Chapter Text
Glinda wasn’t really sure what made her do it. All she knew was that she hung up the phone to silence her mother’s screams, took a right at an intersection where she normally turned left, and found herself in front of a tattoo shop.
The sign read “Oz’s Oddities” in that classic font that every tattoo studio seemed to use. A bit cliche, but it had caught her eye. She’d never gotten a tattoo before. The pain had been a slight deterrent, but more than anything it was the threat of being cut off from her parents’ money if she ever came home with anything more than simple earlobe piercings.
But now she was cut off. Her ex was dragging her name through the mud to all their friends, she’d graduated college, and found herself alone with no job, a lease ending in two weeks, and no more allowance.
What else did she have to lose?
A bell rang above the door as she walked in, prompting a female voice to call “be right there!” from somewhere in the back. Glinda looked around the shop, fingers ghosting over shelves as she wandered.
Crystals, books, and flowers made from nearly every medium in the world filled the space. There were old leather-bound volumes of magic next to a vase filled with carved wooden tulips. A stack of hardback encyclopedias shared space with crocheted tiger lilies. Behind the front desk was an entire wall of biology books on plants and animals, all interspersed with ceramic dahlias. Most impressive, though, were the poppies. Poppies in every color and every form filled in any empty spaces. There were poppies made from fabric, crystal, mosaic, paper, and many more. There were poppies painted on canvases and cut from plastic water bottles.
It was like a forest had come alive right in the middle of the Emerald City.
The walls themselves were a deep green, the shelves black with gold accents. Her soft pink dress and matching pastel pink heels did not belong in this place. Glinda shook her head, wincing at the utter absurdity of walking in in the first place, and backed towards the door.
This was stupid. She couldn’t undo the unraveling of her life by permanently marking her perfect skin. Needles filled with ink couldn’t cover up the despair and anguish in her mother’s voice. Nor could it make her forget the complete silence from her father.
“I shouldn’t be in here.” She muttered to herself, back hitting the glass door.
“Nonsense.” A woman rounded a corner and strode towards her. “Everyone is welcome here.”
Glinda’s breath caught in her throat. The woman was stunning. She was short, about the same height as Glinda, with the most gorgeous deep brown skin. Microbraids were tied back in a thick bun and a gap showed between her two front teeth when she smiled. Brilliant, grass green eyes glittered as she wiped her hands on her pant legs and held out one towards Glinda.
“Hello, my name is Elphaba. It’s nice to meet you, miss…?”
“G-Glinda.” She stuttered, weakly shaking the woman’s hand. Her grip was firm but friendly. Glinda swallowed, ignoring the bloom of heat in her stomach. She needed to get a fucking grip.
“You work here?” She asked lamely, gesturing around the shop. Even as the words left her mouth, she winced. What an absurd question! What would she be doing here otherwise??
“I own the place. Bought it last year from some fellow named Oscar Diggs. Fancied himself the next president. Called himself Oz.” She rolled her eyes. “Real sleazy type, but the artists he employed did good work and the shop’s name had quite the reputation. So I kept it.”
Her gaze raked down Glinda’s form and the blonde felt herself flush.
“What can I do for you? Not many people come in at 10am on a Tuesday.”
“I’m not sure.” She admitted. “I was walking by and I guess…I don’t know.”
“Have you gotten tattoos before?”
“No.”
Elphaba regarded her carefully. Glinda squirmed under her scrutinizing gaze. After a beat, the artist gestured at a couch.
“Here. Have a seat for a minute. You can check out my work examples and we can talk about whatever major life event brought you in today.”
Glinda sat, nervous and unsettled, at the edge of the couch and folded her hands in her lap. Elphaba returned with two glasses of water, setting them on the low glass coffee table and sliding over a photo book.
“Take a look and tell me what’s on your mind.”
Grateful to have something to do with her hands, Glinda took the book and flipped through the pages. The first few were filled with nothing but full color tattoos of flowers.
“I don’t know what’s on my mind.” She said softly, setting a hand over a thigh piece of lavender flowers. “This is gorgeous."
“Thank you.” Elphaba grinned. “He and I took forever to decide on a flower, but he was thrilled with the final results.”
“Why lavender?” Glinda could not tear her eyes away from the picture. The delicate purple blossoms spread up the man’s thigh, green stems reaching down towards his knee. Somehow, Elphaba had managed to make a monochromatic flower still incredibly dynamic and eye-catching.
“He wanted something pride related, but did not like green carnations, which are the flower typically associated with gay men. We went with lavender instead, since it is a bit more subtle and represents a broader experience of queerness.”
Glinda went stone still, her hand still resting over the picture. “P-pride?” She looked up at Elphaba, eyes wide. “You do pride tattoos?”
Elphaba studied her for a moment, eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?” She asked finally, sitting forward with her elbows on her knees. “I have seen enough people get tattoos to know the signs of someone making an impulsive decision.”
“I just…” Glinda blushed. “I don’t know what made me come in here.” She looked around the shop again, eyes catching on things she missed on her first look. A pride flag in the cup of pens on the desk. Flowers in the bisexual colors in a vase next to a book on queer history. A cliche wooden sign that read “Hate Has No Home Here.”
“I just came out.” She kept her eyes steadfastly across the shop, not daring to look at the beautiful woman next to her. “Broke up with my boyfriend, announced to my entire college and my parents that I’m a lesbian, and got promptly kicked to the curb and cut out of the will.”
She laughed, a sob struggling to break free from her chest. The sound came out garbled, constricted, and confused. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she clenched the art book harder in her hands.
“I don’t know why I came in here.” She said again. “I just know that I have nothing else. No friends, no home, no family, and nowhere to go.” Another laugh. That one did sound like a sob. “I thought…” A tear broke free, rolling down her cheek. She let it. “I thought my friends wouldn’t care. They had never cared about the queer couples on campus. But I guess,” Another tear. She wiped that one away angrily. “I guess it’s different if you’re gay in high society. ‘Being different is for lower class people, never for us.’ That’s what my mother said.”
A tissue was pressed into her hand and Glinda glanced over to find Elphaba looking at her with a silent, soft expression. Heat flooded up her chest, coloring her cheeks. What in Oz was she doing?! She had just spilled her guts to this complete stranger!
“I’m so sorry!” She forced out a high-pitched giggle, though her voice cracked. “I don’t know what came over me.” Pressing the tissue to the undersides of her eyes, she forced herself to pull it back together.
“No need to apologize.” Elphaba shook her head. “Coming out is never easy. I am so sorry for how everyone in your life reacted. And I am not going to give you any of the bullshit lines of ‘you never needed them anyway’ or ‘you’ll find better’ because none of that takes away from how shitty and heartbreaking it is right now.”
She grabbed a pen and scrap of paper off the table, scribbling something down as she spoke. “It is sadly not an uncommon experience in our community. I also lost my home when I came out.” She gave a wry smile. “My father and sister are both quite devout in their unionist bullshit, but neither could find any of that love and forgiveness to spare for me.”
“I am so sorry.” Glinda said softly.
“Don’t be. I have long since come to terms with it.” She slid the paper across the table. “Here. It’s the location and number for a queer shelter not too far from here. They can help get you back on your feet. And” She pulled a wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Wait.” She looked up at Glinda, brows furrowed. “You mentioned college. Have you graduated?”
Glinda nodded. “Last week.”
“Congrats. Degree?”
“Architecture and interior design.”
Elphaba whistled. “Double major. Impressive.” She dug a card out of her wallet. “My friend Boq is looking for a project manager to remodel his store.”
Glinda took the card, squinting at the mess of a wallet. “Do you just keep business cards on hand to give out to broke lesbians who wander into your tattoo shop?”
“Sure; it happens more often than you might think.” Glinda couldn’t tell if she was joking. “And I give them out to homeless people who are looking for a job. Not all of them are, but I’ve got a reputation for hooking up local businesses with down on their luck folks ready for work.”
Something ugly bristled under Glinda’s skin. She wasn’t used to being the charity case. The ‘down on their luck’ person who Elphaba would need to help. She was Glinda Upland, of the Upper Uplands. Or, rather, she was. Now she was a lonely 22 year old with no job, no home, and barely enough money to get her through the month.
She tucked the card into the pocket of her dress.
“Now,” Elphaba continued. “I don’t think you are actually going to get a tattoo today.”
“Probably not.”
“But for argument’s sake, what would you want?”
Glinda looked back at the lavender thigh piece. It felt like such an act of defiance. To permanently and unmistakably mark your body with who you are and who you love. It was the sort of bravery that she had been chasing since she’d felt those pangs of wrongness when her first boyfriend kissed her all those years ago. She had just burned every bridge she’d ever had. Torn through the safety nets that were always meant to keep her from falling. She’d leapt, hoping they would catch her, that the bridges would hold. Instead, she found herself in the ice-cold water. Alone. Lost. Adrift.
And what had she done it all for? To prove something? To hurt her parents? To try and erase the pervasive mask she had worn for more than half a decade?
She had done it to be true to herself. She’d stood on that graduation stage and looked out at a sea of faces who had no idea who she was. People who loved the idea of her, never the real person under the facade. From that vantage point it had all become so terrifyingly crystal clear.
A boyfriend who made the perfect match, an estate she would inherit, three children tended to by a nanny just as she had been, society parties and glittering ballgowns and a fake smile every night.
A picture-perfect life. Rolled out before her like a red carpet. Security, money, safety. All she had to do was step forward.
But how could she?
How could she live a lie like that and be happy? Did happiness matter? Was it worth it? Her parents hadn’t thought so. The first time she had ever looked at a girl for slightly too long, her momsie had taken her aside, grip so hard that her nails broke skin, and told her that a good and proper lady never gave in to such base desires. That to break from the mold was the greatest sin there was, and she would not have a daughter who shamed the family to such a degree.
Glinda was meant for greatness, she’d said. A baroness, maybe even a princess, if she played her cards right. But no man would ever want a girl burdened by the sort of disgraceful thoughts she was letting herself have. Honestly, couldn’t Glinda be better? How dare she embarrass her mother like that?
She played the part for years. Smiled tightly as gentlemen as much as twice her age kissed her hand and offered flutes of champagne. Swallowed down the bile when partners tried to touch her. Plastered on a serene look when they used her body for their own pleasure, never sparing a thought for hers.
She was a good actress. Only Momsie had ever known she was acting at all. It just became part of her. Impossible to remove from the truth of who she was.
Then, standing on that graduation stage and seeing her whole life laid out before her, she just couldn’t do it anymore.
The valedictorian was supposed to give a speech, wasn’t she? Meant to make some sweeping statement about their future and where they were going and the bright lives ahead of them all. How could she do that when her entire existence was a lie?
The words hadn’t been rehearsed; they hadn’t been planned or considered or thoughtful. She put no effort into making them more pleasant to hear, or to telling Fiyero first, or even giving him the decency of breaking up first. She didn’t think. Couldn't think. Because if she allowed herself even one moment to hesitate, then she would lose her nerve.
So it had all spilled out on that stage, behind that podium, her hands shaking as she gripped the wood. Her parents, her friends, her peers, her professors, her boyfriend. They all found out the ugly, terrible, honest truth about her.
She left that stage feeling lighter than she had in years. Even now, with nothing to her name and the real possibility of being homeless in less than a month, she could not bring herself to regret it.
“I want something to show the world who I am.” She said softly, the words thick in her mouth. “I’m tired of lying and hiding. I want to be honest and brave for once.” Her hand stilled over the image, gaze flicking up to Elphaba’s piercing green eyes. “Could you do something like this, but on my chest?”
She tilted her head. “Lavender?”
“Maybe violets too?” There had been a book hidden under her bed for years. One that told a forbidden story of two girls falling in love, poems about their adoration for each other and the trials they faced to stay together. They signed their letters with violets, lest their names be uncovered and their secret exposed. The book didn’t end happily, with one girl forced to marry and sent out to the country and the other languishing in despair. But the love had been there, and it had mattered.
After the lashing from her mother, Glinda never opened the book again, but she did start wearing violet scented perfume. If only for some sort of comfort that she knew there were others like her.
Elphaba nodded sagely. “Sure. Violets have long been associated with lesbians.”
Glinda blinked. “They have?”
“Yeah. They are often used to symbolize love between women when it has to be kept secret or under wraps. In the past, a woman might send a bouquet of violets to another as an expression of desire or interest. Typically, only members of the community would know the meaning so…” Elphaba trailed off, a blush creeping over her cheeks. “Sorry. I can get a bit carried away about flowers.” She chuckled. “They’ve always been a bit of a hobby of mine as you can see.”
Glinda looked around the shop. “You made all of these?”
“Most. A few of the other tattoo artists who work here made some of them. Mediums that I am not skilled in, such as ceramics or mosaics.”
“You must really like flowers.”
Elphaba chuckled, but something dark undercut the sound. “I didn’t always. My hometown grew and exported all sorts of flowers. For the longest time after I left, I couldn’t stand the sight of them.”
That was curious. She barely knew this woman, had only just met her today. What was making them spill their hearts to one another? Or maybe that information wasn’t even something that Elphaba held close to her chest. Maybe it was just a normal fact about her that everyone knew, and Glinda was the only cracking herself open to cascade her fears and insecurities all over the floor.
Oz, she was a mess. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and sliding her mask back into place. No more panic, no more tears, no more breaking down to a stranger in her tattoo studio. She was an Upland. She was better than this. When she opened her eyes, her face was serene, poised and practiced.
“What changed?” She absently flipped through the art book, just to have something to do with her hands. If she paused for too long, her mask might slip. Florals dominated most pages, but the rest of the pictures showed an impressive breadth of style and skill.
“It took a few years, but I eventually realized that by hating flowers like that, I was still letting him have power over me. I decided to stop living in his shadow and instead be whoever I wanted to be. Fuck his rules and fuck his influence.” Elphaba sat with her hands clasped together, elbows on her knees, watching the pages turn as Glinda went through the book. They were still the only two in the shop.
Glinda understood that sentiment. She had been living in the shadow of parents, status, and expectations, all her life. They had each crafted a part of her, a piece of the greater puzzle that made up Glinda Upland. She’d stopped wearing yellow after a classmate said it washed her out. She’d taken to wearing heels after a boy told her short girls weren’t attractive. She hadn’t drawn since her father said it was a silly hobby that would take her nowhere. For her entire life, she had gained and lost pieces of herself based on what everyone else wanted.
They poked, prodded, and examined. They took parts away, replacing them with their own ideal version of her.
The worst, though, was when they physically touched her.
One pale hand lifted to rub at the center of her chest, just over her sternum. So many people had touched her. Men who felt they had rights to her body. Stylists who waxed and plucked and tanned her against her will. Her mother who scrutinized her weight, her complexion, her jewelry, her clothes. She’d taken her life back on that stage. It was high time she took her body back too.
“I want lavender. And violets. Across my chest.” Glinda said, suddenly sure of herself.
Elphaba eyed her, gaze fierce. After a beat, she nodded. “Alright. I can do that for you. But I think you need to sleep on it. And get your feet under you first.” She scrawled something on another piece of paper. “Here’s my number. You might as well have it now that you know more about me than some of the girls I’ve slept with.” She chuckled. “Reach out to me anytime if you need anything. And we’ll talk tattoos again in about two months, yeah?”
Ah. So all that about the flowers hadn’t been common knowledge. Elphaba had joined her in her vulnerability. Glinda wasn’t sure why that made her feel better, but suddenly the world felt a little smaller. Not quite so overwhelmingly large and empty. There was at least this girl next to her. The first person to hear her confession and not turn away in disgust. Glinda nodded wordlessly, tucking the paper alongside the other two in her pocket. “Alright.”
Elphaba stood, stretching, then looked down with a wry smile. “You’re gonna be just fine, cutie.”
Heat blossomed over Glinda’s cheeks as she pushed herself to standing.
“I have an appointment coming in a few minutes. You’re welcome to stick around if you want but I have to go get some sketches finalized.”
Glinda shook her head, grasping both hands close to her chest. “No, I-I think I’m going to go. Thank you for all your help.”
Elphaba winked at her. “Anytime. Make sure you give Boq a call and don’t be a stranger! You’re welcome back here whenever you need.” She waved as she walked back towards the main part of the shop.
Glinda watched her go until she turned a corner and disappeared from view. Only then did she push open the glass doors and reemerge into the Ozian sun. Blinking, she narrowed her eyes and gazed across the busy street. It felt almost surreal compared to the otherworldly quality of the shop.
Just who was that woman? Why did she make Glinda’s heart race and her palms sweat? And what in Oz was Glinda going to do about it?