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Winter Formal is overrated anyway.
The Ozdust Ballroom glimmers like a wish plucked from the Emerald City itself. It seems as if Shiz has spared no expense with their annual winter formal, one of the only times the students are actually allowed to use the Ozdust, instead of just sneaking out in the middle of the night and rowing across the stretch of water. Massive chandeliers hang from the ceiling, crystals catching the flickers of candlelight and casting soft, fragmented reflections onto the polished marble floor and dazzling streaks of light across the students’ skin.
Along the walls, tables laden with delicate flower centerpieces await for those tired from dancing. Many woman abandon their heels by the staircase leading down to the ballroom, tired of the shoes pinching at their ankles.
The air is alive with the score of music perched on a raised platform, the animals’ instruments underscored by the murmuring of voices and laughter breaking out like small bursts of thunder in a mess of coordinated chaos. The energy in the room is magnetic, drawing most everyone into its pull. Conversations buzz, skirts flare and twirl in beat with the music. Everyone is having the night of their lives.
Well. Not everyone.
Boq sits alone at a table near the far wall. He absentmindedly drums his fingers to the rhythm of the music, humming to himself and sitting in front of an untouched drink. He’s accompanied by nothing else but coats hanging on the back of everyone’s chairs.
It wasn’t like this the entire night, of course.
For most of it, in fact, he was having the time of his life. Dancing with his friends, swaying to the music, having to scream about the instruments just to hear what Elphaba was trying to say. It was fun. It was just like any other night at the Ozdust.
But then the music shifted. A final note lingered in the air before a low hum of voices rippled through the ballroom. Music began to slow, dancers began to part, students began to whisper back and forth. Anticipation was palpable. It was a buzz that made chandeliers glitter brighter. It was time.
The highlight of the night.
The crowning of the Winter Formal king and queen. For most, it’s a moment of excitement, a chance to root for their friends and drum their hands against their laps as a thin slip of paper is slowly unfolded, a moment to whoop and holler with everyone else before bursting into applause. For some, it’s just redundancy. After all, everyone knows who’s going to win, because everyone knows who everyone voted for, because how couldn’t you vote for them.
Fiyero and Galinda, of course.
There’s no contest. They’re the center of every room they step into, the absolute embodiment of effortless charisma. Galinda Upland with her palpable charm, who’s practically ruled Shiz since her first week on campus with her gently curled hair and her voice as sweet as honey. Just her presence is enough to make anyone’s knees weak. She’s one of Boq’s closest friends. He adores her airy giggling and picturesque smile.
And, of course, Fiyero Tigelaar. Another one of his closest friends. Undeniable perfection. He’s a prince, for Oz’s sake. Everyone loved him before he even stepped foot on campus, and they were swooning over him from the moment his name was mentioned in newspapers. There’s no doubt that nearly every woman has voted for themselves and Fiyero for the chance of sharing a crowned Winter Formal dance with him…for the chance to wear paper cut crowns and waltz together under glimmering chandeliers.
Of course, Fiyero and Galinda will be the ones dancing together.
Boq knows all of this. He knew it even before arriving tonight. He’d thought about it in his dorm, on the rowboat over, on the staircase descending to the ballroom...just imagining Galinda and Fiyero waltzing through his mind. He thought that thinking about it almost excessively might make the moment easier.
Less painful…knowing that Fiyero would be dancing with Galinda and not him.
But when the music shifted to something softer, when a swell of strings filled the room with warmth, his chest tightened. Boq wordlessly slipped away from the crowd, hardly saying another word, slinking off to sit by the tables so at least he won’t be too close to watch.
Boq’s gaze drifts from the tablecloth before he can stop himself, searching through the crowd and hitting a bullseye almost instantly. Fiyeo stands near the edge of the dance floor, leaning against one of the grand columns with the kind of casual grace that seems designed to drive people mad. To drive Boq mad. He’s seeping with easy confidence, his perfectly tailored jacket fitting him as though it were made only for this night. His dark hair gleams, catching the light so perfectly. Even from a distance, Boq can see the way his mouth curves into a soft, amused grin as he talks to Nessarose. From so far away it seems wordless.
“Alright, alright,” someone laughs from a microphone.
Boq doesn’t even realize he’s staring until he catches himself, quickly looking away as heat rises to his cheeks.
Pfannee stands behind the microphone, clutching an ornate golden box with both hands. Its contents are a poorly kept secret.
“Is everyone having fun?” He laughs, balancing the weight in his hands to straighten his glasses.
He’s met with unanimous applause and laughter. Fiyero claps from the outskirts. Boq awkwardly pats his hands against his pants in some weak attempt of applause.
Boq fidgets with the fabric of the tablecloth.
“Alright, before we announce what everyone has all been waiting for,” Pfannee hums, “I just want to thank Galinda and the rest of the student council for helping decorate Ozdust. This place looks amazing.” Everyone cheers with agreement. Galinda glimmers with pride. “Okay, okay, and a big thank you to Shenshen for tallying all these votes for tonights Winter Formal king and queen!”
It must’ve been easy. Having so many Fiyeros and Galindas that you didn’t even need to count the other ones. There were no close calls, no ties, no runner-ups.
Pfannee fiddles with the golden box, unclasping the lock. Shadows cast across two thin, finalized slips of paper. He pulls them out carefully, resting the chest by his feet before leaning impossibly close to the microphone.
“The Winter Formal queen of the night…” he begins, his voice trailing off as students drum their hands with anticipation. “Galinda Upland!”
Galinda squeals with delight, beaming under the crystal chandeliers, clasping her hands together against her chest so gratefully as she dons softened eyes and a watery smile. She is the picture-perfect image of grace. Her heels click across the ballroom floor with excitement, she practically bounds over to climb the raised platform beside Pfanne, wrapping her arms around him and bouncing in place with delight.
Boq can’t help but smile. It was always going to be her, but she deserves it. She crouches slightly got Pfannee to lift the folded paper crown in her hair. She swats his hand away as he goes to readjust it, shifting it atop her head herself. It fits like a glove. It fits like it was made with her in mind. There’s no doubt that it most certainly was. Galinda looks nothing short of a princess, her ballerina pink gown stretching to the floor and folding at her pointed shoes, ruffles and lace layered one atop the other.
The crowd settles just in time for Pfannee to unfold the next slip of paper, painfully slow.
“And the Winter Formal king of the night is…” he continues, giving a dramatic pause before a good-natured roll of his eyes, “…who literally everyone expected…Fiyero Tigelaar!”
Boq straightens up from just the mentioning of his name. He’s practically curling inward at the sight of Fiyero smiling from ear to ear, laughing as everyone pats him on the back while he parts through the crowd. He’s just glowing with praise. His eyes dance through the crowd, flickering from one person to the next, jumping back and forth as if he’s looking for something, or looking for someone. The light dances in his irises. Boq sighs softly, leaning into his palm, elbow propped on the table.
Fiyero is perfect.
He stands on the opposite side of Pfannee to Galinda, crouching down just the same to have that paper-craft crown settled in his hair. The Winter Formal king and queen. Shiz University’s perfect couple. They’re obviously dating. They have to be. Two people so perfect on their own…obviously perfect for each other. And if they’re not dating now, they will be. It’s only a matter of time.
The music slows further. The crowd parts, separating onto opposite sides of the dance floor, shifting beside each other to form a circle around them. Boq has to sit up in his seat to squint over their shoulders from his table. For the rest of the night it will be nothing but slow dances, but this first dance belongs to them: the perfect Winter Formal couple. The king and queen. Boq doesn’t need to sit and watch to know how it will go…to know Fiyero will gently take Galinda’s hand in his, will rest his hand around her her waist, and they’ll step together into the rhythm of the music.
Fiyero will smile down at her…that devastatingly soft smile…and Galinda’ll laugh, tilting her head just so that her curls catch the light as if they were woven strands of gold. It will play through like something from a fairytale, and before long the rest of the students will join them in their own pairs, twirling beside them.
And they do dance.
They dance as Boq images it, as he’s been imaging it for the past day and a half, ever since it was announced there would be a tallying for the Winter Formal king and queen.
In the center of the ballroom, Fiyero takes Galinda’s hands, her fingers fold so perfectly against his, as if they were sculpted with the other in mind. His other hand falls to her waist, hugging the curve of her dress, of her body. Her fingers dance across his collar before settling on his shoulder. For a moment it feels as if they’re the only two people in the world, Fiyero and Galinda, and for a selfish moment Boq wishes that it could just be him and Fiyero.
In some other world, in some other time, the world would be slowly, softly spinning around them. But it isn’t. And it won’t, and that aching feeling twists in his chest. A quiet, gnawing ache he’s been carrying for longer than he’d care to admit…the ache of knowing Fiyero, his best friend, is so close within his grasp and yet entirely out of his reach. Someone he can look at, but never someone he can call his.
It shouldn’t matter. Boq should be proud of them. He is proud of them. But something inside of him just feels so wrong as he watches Fiyero twirl Galinda around the ballroom, the hem of her skirt gliding across the shining marble floors with ease. There’s a tightening in his chest. He swears he can almost hear it crackiling in his ear, squeezing inch by inch, burning like flames between his ribs. It’s searing him from the inside out. His entire body is on fire just watching the two of them…imagining what it must be like to be so unapologetically close to Fiyero, to waltz across the floor with him.
It’s almost too much.
Boq tries to just look down at the tablecloth, but every second his eyes wander back to Fiyero, just to catch another glimpse at him, and then all he can think of all over again is how the two of them are just looking into each other’s eyes. He just can’t take it anymore. Silently, without drawing much attention to himself, he slinks away from the table.
He doesn’t look back while climbing the stairs out of the ballroom. No one pays him much attention. They’re all looking at the perfect couple.
Boq feels as if he’s gasping for air when he finally makes it outside. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. His breath shakes in his lungs, and it’s not merely from the freezing air. It’s from the heartache. It’s from having to sit and watch as someone you’ll never holds someone else as if they’re their entire world. It’s being forced to stomach the fact that dreaming about someone is not enough to make them yours.
Fiyero will never be his.
It’s a tense feeling Boq just can’t shake. It isn’t something he can shrug off. He can’t shrug off the way his heart beats when he’s around Fiyero, the way it ceases to beat. He can’t shrug off the way his breath catches in his throat, in his chest, in his lungs. Boq can’t shrug off the way he tingles under his skin any moment their hands accidentally brush, even if just for a moment. He savors the feeling of Fiyero’s touch, whether it’s their elbows absentmindedly bumping during class or Boq’s seeming inability to walk in a straight line leading their shoulders to accidentally brush. Just that light, gentle feeling.
“There you are,” someone says from behind him.
Boq nearly jumps out of his skin with alarm as he turns over his shoulder.
It’s Fiyero. He nearly bursts into laughter at the sight of Boq’s shoulders rising to his ears. His breathy chuckling turns to fog in front of him, being swept away in the freezing chill of the winter night.
“What’re you doing out here?” Fiyero continues, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s freezing.”
“Oh,” Boq says softly, shrugging. “It was just really hot in there.”
Fiyero raises an eyebrow, his grin softening into a teasing smile.
“Hot?” He questions. “In the middle of winter? You’re not coming down with something are you?”
Yes. Lovesickness.
Boq shakes his head quickly. A little too quickly, as if he’s trying to hide something, which he almost forgets he is.
“I just needed some air,” he manages. “That’s all.”
“Fair enough,” Fiyero hums. “Can’t say I blame you for wanting to escape all the chaos in there. It’s…a lot.”
Boq nods slowly, although his chest tightens at the reminder of the ballroom. He tries to focus on the cold air, the way it nips at his nose and his cheeks, slowing his breathing and somehow grounding him through all of this. Part of him wishes Fiyero would just go away. It’s a horrible thing to think, and he knows he doesn’t really mean it, but just having him here is making Boq hot all over again. It certainly isn’t helping things, the weight of Fiyero’s gaze resting on him.
“What about you?” Boq murmurs, his voice quieter than he intends it to be. “What’re you doing out here?”
Fiyero shrugs in an easy, unbothered way.
“Needed a break, I guess,” he says. “I don’t know, the whole ‘king’ thing —“ he vaguely gestures back to the Ozdust, “—it’s nice and all, but it just kinda feels like a bit much.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s fun,” Fiyero says. “I don’t know. I’m probably just overthinking it.”
“You? Overthinking something?” Boq jokes, finally managing to settle his nerves a little. “You must be coming down with something too.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he huffs, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.
The faint melody from the music inside manages to drift its way upstairs and through the doors. It’s nothing more than a murmur of instruments from outside, but it’s still enough to fill the silence between them as they stand there in the cold, hands shoved in their pockets and breath fogging up in front of their faces.
“I was looking for you earlier,” Fiyero finally mentions, blowing warm hair into his shivering hands, flexing his fingers.
“When?” Boq asks, straightening up a bit.
Fiyero was looking for him?
“Earlier,” he says, shrugging. “When they were announcing who was the Winter Formal king and queen…I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“Yeah…” he admits slowly, voice trailing off awkwardly. “I guess I just…needed a break from everything. Like you. It’s not really my kind of thing.”
“I don’t know, I thought you were having fun earlier,” Fiyero says, tilting his head ever so slightly. “What changed?”
“Nothing, really,” he hurries, trying to swallow the lump swelling in his throat. “I just got tired of the noise. And it was hot and…”
His voice trails off. Fiyero doesn’t seem completely convinced, but he doesn’t say anything for a bit. He just leans his shoulder against one of the columns supporting the building, entertaining himself with his own breath. Freckles of snow begin to linger in his hair, like dazzling stars casting themselves across a deep dark night. He’s gorgeous. He is as radiant as the moon, as mystifying as her sky. Boq doesn’t even realize he’s staring at him so obviously until Fiyero is looking back at him, their eyes meeting.
Fiyero’s eyes hold a galaxy entirely within his irises.
“I missed you out there,” he finally says, his tone light but genuine. “It really didn’t feel the same without you there.”
Boq heart skips a beat, but he forces himself to laugh, though it comes out shakier than he intended. Surely Fiyero is joking.
“I doubt anyone noticed I was gone.”
“I did,” Fiyero says plainly, his voice cutting through the frigid air.
Boq blinks, caught off-guard. He opens his mouth to respond, to say something in this moment, but no words come out. His mind races as he fumbles for something — anything — to say. Fiyero seems not to notice as he looks off distantly again.
“What are you doing out here?” Boq finally asks.
“Thinking,” Fiyero says after a moment, shrugging again.
“About what?” He asks, his curiosity outweighing his nerves.
Fiyero’s eyes flicker to him briefly before darting away in a rush.
“Everything, I guess,” he admits. “Tonight. I just thought tonight was going to be perfect…and I thought that I was going to get everything that I wanted. And I did. But…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know…?” he continues, eyebrows furrowing with confusion.
“It just feels empty,” Fiyero says after a second, his voice shaky.
“Empty?” he asks, scoffing lightheadedly. “Fiyero, everyone is like, head over heels in love with you in there.”
“I know,” he says, groaning after the words escape him. “Oz, that sounds so vain.”
“A little,” Boq sheepishly admits, smiling despite himself.
“I just don’t feel real sometimes,” Fiyero admits.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Me either,” he sighs, tilting his head back against the column, staring out distantly as if the horizon would give him answers. “It seems that everyone likes me…but it’s not real. They like me before they know me, so it just comes off as…fake. Like they would treat me like this regardless. And that just makes me feel…like I’m not a person.”
“Oh,” Boq breathes out.
“I just don’t want that.”
“We’ll…” he starts slowly. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice quieter now. “But I think…it’s something real. I want something real. Something that makes me have to prove myself.” He pauses for a moment. “Maybe that’s why I came out here. I just…I wanted…I wanted to see you.”
“Me?” Boq echoes, blinking with confusion.
“Yeah,” he admits, lips curling into a small smile. “I don’t know, you…it’s just easier with you. You’ll tell me when I’m being full of myself or doing something dumb. You…treat me like a person.”
“Elphaba treats you like a person,” he mentions. “And Galinda, and–“
“Yeah, well, they aren’t you,” he says.
Boq’s breath catches in his throat.
“They…aren’t me?”
“No,” Fiyero laughs, his voice warm enough to soothe frostbite. “They’re not you. They’re….different.”
“Different how?”
Boq’s pulse is racing now. His thoughts are a jumbling mess of disbelief and hope as Fiyero stands in front of him, stands closer to him. He can feel himself tingling underneath his skin, every inch of his body fighting the urge to just curl in on himself.
Fiyero steps closer. Whatever gap might’ve been between them has vanished now. His smile is softer. More thoughtful. His eyes shine with something Boq can’t quite place.
“You...make me feel real,” Fiyero says
Boq fees as if his mind is racing to catch up.
“I…I don’t really know what to say to that,” he admits, voice trembling. “I mean, one second you’re–“
“Dance with me,” Fiyero interrupts.
“What?” Boq asks, somehow startled as he instinctively takes a step back.
Fiyero straightens up, his jaw tightening for a brief moment before he relaxes.
“I…want to dance with you,” he says slowly. “Out here. Just us.”
Boq’s heart feels as if it’s going to burst out of his chest.
“B-but there’s no music,” he says weakly, grasping for any excuse to make sense of what’s happening, trying to reach for just another minute to understand what’s going on.
There’s silence between them. And in this silence…there is music. That familiar music wafting up from the ballroom, traveling its way up the stairs. It can hardly be heard under the crunching of snow, but when they’re still, when they’re silent, the music seeps through. The music bleeds through their wordless glances, buries itself beneath their skin.
“Why me?” Boq finally asks, the question he’s been trying to get through all along. Why me?
“Why not you?”
Fiyero sighs it like a love confession.
“Because I’m not her,” is all Boq can manage, his voice nearly shattering as he says it, the words coming out more like gasps than a coherent thought. Because he’ll never be her. He’ll never be the picturesque example of perfection. He’ll trip over his own two feet when given the chance.
“Good,” Fiyero murmurs, “because she,” he puts extra emphasis, “is dancing with Elphaba right now.”
Boq’s ears flush with embarrassment.
“Oh…” he breathes out.
“Yeah,” Fiyero chuckles lightly. “Oh.”
The space between them closes again. It doesn’t feel cold out anymore. Despite the snow, and the wind, and the icicles lingering at the rooftops…it feels impossibly warm. A good warm. Cozy. Comforting. Like the first gust of warm air when you walk into a bookstore to escape the cold. Like the feeling of warm mug of coffee against your hands. It’s gentle.
Wordlessly, Fiyero wraps his arms loosely around Boq’s shoulders, his eyes seeming to ask a gentle is this okay? Boq wears a crooked smile as he does the same, pulling him impossibly closer. They breathe in each other’s air. All of this feels impossible…but never in Boq’s life has anything felt more right. Fiyero’s warm breath shudders against his lips. All of a sudden, Boq finds his breathing rising in his chest.
All of a sudden, Fiyero’s lips press against his. Boq tilts his head into the kiss, hand instinctively falling to Fiyero’s upper arm, grip tightening around the fabric of his jacket. His friend — can he even call him that anymore? — cups his jaw so gently in his hands. Boq nearly melts into his touch.
Boq’s heart beats like a drum against his ribs, each thud a testament to the overwhelming warmth flooding his chest. His breath hitches as Fiyero’s lips linger against his, a soft sigh escaping between them. The world around them seems to disappear—the cold, the snow, the distant noise of the ballroom—until there’s nothing left but the two of them.
After a moment, Boq pulls away to meet Fiyero’s eyes, his hands now trembling as it rests on his chest. Part of him feels like he’s just dreaming. But Fiyero’s gaze is steady and unwavering, and somehow it grounds him. It pulls him back down to Oz, and all of a sudden everything becomes real.
“I don’t want to go back just yet,” Fiyero softly murmurs, as if speaking any louder may shatter the moment. “I mean…as long as you don’t want to.”
“No,” he hurries. “I don’t want to either.”
For a long moment, it’s just the two of them, snow swirling around them in their own private world. Fiyero pulls him closer. Boq leans into his touch. Their bodies sway in tune with the rhythm, and in the moment it is just them. No music, no crowd — just the soft brush of Fiyero’s fingers absentmindedly tracing circles onto the back of Boq’s neck.
It feels real. This is real. And Boq never wants to wake up from it.