion. She pushed open her dorm room door and stopped short.
Her desk had been cleared.
Centered neatly atop it lay a paper.
Marked in bold red ink.
A+.
Her breath stalled in her chest.
The door clicked shut behind her.
“Oh good, you’re back. I used the key you gave me, but I stepped out to get these,” Fiyero said softly.
She turned.
He stood a few paces behind her, holding a small bouquet of poppies. His expression was uncharacteristically shy. Blue eyes bright, almost uncertain.
“You’ve been secretive,” she said quietly.
“I have.” He crossed the room and placed the flowers beside the paper. “Because I was studying.”
“With her.”
“With anyone willing to tolerate me interrogating the syllabus like it insulted my mother,” he replied gently. “I needed help.”
She looked at him carefully.
He stepped closer, close enough that warmth radiated between them.
“I know studying is ours,” he said. “I didn’t want it to feel replaced.”
Her jaw tightened slightly.
“I wanted to earn this,” he continued, tapping the edge of the paper. “On my own. I didn’t want you carrying me through another semester.”
“You never needed carrying,” she said immediately.
He smiled faintly. “Maybe not. But I wanted to prove it.”
He reached up, fingers threading slowly through her braids, careful and reverent.
“I’m yours, Elphaba,” he murmured. “Happily. Completely. But I wanted to stand beside you because I earned my place there. Not because you’re generous enough to pull me up.”
Her breath caught.
Blue held green.
“I wanted to see that look on your face when you saw the grade,” he added quietly. “The proud one.”
Something inside her shifted. The possessiveness, the jealousy, the simmering insecurity melted into something warmer. Deeper.
“You foolish, impossible man,” she whispered.
He chuckled softly. “I may have noticed you’ve been a little territorial.”
Her eyes flashed. “Have I?”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I rather enjoy knowing I’m wanted.”
Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer until their mouths hovered inches apart.
“You are mine,” she breathed, voice low and fierce.
His lips curved gently. “I know.”
“You are worthy,” she added, as though daring the universe to contradict her.
“And you,” he replied softly, “are terrifying when you’re jealous.”
She kissed him.
Not hesitant. Not sweet.
Claim and reassurance tangled together.
Her arms wound around his neck. His hands slid to her waist, steady and certain. The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate, months of affection and frustration and relief pressed into it.
She kissed him like she had something to defend.
He kissed her like he had already chosen his side.
When they parted, foreheads resting together, breath mingling, she glanced at the A+ once more.
“I’m incredibly proud of you,” she murmured.
“We have matching grades, I’m proud of us,” he corrected.
Her possessiveness softened into pride so bright it almost hurt.
She pulled him down for another kiss, slower now. Not staking a claim.
Sealing one.
Later, much later, the world narrowed to the quiet hush of her dorm room.
Moonlight filtered through the curtains in pale ribbons. Their clothes lay in a careless constellation across the floor, evidence of urgency now softened into aftermath.
They were tangled beneath her blankets, skin cooling, breaths slowly evening out. His arm was draped heavy and protective across her back. One of her legs hooked lazily over his. Sweat dried along collarbones and ribs. The air smelled faintly of poppies and parchment and something uniquely them.
Elphaba rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat settle into a steady rhythm beneath her ear. Their fingers were intertwined, palms pressed together as though neither quite trusted the other not to drift away.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, quietly, almost as if she were afraid the darkness might overhear, she said, “I’ve never had my person.”
The confession hung there.
“Nessa and I are complicated. Galinda is my best friend,” she continued, voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “She’s…important. But it’s not like this. Not like you and I.”
His hand tightened subtly at her back.
“When I saw you that day,” she went on, eyes fixed on the slow rise and fall of his chest, “doing our thing… and you’re my person… I got possessive.”
She swallowed.
“I know you’re not something to own. You’ve spent your whole life being treated like a symbol. A crown. A prize. I don’t ever want to do that to you.” Her thumb brushed absently over his knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
She finally tilted her head up to look at him.
His blue eyes were bright in the dim light. Not wounded. Not offended.
Just open.
He studied her face like it was the only text that mattered.
“I feel that way about you too,” he said quietly.
Her brow furrowed faintly.
“There’s a part of me,” he admitted, voice low and honest, “that likes that you’re protective of us. Of me.” A faint smile ghosted over his mouth. “I’ve never had someone look at me like I was something precious instead of something political.”
Her throat tightened.
“I wish I could erase the scars,” he continued. “From both of us. The things the world told you about yourself. The things it told me I had to be.” His thumb stroked over her hand where their fingers laced together. “I hate that there’s even a flicker of fear in either of us that we might lose the other.”
She shifted closer without thinking, pressing more fully against him.
“But,” he added gently, lifting their interlocked hands to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand, “if we talk about it… if we keep choosing each other out loud… I think we can handle anything.”
The room fell quiet again.
Not heavy.
Safe.
Her cheek settled back against his chest, right over his heart. She could feel it beating steady and sure beneath her ear.
After a moment, his voice broke the silence again, lighter now.
“Plus,” he added thoughtfully, “the sex is amazing—”
“Fiyero!” she gasped, scandalized laughter bubbling out of her despite herself.
He grinned against her hair, utterly unrepentant.
She smacked his chest lightly before snuggling even closer, one arm sliding across his waist, possessive and unashamed. He wrapped both arms around her in return, chin resting atop her braids.
His heartbeat thrummed beneath her ear.
Steady.
Certain.
Yours.
The last thing she registered before sleep claimed her was the rhythm of it and the warmth of his body curled around hers, holding her as though she had always belonged there.