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It's late by the time Fiyero finds Elphaba, buried deep in the back corner of the library's Advanced Sorcery Collection. He should have started there, he realizes, since it's the place on campus where it's easiest for her to completely lose track of time. Accessible only with a key checked out from the library team (or in Fiyero's case the promise to make Elphaba come out to eat dinner— really at this point the library staff adore his girlfriend almost as much as he does and are very willing to bend the rules just a little for her benefit) means no foot traffic to remind her that other people exist and the basement location means no changing lights either.
Descending the stairs slowly, he watches her from across the room, furiously flipping pages in a large, dusty book and mumbling agitatedly to herself. Instead of the usually contemplative, if not serene, Elphaba Fiyero usually took immense pleasure in seeing down here, this was a frantic Elphaba. And the longer he watches the more he realizes, a scared Elphaba.
He pushes off of the shelf he's leaning against and clears his throat. Her head snaps up and she immediately shoves the paper she was writing on behind her back. Odd.
He walks closer to her, his eyes fixed on the arm hidden behind her.
Elphaba tries —and fails— to sound nonchalant, "Fiyero, what brings you down here?"
"You," he answers. "It's nearly eight." She doesn't move her hand from behind her and instead of simply tracking his movements with her eyes, actually shifts her shoulders to keep fully facing him as he approaches the table. Also odd.
"Are you okay?"
Elphaba blinks. "Of course, LIE."
They both jump, Elphaba's eyes wide with panic again at her verbal outburst. 'Of course' had sounded like her usual voice, but 'lie' comes out as an uncontrolled shout; loud, sharp, and instantaneous.
"I didn't mean to say that."
"I gathered."
Her shoulders slump as she lets her head fall towards the table, her face buried in her hands. The paper she was trying to hide now crushed between her fingers and her eyebrows.
"I messed up a spell," she explains gloomily, "I've been down here all day trying to figure out what I did wrong and how to undo it."
"What, this?" Fiyero asks, leaning over her to pluck the page out of her hands.
"No don't—" she starts, but it's too late. As soon as Fiyero's fingers touch the paper he feels it, the surge of magic that makes the hairs on his arm stand on edge and his mouth suddenly run dry.
"—touch it…" Elphaba finishes, a new anxiety burning in her stomach. She doesn't need this, not today.
Fiyero is still standing at an uncomfortable angle reaching across the table, frozen with his fingers pinching the very literally cursed paper.
"What just happened?" he asks, his voice half an octave higher than usual.
"Nothing…dangerous," she answers, pleased that the spell doesn't activate again. She breathes out slowly, grounding herself, then gestures to the empty chair across from her, which Fiyero gracelessly drops into.
"I'm working on a project for Morrible, an anti-cheating spell to use on exam papers." She looks at Fiyero to make sure she still has attention, then continues. "The idea was that if you wrote something dishonest on the paper there would be some kind of alarm or notification for the professor. But instead, after I touched the paper I can't say anything untrue and it's been hours and I can't figure out how to undo it. The spell was supposed to attach to the paper, not the student!"
Fiyero blinks at her, "But now I touched the paper."
"You did."
"So… now what?"
"Try and lie," she says, silently hoping that nothing will happen.
"Umm, my name is Fiyero Tigelaar," he pauses, but nothing happens. "And I am six-foot-two LIE oh I hate this."
Elphaba slaps a hand quickly over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Fiyero quickly rattles off a variety of heights, each time LIE coming out as a reprimand no matter how hard to tries to brace against it. Finally he throws his hands up in defeat.
"Let's get some food, Elphaba, we can work on this in the morning."
"No! I'm not going anywhere until I'm sure I'm not going to embarrass myself or someone else." She flings the giant book back open, actively ignoring Fiyero's groan of frustration. She pulls a new piece of paper from her bag and quickly scribbles a list of all the things she's tried so far to break the curse, sliding the sheet across for Fiyero to look at. "These are all the counter-spells I've tried. Grab that blue book and see if there's anything in there."
Fiyero does as he's told, flipping through page after page of antiquated text and diagrams that aren't in any of the four languages he speaks. He looks down at Elphaba's list, noticing that while it's extensive, it's all anti-spell based. Nothing directly actionable within this spell itself. He closes the book with a thud to regain her attention.
"Humor me," he starts. "Let's try something less dusty. Last time one of your spells went haywire — the watering spell?" Elphaba grimaces at the memory of poor Boq being chased by his own personal raincloud that was supposed to be watering the nearby garden beds. But when Elphaba looked up at the redhead as she spoke the last words of the incantation, the spell locked onto him instead. It had taken her an hour to redirect the cloud. Boq was still sour about it two weeks later.
"Well that one got wonky because you got distracted while casting. Did something like that happen today?"
Elphaba shakes her head, letting out an exhausted sigh through her nose. "No, I've been alone all day. Though," she sits up straighter in her chair, her eyes bright with a new possibility, "like with the watering spell, maybe I was too specific? It's a lying curse, maybe telling a big truth will break it."
"But lying about my height and then saying the right one didn't break it," Fiyero counters.
"I don't think adding three inches to you height constitutes a big lie. It's barely even a revelation."
"Two inches."
"Oh!" Elphaba exclaims, "I said three and you said two but it didn't go off." She lunges forward and grabs a red book from the middle of a stack which Fiyero barely catches in time to keep from collapsing on the ground. Elphaba scans the index then flips to a page near the middle of the book.
"Oooohkay," she hums to herself, taking some more notes. She finally addresses Fiyero again. "Maybe we should just say something objectively true that we haven't said since the spell was cast. But," she holds up a finger for emphasis, "something meaningful. Big enough for the spell to be balanced against the little lies, which might end it."
Fiyero hesitates, hoping Elphaba was still too focused on working out the spell mechanisms to notice the blush he can feel spread up his neck. He could absolutely think of something that's that's both true and impactful. Something with enough weight to balance the scales, as it were.
"Got it," Fiyero says.
Elphaba immediately doesn't like where this is going as he leans forward in his chair.
"You, Elphaba Thropp, are the most beautiful woman I've ever met."
Fiyero hates to see her flinch, clearly expecting the spell to activate, but even after the deafening silence settles around them she doesn't look pleased.
She clears her throat awkwardly, "Good, I guess the spell is—"
He stares her down, refusing to engage with her deflecting since they can both still feel the spell effect lingering in the air.
"Four plus four is ten LIE. Elphaba Thropp is the smartest witch on campus," he says with complete conviction, the spell again remaining silent when he finishes his second sentence. "Elphaba Thropp is a wonderful friend."
Elphaba begins to squirm under Fiyero's unflinching focus. "You don't have to—"
"Fiyero Tigelaar loves Elphaba Thropp."
Elphaba's eyes suddenly begin to sting. "I never thought you were lying when you said that LIE." Elphaba snaps her mouth shut so fast she bites her tongue, bringing even more tears to her eyes. She blinks them away as fast as she can.
Fiyero's voice is gentle as he says "But you didn't entirely believe it either." He stands up and walks around towards her, resting his hip against the table edge and claiming both of her hands in his. Elphaba's shiny eyes stare back at him.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"You don't need to be, I understand." He watches as she relaxes a little when the spell doesn't activate. "But I hope you don't have any more doubts, now that it's completely magically verified."
"You're ridiculous," she says, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
Fiyero's smile however spreads across his whole face, "But you love me anyway."
"I do. I really do."
Fiyero leans down, cradling her jaw in his hands as he brings them together for a kiss. He lets the moment linger, rubbing their noses together when their lips break apart for air.
"So," he says, resting his forehead against hers, "we've had an ardent declaration of love followed by a wonderful kiss. By all magic metrics the curse should be broken."
Elphaba snorts and sits back in her chair . "That's not how magic works LIE. Oh for Oz sake!" She rolls her eyes at how genuinely amused Fiyero is at the spell's correction. "Fine that's not how magic always works."
Fiyero reaches across Elphaba and claims the cursed paper again, feeling more than a little offended that it isn't impressed with his sincere moment of truth. He certainly feels like helping his girlfriend's self-confidence is worthy of breaking a simple accidently-placed curse, but apparently it wasn't even worth a mark on the page. It mocks them, staring back completely blank with no hints at all as to how he would finally get them out of this basement and on to dinner. Blank, mocking paper always seems to be offending him now, ever since he started actually putting effort into his classes. With habitual fluidity, he turns the paper longways in two hands and shreds it down the middle like a shoddy first draft essay.
It rips.
As the last fibers separate the same wave of magic they'd felt before ripples through the room, sending little whiffs of book dust into the air. He turns to Elphaba, his eyes wide and incredulous.
"Seriously!?" he snarks, "You didn't try to rip the paper?"
Elphaba stares wide eyed at the two halves of paper in Fiyero's hands. How had she not thought of that? She'd looked up a thousand counter-spells and reversals, but never once thought to try and damage the actual paper itself. She holds her hands up lamely as a rebuttal fails to verbalize. Finally she just shrugs.
"How long have you been down here?"
"Hours?" she says, embarrassment seeping into her voice and she drags a hand through her hair.
"And when was the last time you ate? Or had some water?" Fiyero doesn't bother to wait for her to think about it, knowing the answer is also hours. "I'm gonna start sneaking snacks into your backpack. Good brain snacks like tuna salad."
Elphaba rolls her eyes as she begins collecting her things, haphazardly shoving pens and paper back into the never ending black hole that is her school bag. "I can't eat fish in a library Fiyero, it's rude."
"Fine," he says standing fully and taking the bag from her, sliding it over his own shoulder. "Granola, the one you like with the pomegranate seeds."
"Too messy," she counters, linking her hand into his and falling into step together as they walk towards the stairs. They're still mumbling affectionately about library-appropriate snacks as they reenter the main floor and return the sorcery cellar key to the main desk.
Even though her stomach is audibly growling by now and her project for Morrible is back at less than square one, Elphaba's shoulders feel lighter than they have in days. She lets Fiyero lead her past the cafeteria and out towards the campus side streets lined with little cafes like they've done a hundred times after a late study session; except unlike those other times, this time she keeps holding his hand.