#glizard

She refused the invitation into the same old song and dance that used to amuse him. Now, it was just a habit. For him to overpour, and for her two ask for two fingers when she did want three, negating the game entirely.

The Wizard held his glass out in the corner of her periphery. She blindly clinked hers against it. They downed the whiskey in practiced unison, her three fingers to his four. She could tell it wasn’t his first drink today. It rarely was.

The pair of them let another beat of silence pass. Glinda knew that Oscar would be the first to break it — he always was — so she waited, feeling his eyes and refusing to react to them.

“Gonna tell me what we’re doing here?” he finally asked. Glinda made a point to hand him her empty whiskey glass, which he took with uncharacteristic uncertainty. His next words bit harder, impatient. “Don’t you have a wedding to plan?”

“Not anymore.”

To that, Oscar sighed. His head lowered.

“Oh, doll…you’ll fix it. You always do.”

“Not this time.”

Again, his stare misted heavily over her. She looked out the window, surprised at how little emotion she felt. How blankly she could now think of them. She wasn’t even numb. Truly and simply, she felt nothing.

“Where is he?” asked the Wizard. Glinda shrugged.

“Couldn’t say.”

“Did he run?” To Glinda’s surprise, the question came with no tension or threat, even when Oscar tacked on, “We’ll find him.”

“And do what?” implored the blonde.

“Whatever you like.”

Glinda tilted her head back, falling into a slow nod with pursed lips.

“Whatever I like,” she muttered dryly, mulling over how cavalier and casual he offered such a thing. “What was it all for, then? If I can do whatever I like?”

“You don’t think you’ve earned it?”

Glinda finally looked up at the Wizard. Even in her tallest heels, the top of her head came only to his shoulder. Her crown, to his chin.

“I wasn’t aware that my decisions regarding him were something I could earn,” she tested. And if she could, when had she earned them? How had she not earned them years ago? There had always been a cost. Always. His ownership of her had been tied to every desire – grand or miniscule – that Glinda had ever expressed in the palace. Especially Fiyero. “You’re telling me that if I wished it, you’d bring him back, unharmed?”

A restless apathy began to fidget in the Wizard’s feet.

“If that was your heart’s desire.”

“And if I didn’t want you to find him? If I wanted to let him go?”

“Same answer, doll.”

Glinda let him take the whiskey glass from her hand. He left the window to replace them on the dresser. When he returned, he had a bottle of his green elixir at his lips. He took a swig, then offered it to her.

“Dulls the pain.”

She took it wordlessly, but only spun it around in her fingers. In that moment, the Wizard made a motion so odd that she didn’t initially realize what he was doing. Arms outstretched towards her without closing the distance, he offered a hug.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious.” He lifted a teasing brow, waving her into his gesture with further invitation. Looking him up and down, Glinda made no move to accept, so he stepped forward on his own. He was all sharp edges and gangly limbs around her — a tree trunk with branches that poked into her arms.

Oscar released her and touched her cheek. She felt his oils seep through her pores and spread underneath like a rash that would never abate, a disease she’d never shake, a rot that would always carry his smell. Alcohol, cologne, and the subtle musk — somehow piquant and hard to place at the same time — that Glinda could only describe as aged.

The Wizard pulled a cloth from his vest and, shifting his other hand behind her neck to gain a grip on her, started dragging the handkerchief roughly over her lipstick.

“Let’s get this off, huh?”

Glinda let him scrub at her lips, no doubt leaving them redder than the makeup with the force he used. She locked her eyes on him while he did it, the only indication of her ire, which she was finally beginning to let boil.

“There’s my girl,” Oscar said as he finished. His thumb passed over her lower lip, and she let herself be just that — his girl. She rose slightly on her toes, tilting her chin up, closing her eyes. She felt his breath near, mixing with her own. Then, his voice was at her brow, and his hand at the back of her dress. His fingers fumbled lazily around the velvet for seams he couldn’t find, like he only wanted to see if they were there. She clenched the vial, pressing its coolness into her palm. “Now, if you want my—”

Suddenly, with an arm like a whip, Glinda smashed the elixir bottle into the Wizard’s head…

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The Wizard removed his green suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. In his vest pocket, he had a small brown vial of white powder. He used the lid’s attachment to spoon a dose, then with one large hand, held the girl’s nose and covered her mouth. He waited several seconds. When she began to tremble, he uncovered her nose to dose her with the drug.

Immediately, Glinda’s eyes shot open with pupils that blocked out the dark iris, wide and round. Those eyes. Large and brown like a young doe. The Wizard couldn’t help but smile to see them again, framed with their dark lashes, reminding him of what he used to call her.

Fiyero clenched his teeth and, rather than setting the towels out, too, found himself compelled to be back in the room.

When he left the en suite, his view of Glinda was blocked by the height of the Wizard, who leaned slightly over her. Fiyero strode briskly to intervene.

“I’ve got her,” he said shortly, coming up to the Wizard’s side in what he hoped would be an effective gesture of dismissal. The man’s hand was hovering under a glass of water that Glinda took a sip from, prepared for her drunken motor skills to be unreliable. He didn’t move out of Fiyero’s way until she handed the glass back to him.

The water had helped, it seemed. Glinda looked a touch wide-eyed — a feat, for her already large doe irises — as if she was trying not to look as drunk as she was, even with two people who were well aware of her inebriation.

“I best be going,” announced the Wizard.

Thank fucking Oz.

The man sank out the room, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and reaching into his vest pockets with the other. Before Fiyero could even feel relief, Glinda spoke up.

“Oscar…” she said. Fiyero eyed her in confusion, for a moment wondering what kind of whiskey could make her forget his name. Then, he saw that she was looking at the Wizard, who had responded to it with a turn and a raise of his bat-wing eyebrows. Glinda blinked widely and wet her lips as if to help her speak. “I’m sorry.”

A small, fond smile creased the Wizard’s face. He nodded at her. Just once. No performance, no facade. Nothing that grated on Fiyero’s irritation anymore. Just an old, sentimental man. He looked at Glinda like a parent would look at a repenting child. Compassion. Affection.

“Good girl.”

Maybe from someone else — spoken to someone else — it would have sounded condescending; but from the Wizard who’d given her that title, to the girl whose heart’s desire had always been for the world to perceive her as good, it was a tender reassurance. Glinda was clearly comforted by it, unleashing a sigh that could have been a ‘thank you’. For what, the prince didn’t entirely understand, but Glinda wiped a tear with one hand and took Fiyero’s with the other. He brought her fingers to his lips, then held them against his chest. With a sharp inhale, the Wizard pivoted to Fiyero, straightening.

“Your Highness,” he said. “As long as Miss Glinda is keen to allow it, you are permitted to stay here. I’ll be doing away with the archaic rules against it. Seek out any of the servants if you need help moving anything from your room.”

“Th-thank you,” Fiyero added quickly, though the Wizard had already begun flouncing out the door.

“Thank you,

Your Ozness.”