Born For It
Summary: Fiyero had been told all his life that he would make a great father someday, but he had always chafed at the expectation - an irresponsible mess like him had no business raising a child. Isn't it strange how life plays out?
Word Count: 3,322
Pairing: Elphaba Thropp x Fiyero Tigelaar
A/N: This was born of offshoots I had to cut from my other Fiyero fic If I Only. I wanted to get something up before the end of January so this came together in like six hours last night lol
Thank you so much for reading!!
Warnings: Pregnancy/Childbirth
Read it on Ao3!
Fiyero had never been a stranger to children.
He may have had no younger siblings, true, but the Tigelaars bred like rabbits. His eldest sisters were already starting families by the time he could walk, and by the time he was nearing adulthood, the place was absolutely overrun with them. There were always children darting down the castle halls or hiding in broom closets, or running alongside the horses outside as messengers arrived with news from the Emerald City. There was a sense of whimsy to it, and perhaps relief too, on his parents' part - they need never fear for lack of heirs. It seemed theirs was a spring that never ran dry.
"It's your turn next," Lieryma, his favorite sister, told him once as he was preparing to leave for his third attempt at higher education. "You won't be able to hopscotch through university forever."
It was probably wrong of him to have a favorite, but in his defense, when you have twelve of them, some distinction has to be made. Lieryma was nearest to him in age, only two years his senior, and his partner-in-crime for most of his childhood exploits. It was she who showed him how to scale the castle walls at Kiamo Ko to look at the birds' nests nestled in the turrets, she who taught him how to walk into places you weren't supposed to be with the air of one who was so that no one questioned your presence, and how to lie with the air of the truth if you were caught. She got in trouble more than he did, because she was older and their parents expected more of her. No one ever expected much from Fiyero. Being the youngest and the only son had that benefit.
Lieryma had been infected with wedding bug younger than some of their older sisters - by the time she was 19, she was married to some horrendously dull Kellian with the first of five on the way. A pitifully small number for their family, but pregnancy had not agreed with Lieryma. The first had left her bedridden for months and unable to keep any sort of food in her stomach. She bled so much throughout the second that the midwives had feared she would lose the baby entirely. By the time the third had come around, her dark hair was coming out in clumps so large she had to tie scarves around her head to cover the bald spots.
Fiyero raised his eyebrows. "Don't you think we've populated the land with enough Tigelaar spawn?"
"Yes, and not one from Mama's precious baby boy." His sister smirked at his scowl. He didn't think his mother favored him as much as his sisters claimed she did, but then again, he wasn't there to see how she was before him. "Anyways, you're going to have to eventually - with the way you cavort about the countryside you're liable to end up with a child in every kingdom."
"I find plenty of ways to cavort without such risks." He grinned at her, then dropped his gaze to her belly, then swelling with her fourth. "Would you like to hear some? You might put them to better use than I."
Lieryma rolled her eyes. "You'll enjoy it. You'd be a good dad - kids just love you automatically."
"I think that's because they recognize me as one of their own." Fiyero loved his nieces and nephews, but he'd be the first to admit that what he did with them was a far cry from parenting. He played chase and hide-and-seek with them, threw them into the air or let them ride on his back while he crawled about pretending to be a pony, but he rarely stayed long past playtime. He liked being the fun uncle who let them have extra pieces of candy when their parents weren't looking. Parenthood was different. He couldn't be trusted with it.
"Besides," he added. "I'm not sure the evidence is in your favor where enjoyment is concerned."
Lieryma snorted. "You won't have to worry about your pretty hair, brother - your body won't be the one that changes. You men have it easy." She laid head back, the green flecks in her scarf almost glittering in the light. "Your problem will be finding a woman willing to put up with you."
Not much of a problem, that. In fact, Fiyero felt his true trouble was quite the opposite.
There was an irony that his wedding to Glinda was set to be the biggest of all of his sisters. Fiyero hadn't invited them, nor his mother and father. He blamed Morrible and Glinda for that - by the time he learned of his upcoming nuptials the invitations had already been drawn up, and while his apparent bride-to-be seemed to have included every person she had ever spoken to on the guest list, his own relations had fallen by the wayside. But that was an easy excuse. Fiyero could've reminded her at any point to make room for his family, and Glinda would've been falling over herself with excitement as she amended the seating chart.
No, Fiyero chose to let it go. It would be for the best. The world he had left behind in the Vinkus seemed so distant to his life now in the Emerald City. He couldn't picture them colliding. But that was as weak of an excuse as the first. No, it was … it was shame, that kept him from writing to his parents, to his sisters, to his nieces and nephews. They had not met Glinda yet. She brought it up every so often, flirting with the idea of traveling to Kiamo Ko for a few days to make introductions - the bubble made it easy, after all - but her scheduling never worked out, and Fiyero never pushed it.
The children would be dazzled by her, of course - they'd ask about her bubble, fawn over her dress, awe at her wand as she liked people to do. His sisters, having never been far beyond the cragged cliffs of Winkie Country, would look no further than the sparkling glamour within which she resided. His parents would see through her a bit more. They were royalty, they understood how to put on a performance for the public. They'd see that the Good Witch was not naturally the bastion of grace and wisdom Madame Morrible's flyers painted her as. But that be no matter to them - she was good breeding, from a wealthy, well-respected Gilikinese family, and honored by the Wizard himself, and thus she made an advantageous match for their long-since problem prince. And anyways, who ever expected Fiyero to marry a political scholar? No, Glinda was perfect for him.
That's what shamed him. He could hear Lieryma's voice, so clearly in his head: she suits you perfectly, 'Yero. It would be meant as a compliment. The thought made him want to rip his skin off. He didn't want to think about how they saw him - how the whole world saw him, and how until recently he had seen himself. It was wrong. It left him feeling ill with a deep emptiness. He didn't want to suit it anymore.
So they wouldn't be there. Ah well. It didn't matter. They wouldn't be missing much. This marriage was a farce. He knew it, the Wizard and Morrible knew it, and he thought Glinda knew it too, deep down. Or maybe he had only hoped she did.
It wasn't until later, only a day or two before the wedding, that he realized she might not. She was taking him through the newly constructed marital wing of the palace - he had thought such renovations were unnecessary, but the Wizard had insisted ( "Consider it a wedding gift!" the old man's eyes had twinkled under the light of his workshop, "After all, the Emerald City's own prince and princess deserve their own royal residence") and of course Glinda had been thrilled at the addition of even more opulence. Fiyero had learned to pick his battles.
She took him through the rooms - swathed in pink and green and gilded mirrors, grand balconies draped in velvet curtains, a bathtub the size of a swimming pool and closet the size of a Shiz dorm room that had already been stuffed to the brim with her wardrobe. Fiyero nodded and hummed in approval as was expected of him, but his mind was glazed over, yearning for even the slightest hint of black fabric - a cape, a boot, maybe even the tip of a ruffled hat - but it was a silly fantasy more than anything else. He knew that any hint that Glinda had once shared a closet with another would've been long-since scrubbed away. So engrossed in his sentimental longing was he that he nearly missed what she said.
"And then, that room over there will be converted to a nursery—" she said it so carelessly, as casual as if she had been speaking of the rain, that Fiyero was almost convinced he had misheard her.
"Nursery?"
"Oh yes - when the time is right, of course." Glinda smiled at him, but she was already moving to the next room. "There's no rushing these things."
"But -" Fiyero was staring at her as though she had sudden sprouted a horn between her eyes. "You want children?" This was the first he was hearing of it. Glinda had never seemed one to care much for kids - even with her beloved Good Scouts, she could only stomach so much with them before she was batting them away like flies and hurrying off to her next event.
They're so clingy - I understand why, of course, but they never want to wait their turn, they all just want my attention all at once. And they ask such obvious questions! I don't know why they can't just figure it out themselves …
But now, she was glancing at him over her shoulder with that coquettish eyelash flutter she had all but trademarked, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
"Well, it's the thing to do, isn't it?" She flipped a bit of her hair away from her face in a movement that might've seemed blithe if he hadn't watched her practice it in the mirror so many times. "Everyone will be expecting it."
Fiyero's head was spinning. "Yes, but - Galinda - Glinda—" he laughed, because he didn't know what else to do. "Children are not something you simply have because other people expect you to. They take time, and care, and work—" He thought of Lieryma, hollowed eyes and hollowed cheeks, hair thinning and infant bawling in her arms. "It's not something you can start and stop as you please—"
"Well, we'd have help, of course! My momsy knows a great nanny." Glinda waved him off like a bug. "And anyways, it's not something for now, but we do have to think about these things. "
And that was it, for she was on to the next thing, talking about the lace trim on the bedspread and how she intended to have it redyed to better match the floor-length curtains. Fiyero could only swallow his nausea and follow her.
He tried to picture it - Glinda with blonde-haired babe to her chest, a crib with pink swaddling, a tiny hand gripping his finger as they toddled down the halls together. There were moments sometimes where he caught glimpses of the utopia Glinda must have thought she envisioned, moments while he lay awake at night where perhaps it didn't seem too bad, but it always went sour like vinegar the longer he let himself think of it. Any child of his and Glinda's wouldn't just be theirs - it would belong to the Wizard too, to all of Oz, a symbol for something they wouldn't have any means of understanding. How could he ever make that right? How could you teach a child the meaning of good when they've been born into the vipers' pit and raised by ego's cowardice? How could he expect such a child to learn to care when he had spent most of his life in willful ignorance? When, if not for Elphaba, he'd still be living as Glinda did?
Elphaba …
His thoughts drifted to her sometimes when he was thinking of the nursery. Fiyero forced tried to force them from his mind, but they never fully left, instead lingering in the shadow-cloaked corners, steeped in longing and regret. He wondered what she thought of children. Perhaps she wouldn't want them. She did tend to shirk at the idea of convention, after all. He couldn't blame her for that. But there was such a gentleness to her, such a deep well of care brimming through her every act … she'd be better at parenthood than either he or Glinda, that was for certain. Fiyero wondered if she hated him now.
He knew it was wrong to think such things while in bed with his fiance. He thought them just the same.
Sometimes, when his mind turned back to Shiz, in those horribly wistful bouts of aching night after night as Glinda drowsed peacefully on his chest, Fiyero felt he missed her just as much as he missed Elphaba. She had seemed different then - fun, playful, silly, someone who with a single look could make all his thoughts evaporate and leave him walking on air. It had been a long time since she had left him feeling such a way. He could be trite and claim that it happened when she changed her name - I loved Galinda, but now she's Glinda - but he knew that wouldn't be fair. Glinda was the same as ever. The only change had happened within himself. There was that wrongness again, pulsing in his throat. He wondered if he'd ever truly be free of it.
…
They crossed the desert to the lands beyond.
Ev, it was called, and while it could never be Oz, it was a peaceful place, quiet and plentiful against a lapping shore, and accepting enough that a green girl and a man made of straw did not seem to cause any bother. They hadn't planned to stay very long, but once they realized Elphaba's condition, it seemed best to settle in for a bit.
The pregnancy had come as quite a shock. Fiyero supposed it was his sister's prophecy coming to pass at last - his cavorting had finally caught up with him. Still, it was ludicrous to think about. So much had happened since that night in her woodland hideout - Oz, it had been his last night with flesh! At least he made the most it, he thought wryly.
"Just my luck that I'd end up pregnant after my first time," Elphaba had sighed. "It would be too simple otherwise."
"Well, I suppose you never do anything by halves, darling," he joked, if only to hide the mounting terror in his throat. If he hadn't been ready in Oz, in his old body with Glinda and a whole crew of servants at his beck and call, he certainly couldn't imagine being prepared now that he was nothing but a musty old sack of straw with no clear plan for the future.
They did their best though - bartering for for clothes and blankets and bedding, tracking down someone in their small settlement who could help with the birth. Fiyero half-assed his way through constructing something resembling a crib out of spare wood - something that Elphaba was far too impressed with upon completion. She seemed to have entirely too much faith in him in general.
"You're going to be great," she said one night, watching him from the foot of their bed. "You have more experience in all this than I do."
He huffed. "I don't know if I'd call playing with kids much experience." He thought of Lieryma, of his sisters and his nieces and nephews. He wondered what became of them, what they must think of him now.
Elphaba shrugged. "Still more than me. The only child I spent much time with was Nessa …"
She trailed off, and there was something about it, a distant sort of melancholy, that made Fiyero frown and look to her.
"You alright?"
She hummed, nodded, but her levity felt forced. "Just thinking about my mother."
Her mother, who lost so much blood during her sister's birth that she fell asleep and never woke up. Fiyero set his jaw and knelt beside her.
"I won't let that happen to you."
Elphaba exhaled a soft laugh, squeezing his hand in hers. "I don't know that you'll have a choice, love."
"I mean it though." He gripped her firmly, looking up at her like he could keep her there with just his gaze alone. "You saved me from certain death with your magic. If I had to, I'd find some of my own."
Her labor came upon her fast, in the middle of one moonless night - Fiyero was barely awake as he ran to the midwife in a blind panic. She was a stoic, starchy old Raccoon, a refugee from Oz like them, but for all her grumpiness she wasted no time hurrying to their lodging with her bag.
Fiyero had remembered the cries of his sisters as a child, echoing from the rooms above him as they fought through their birthing pains, but nothing was so bone-chilling as Elphaba's screams as she writhed in their bed. He knelt at her side, helpless to do anything but promise her that it would be alright, and pray to any god that was listening that it would be so. She gripped his hand so tightly that her nails pierced through his burlap skin, but he didn't even notice.
It seemed hours of this, air thick with sweat and blood and tears, Elphaba gasping through her agony as Fiyero tried to guide her breathing despite his own mounting anxiety, but finally something broke. A wailing cry warbled through the night.
"It's a boy," said the Raccoon.
A boy … Once they had cleaned him of birthing fluids Fiyero took him in his arms. He was heavier than he looked - Fiyero trembled as he held him, too terrified at the thought of dropping him to risk a movement. Before he had been afraid that his rough hands would be too much for a baby, that they'd irritate his skin or cause a rash, but the child's cries were soothed at his touch. Staring down at his face, Fiyero forgot how to breathe.
Elphaba clung to the bedsheets as the midwife cleaned her up, watching with wide, breathless eyes.
"Is he green?" Her apprehension bled into her voice.
Fiyero shook his head, unable to lift his gaze from the baby. "No …"
He was almost disappointed, although he couldn't be - disappointment was so far from this moment. A part of him had hoped their son would look like her, so that she might see how deeply Fiyero loved them regardless. But it didn't matter. He was perfect.
"He has your eyes," he whispered. His son blinked up at him, gaze as sparkling as the emeralds of Oz.
He brought him to his mother, and weak as she was, Elphaba cradled him to her chest like she had done it a million times before.
"He's so little …" she murmured. "Fiyero, he's so little."
Swathed in candlelight, her braids loose at her shoulders and her blankets lapping about her waist like waves, she truly looked like a goddess. What had he done to deserve her, to deserve them?
He knelt at her side. Their son smiled up at them, the softest little giggle tumbling from his lips. Fiyero smiled back - he couldn't help it. There was a warmth in his chest, burning stronger than the brightest flame. He kissed Elphaba's temple, and she giggled too. This was right.
It was strange to be so certain, but he was.
Things finally felt right.
