Summary: Friends should be together forever, right? So why are you trying so hard to get away from them the moment everything is falling apart?
Characters: Elphaba, Galinda/Glinda, Fiyero, Nessa, Boq and [Your name]
Warning: Yandere themes - Obsessive, possessive, sexual?, english is not my first language so there might be some incorrect grammar and spelling.
Author's note: I haven't written anything in a while so I'm definitely rusty, there is a possibility that a second part might happen but I'm currently back in the Avatar fandom right now lol.
"Knock knock," The familiar voice of your friend, Fiyero says in that annoying tone of amusement he uses when it was time to annoy you.
You rolled your eyes but didn't move from your position on your very own workshop or rather the classroom that you begged Madame Morrible to have specifically for you and all your stuff, i.e sewing machine, fabrics and etc.
Your fingers worked efficiently as you sewed two fabrics together using your handy threads and needle.
"I told you to knock on the door, Fiyero." You merely said, squinting your eyes as you worked.
The prince lets out a feign groan of annoyance, "working again? really? it's time to take a break, pretty girl." He moved closer to you, hands moving to grip your waist and chin placed on your shoulder as he watched you concentrate or rather... try to concentrate with his movements and all. "C'mon, let us spend time together... just us two." He whispers in your ear, tightening his grip on your waist.
His touch, his words and the close proximity was making you shiver in which he didn't fail to notice considering the growing smirk on his face. "It's been so long since we've been together without Galinda and the others." His breath fanned your neck as he moved even closer, brushing hips lips against your skin. "Makes me miss our time at Winkie Country together where it's just the two of us."
Before you could utter a word, the door burst open and another familiar voice came in. It was your blonde friend, barging inside your work room similar to how she barged inside your life even with the amount of times you pushed them away.
You can hear Fiyero let out an annoyed sigh at the sight of Galinda and your other group of friends as he pulled back, "just great." he mutters, taking his hand off of your waist.
"Oh dear Oz, did we interrupt?" Galinda tilts her head to the side, smiling 'innocently' at the two of you. Elphaba gave you an apologetic smile as Boq and Nessa immediately moved to stare at your designs in awe.
"Ye-"
"No," You immediately said, cutting off Fiyero as you place your needles on the table. Might as well stop with all the company coming in. "You didn't interrupt anything," You added as the Winkie prince lets out a small huff, crossing his arms which the others didn't seem to notice as they kept their attention onto you.
Elphaba steps closer, "We're planning on going to the Tulip fields at Munchkinland, do you want to come with us?" She asked.
Your fellow Munchkin friend nods, giving you a shy smile. "Y-yeah, seeing as you've never been to Munchkinland before... I mean- you and Fiyero.." He stammers out, cheeks heating up in embarrassment at the gaze you and the rest gave him, and mostly flustered due to your gaze specifically. "wa-wanted you t- you and Fiyero! you b-both to.."
Your green skinned friend cleared her throat, interrupting his ramblings as Fiyero rolled his eyes, Galinda trying to hide her laughter and Nessa letting out a sigh. "Do you want to come?" she asked, secretly hoping you'd agree, looking at you. "You don't have to though," she adds even though she clearly wants you to come.
And that's where you find yourself in the said field, blanket placed on top of the grass as you and your friends sat down. Feeling the wind blowing your hair, your eyes closed momentarily at the feeling of peace.
You were oblivious to the looks they were giving you, how much they wanted to savour the moment forever... of you being with them, no matter how much they wanted it to be just you and them specifically without the others.
The tulips and the sun just accentuated your beautiful form even more.
Galinda smiled, dimples showing as a genuine feeling of happiness surrounded her entire being. 'I am so happy!' she thought, wishing this feeling would never end as she stared at you.
Everyone thought this.
Everyone thought how badly they want this to never end and even though you always seemed annoyed by their presence, they and you knew deep down that you felt happy.
"It's beautiful," Nessa said softly as her gaze turned away from you to look at the flowers.
Your eyes opened, "It is... I never thought Munchkinland was this beautiful." You said as you turn to Boq who immediately looked away, cheeks heating up once more.
Fiyero hums, moving closer to your form. Hand moving to your head so that you were leaning on his shoulder, "You're a much better view than some land." He whispers, voice husky as his lips brushed against the skin of your forehead.
You rolled your eyes, ever the flirt. He lets out a yelp before laughing when he felt the harsh jab you gave him on the side with your elbow. The others only snickered at the sight with Elphaba smiling, a happy and genuine lift of her lips as she watches your reaction.
At Shiz, you were just one more girl from the Uplands, tucked neatly between Galinda’s glittering light and Elphaba’s dangerous, brilliant shadow. Your little friend group; Galinda, Elphaba, Nessa, Fiyero, Boq, and you. It felt like the whole world. And quietly, you fell in love with Boq.
This is a Wicked retelling told through a Boq x Reader lens 💚
Twisted together from the new films, the original Broadway spell, a dash of Wizard of Oz canon, and my own little bit of wicked magic along the Yellow Brick Road 🌪
1. Somewhere Between Comfortable and Invisible
2. Loathing, Lighting, and a Boy Named Boq
3. Our Spot by the Window
4. Ozdust and Other Bad Ideas
5. Picnics, Midterms, and Quiet Corners
6. Already in Deep
7. Cold Air, Warm Jacket, Unsaid Words
8. Wicked, Good, Gone
9. His Name in Ink
10. You in Ink, Me in The Margins
11. The Letters That Never Leave
12. Hello Again
13. Things They Can’t Legislate
14. First Light Comes Early
15. Couldn’t Be Happier
16. Request Denied
17. No Exceptions Clause
18. The Heart She Couldn’t Cage
19. Rust in the Rain
20. The Wedding that Wasn’t Wonderful
21. Where He Should Be
22. When the House Fell
23. He Wasn’t There
24. A Brain
25. A Heart
26. The Nerve
27. The Wizard Will See You Now
28. Four Visits
29. Official Escort, Unofficial Motive
30. Heartless
31. Wings in the Sky
32. No Heroes, Only Choices
33. A Hat and A Broom
34. I Want You
35. No One Else Writes the Ending (Part One)
35. No One Else Writes the Ending (Part Two)
36. Still There
37. The First Step
38. Reinforced Beams and New Beginnings
39. We Were Supposed To
40. First Day
41. Free Roads
42. Blood and Tin
43. Bolts and All
44. The Not-Saving-the-World Parts
45. The Man Who’s Still Standing
46. All About It
47. On the Record
🩶🪓🌧️ 🩶🪓🌧️ 🩶🪓🌧️ 🩶🪓🌧️ 🩶🪓🌧️
If you’d like to be added to the taglist, please comment on the most recent update 💌
Dorothy and Scarecrow meet a man made of tin rusted still in the forest.
25. A Heart
You remember the journey from Munchkinland. The stiff ride. The train clattering over tracks like a countdown.
You remember handing your liaison papers to the gate guard, fingers ink-stained and shaking.
You remember Glinda’s face for a moment in the corridor, eyes rimmed red, smile fixed while guards talked around her like she was furniture.
After that, your memory turns green.
Hallways glowing emerald. Posters shouting THE WICKED WITCH STRIKES AGAIN. Elphaba’s shadow growing larger every time the press printed her. Glinda’s name beneath speeches you edited until your eyes blurred.
You must have climbed the stairs. Unlocked your door. Stepped inside.
But what you remember is this.
You on the floor of your small suite, back against the bed.
And Boq’s sweater in your hands.
The hem still slightly crooked where you mended it one winter night after he snagged it on a library shelf.
You hadn’t meant to take anything from his house.
You went looking for him, not souvenirs.
Now it’s the only thing in the City that still smells like him.
Ink and paper. Soap. A faint trace of wood.
Underneath it, something warm and familiar that makes your chest ache until you fold over it.
He’s gone.
No body. No grave. Just a house that fell from the sky and a pair of striped legs and people already saying Governor Thropp in the past tense.
No one said Clerk Boq.
A house doesn’t choose who it crushes.
Now you sit at your desk beneath the green glow of the City and pull out paper.
You mean to write a report.
You write his name instead.
Boq.
Ink blurs as your eyes sting.
Then another word appears beneath it.
We.
The rest spills out.
We were supposed to have a house somewhere that wasn’t painted green.
Not Munchkinland. Too many ghosts. Not the Emerald City. Too many eyes.
Somewhere quiet.
A crooked garden. Bad soil. Arguments over whose turn it was to water the plants.
He would come home with ink on his hands and the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the moment he stepped through the door it would fall away because you were there.
We were supposed to argue about small things so the big ones didn’t break us.
About flour on the wrong shelf. About him bringing broken decrees home to fix.
We were supposed to make love in a bed that belonged to us.
Not stolen nights between Palace briefings.
A real bed. A real room. Windows open to air that didn’t hum with City machinery.
There would be laughter when someone knocked a book off the table. Apologies when the neighbors banged on the ceiling.
Afterward your breathing would match.
The world would feel far away.
We were supposed to fight properly.
About fear. About the way he carried too much. About the way you folded yourself into shapes that pleased everyone but you.
Doors would slam.
Voices would rise.
And afterward you would make up.
Not with speeches. With touches.
Promises whispered into the dark.
I won’t shut you out.
I won’t leave when things get hard.
I won’t let you face the storm alone.
We were supposed to have children, if the world ever became kind enough.
Small hands at the table. Ink on their cheeks. Voices arguing over your drafts.
“Papa says this goes here.”
“Mama says the Wizard needs a better editor.”
We were supposed to grow old doing nothing remarkable.
Armchairs worn into the shape of us.
New clerks asking Boq for advice like he hadn’t once been the boy everyone overlooked.
You passing him sections of the newspaper while history tried to tidy the chaos you survived.
He’d fall asleep with his head tipped back.
You’d tuck a blanket over his legs and pretend not to notice when he caught your hand and kissed your wrist.
Your pen trembles.
You write the hardest truth last.
We were supposed to do all of it far away from both of them.
Wizard.
Witch.
Stories that swallowed people whole.
Just Boq and you.
No titles.
No posters.
No laws between you.
You sit back.
The page is crowded with ink and tears.
None of those lives will happen.
Your breathing breaks.
For a while you cry properly. Ugly, shaking grief that pulls up everything else you’ve lost.
Shiz.
Elphaba.
The version of Glinda you barely recognize.
Eventually it runs out.
It always does.
You fold the page carefully and slip it into the pocket of Boq’s sweater.
If there is any real magic left in this world, you hope it finds him.
If not… then at least the story will exist somewhere.
You hold the sweater to your chest.
“We were supposed to be happy,” you whisper.
Not wonderful. Not important.
Just happy.
Oz doesn’t care much for happy.
It prefers useful.
You curl onto the bed with the sweater clutched in your arms, fingers resting over the folded paper in its pocket.
“Wherever you are,” you murmur, “remember this one.”
Outside, the Emerald City hums.
Posters flap in the wind.
Somewhere far away a girl in silver shoes walks a yellow road.
In a forest clearing, a rusted tin figure stands frozen mid-swing, eyes turned forever toward a City he never reached.
You know none of that.
You know only the weight of the sweater in your arms.
And the steady thud of your own stubborn heart.
You fall asleep wrapped around the life you almost had.
And far from the humming emerald towers, far from the desk where your pen still stains paper with the shape of his name, the world continues turning in quiet places that the City never notices.
Wind moves through the deep forest like breath through sleeping lungs.
Branches shift. Leaves whisper. Rain gathers and falls in patient drops.
Time passes there differently.
No proclamations.
No posters.
No speeches written and rewritten until truth dissolves into something useful.
Only weather.
Only rust.
And beneath the tangled canopy, where the yellow road cuts through shadow and the apple trees argue endlessly with the sky, something waits.
Not dead.
Not alive in the way it once was.
Waiting.
Boq learned there were a thousand different ways to count when you couldn’t move.
How many times the sun slipped through the same crooked gap between two branches.
How many storms rattled the leaves above his head until water gathered in his left elbow, drop by slow, mocking drop, and then hardened there, sealing the joint shut.
How many sparrows perched on his axe handle like he was a convenient piece of furniture instead of a man who used to have a name.
The first days, panic had gnawed at him.
What if this is forever?
What if no one finds me?
What if I never see,
He refused to think your name at the end of that sentence. The word stuck like rust in his throat.
Panic burned out eventually. It always did.
Anger didn’t.
Anger settled in.
At Nessa, first, because that was easiest. For dragging him into her grief and need, for tightening her hands around his life until she’d convinced herself he was something she owned.
At Elphaba, next, because they’d always trusted her to be better. For saving him and breaking him in the same breath, for turning flesh to tin without asking, for looking at him and deciding this was better than nothing.
At himself, for staying in that house as long as he had. For folding himself small to fit beside Nessa’s chair and telling himself it was duty and not fear, not guilt, not the too-familiar shape of being needed by someone who would never let go.
Sometimes, when he was tired of circling the same three people like a curse, his fury went sideways.
At Glinda, for not seeing what Morrible really was until it was too late.
At the Wizard, because all of this, every law and lie, had started with him.
At you.
Those were the worst ones.
It would flare out of nowhere, sharp and ugly, because you hadn’t come walking out of the trees like some impossible miracle. Because you weren’t here with your red pen and your stubborn mouth, carving sense out of nonsense, saying, hold still, this is going to hurt, and fixing it anyway.
You couldn’t possibly know where he was.
He knew that.
It didn’t stop something in him from spitting, You promised you’d believe me. Where are you? into the empty air until his own silence mocked him back.
The anger at you never lasted.
It hurt too much.
So mostly he glared at a stubborn patch of sky between two branches and thought, over and over:
If I ever get out of this, I’m going to make someone answer for it.
The forest wasn’t quiet.
It never had been. Not here.
The apple trees had always talked.
He’d grown up hearing about them, his mother calling this stretch of woods “that rude orchard” like it was a neighbor she barely tolerated. As a boy, he’d walked this way twice, once with friends, once alone, and heard their muttering.
Hands off, twig-legs.
Pick your own size, short-stuff.
At Shiz, over lunch, he’d complained about them once. You and Fiyero had laughed until you cried.
“Only you,” Fiyero had said, wiping his eyes. “Only you would get heckled by produce.”
Now Boq stood rooted under their boughs, turned into something harder than bark, and the trees talked and talked and talked.
They argued about rain. About birds. About which of them grew the sweetest apples and which had the better view of the road.
They never argued about the tin man rusting in their midst.
He was old news to them. An eyesore. A lightning rod. A thing to lean a branch away from when the wind turned.
If he could have moved, Boq would have given them a piece of his mind and not apologized for the language.
As it was, he could only listen.
So when the voices came that weren’t birds or branches or bored apple trees, he almost missed them.
“…you can’t possibly be offended. You’re a tree.”
“And you’re a little girl with no manners!” a familiar rough voice snapped, a tree, offended to its core. “Coming into my orchard, picking my apples without so much as a please or a thank you,”
The orchard again.
Of course.
Even rusted, he couldn’t escape these trees.
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” a girl protested, higher and lighter than anything that belonged in this forest. “I just, Toto was hungry. Weren’t you, Toto?”
A dog barked. Sharp. Eager.
“I don’t care if he’s starving!” the tree huffed. Branches rustled like crossed arms. “These are my apples. You can’t just,”
A third voice cut in, amused and dry.
“Forgive my friend,” it said. “She’s from somewhere terribly flat. They don’t have altitude, much less attitude. I’ll explain the concept of asking before taking.”
Something twitched inside Boq.
Not a joint, those were all stubborn, solid misery, but something under the metal, under where his ribs used to be.
That cadence.
That careless tilt of a sentence that still somehow landed exactly where it meant to.
His nonexistent heart lurched.
“…and you know so much about manners?” another tree scoffed.
“I know enough not to insult girls with baskets who talk to trees,” the dry voice replied. “You never know when you’ll need them to rescue you from a pole.”
He knew that flourishing sway of tone. The careless and cool attitude.
But, it couldn’t be…
He tried to shove it down before it turned into hope. Hope was worse than rust. Rust only froze metal. Hope froze everything.
He tried to shout instead.
Sounds scraped against the sealed seams of his jaw and went nowhere.
Footsteps crunched, changing from road-gravel to softer forest loam.
“What was that?” the girl asked, closer now.
“Acorns,” the tree grumbled.
“Hush,” the dry voice said. “If the forest starts talking and you ignore it, that’s how legends happen. Where are we going?”
“Off the path,” the girl said. “I heard something. Didn’t you hear it, Toto?”
The dog barked, like yes, yes, that way, that one.
Branches parted.
A heartbeat later, they stepped into his narrow slice of world.
From Boq’s fixed place he saw them in pieces: first the dog, wiry and bright-eyed, trotting ahead with his nose to the ground; then the girl, cheeks flushed, braids fraying, blue dress dulled by dust and travel; then the scarecrow, tall and swaying, coat shredded, straw spilling from ripped seams.
He walked like someone who hadn’t entirely accepted that he was no longer made of bone.
“See?” the girl breathed, stopping short. “I told you I heard something. He’s… he’s made of metal.”
She meant him.
Right.
He was this, now.
The scarecrow took a few careful steps closer, straw crunching softly.
“Oh dear,” he said quietly, taking Boq in from axe to boots. “That’s either a very dedicated statue or a very unfortunate man.”
Boq’s slow, sluggish hope snagged hard on that man.
The voice was wrong and right at once, muffled by stuffing, smoothed by something hard-earned, but underneath the burlap there was a rhythm he knew.
“Look at his face,” the girl whispered.
Her fingers hovered just shy of his cheekplate. In the corner of his vision he caught the pale curve of her wrist, the frayed cuff of her sleeve.
“Do you think he’s alive?” she asked, voice small and fierce at the same time.
“If he is,” the scarecrow said, “he’s having a terrible time of it.”
Toto sniffed at Boq’s boot, then jumped back with a squeak when a flake of rust dropped off and hit the ground with a dull, final sort of tap.
Boq wanted to curse at all of them.
Yes, I’m alive. Yes, it’s a terrible time. Yes, someone did this. No, it wasn’t the story you think.
Metal swallowed everything.
The girl straightened, little jaw setting.
“We have to help him,” she declared. “Like we did you.”
The scarecrow’s stitched mouth quirked.
“Ah yes,” he said. “My noble rescue from decorative agriculture. My joints still haven’t forgiven you.”
Agriculture. Boq would’ve snorted if he could. Fiyero, Captain of the Witch-Hunting Guard, now reduced to hay and jokes in a cornfield. Oz really did have a sense of humor, and it was bad.
If he’d had lungs, his breath would’ve hitched.
If he’d had skin, it would’ve crawled.
Instead, he stood there, an axe half-raised toward a life he’d never reached, watching someone else move freely in the ruin of their shared choices.
His eyes, the only part of him Elphaba’s spell had left him, dragged from girl to scarecrow.
Up close, the scarecrow’s features resolved: the clear blue of his eyes, the way the corners creased with a laughter that now sounded like a defense more than a habit, the flicker of awareness when those eyes met Boq’s.
For a heartbeat, the scarecrow went very still.
His head tilted, just slightly.
Recognition brushed between them like a match struck in the dark, quick, hot, too brief to be proof, too bright to be nothing.
Then he blinked.
The moment smoothed away under something Boq had seen him put on a hundred times before: a flippant, easy mask that said, I feel nothing, because feeling something would be dangerous.
“No ropes,” the scarecrow observed, circling slowly. “No nails. No curse-written signs. Just rust.”
“Like a gate,” the girl said.
“Like a gate someone left out in the rain,” he agreed.
Boq wanted to shout at him. To demand, Did you choose this? Did she ask you? Did you want to be turned into straw for her? Because I didn’t get that choice.
The words tore at his sealed throat and died there.
Dorothy’s gaze snagged on something beyond his frozen shoulder.
“There!” she gasped. “Look!”
Of course.
The shack.
The old toolshed half-swallowed by vines and moss. He’d stared at it for days, cursed it in three languages. So close he could count the cracks in the door, so unreachable he might as well have been at the bottom of the sea.
A girl with working knees made that distance laughable.
“Come on,” she told Toto, already hurrying toward it. “There might be oil.”
“And if there’s a witch?” the scarecrow called after her.
“I’ll throw Toto at her and run!” she shouted back.
Toto barked, affronted but loyal.
The scarecrow watched them go, then glanced back at Boq.
His eyes softened, just for a second. Something like guilt, or sympathy, or the memory of late nights at Shiz pressed between ledgers and lecture notes, flickered there.
“If it helps,” he said quietly, so quietly Boq almost thought he imagined it, “you picked a worse spot than I did.”
Anger flared sharp under Boq’s ribs-that-weren’t.
You picked yours, he wanted to spit. I got dropped.
Dorothy came crashing back, hair full of leaves, clutching a small, dented oil can like it was the Emerald City itself.
“I found some!” she crowed. “In a little house. It was next to something that used to be bread.”
“Excellent,” the scarecrow said. “Here’s hoping the oil has aged better than the kitchen.”
She skidded to a stop at Boq’s side.
“Where do I put it?” she demanded. “On his knees? His arms? His… face?”
“Anywhere that looks like it’s not supposed to be that color,” the scarecrow suggested.
“His whole body looks like that,” she said.
“Then we start with the bits that need to move,” he said. “Joints. Elbows. Knees. Jaw. We’ll save the dramatic facial expressions for later.”
Between the two of them, they settled on his arms first.
Dorothy pried Boq’s forearm up a fraction, small hands bracing herself against the weight. The rust cracked like old scabs.
She tipped the can; oil dribbled in slow, thick drops into the seam.
For Boq, the sensation was almost unbearable.
Not quite pain.
More like someone poured heat into a limb that had forgotten there was such a thing as warmth.
“Try it,” Dorothy urged. “Can you move a little?”
Boq focused on the memory of bending, of joints folding and unfolding, of reaching for a pen, a mug, your hand.
His elbow twitched.
Dorothy squealed, high and delighted.
“He moved!” she cried. “Did you see that?”
“Hard to miss,” the scarecrow said. “Unless you’re blind or on the Wizard’s payroll.”
Boq tried again.
The arm creaked up another inch, axe handle shifting in his stiff fingers.
Don’t drop it, something in him thought, irrational and stubborn. You might need it.
They worked down his body.
Shoulders. Wrists. Hands. Each place Dorothy touched burned and then loosened, oil seeping into rust, coaxing grudging motion back into metal. The scarecrow braced him from the other side, straw hands steady and sure, countering his weight without comment.
Every so often, his gaze flicked up to Boq’s.
Each time, the look in his eyes carved a new notch into Boq’s anger, recognition, yes, but also something that looked too much like pity.
Boq didn’t want pity.
He wanted blood.
He wanted someone’s version of the story to be dragged into the light and ripped apart, word by word.
Dorothy grunted as she lifted one heavy tin leg enough to get at his knee.
“You’re very solid,” she puffed. “Scarecrow was lighter.”
“Yes, well,” the scarecrow said, “some of us are full of straw and poor life choices.”
And some of us, Boq thought viciously, are full of other people’s spells and unmet promises.
Finally, Dorothy tipped oil along the hinges of his jaw.
It dribbled down the seam where metal met metal, into places that had been welded shut by rain and time.
His neck joint loosened with a grinding squeal that made Dorothy wince.
For the first time in weeks, Boq turned his head.
The world exploded back into being.
Not just the strip of sky, but everything.
The crowded branches. The sagging shack. The faint, distant line of yellow bricks between trees. The nervous dog. The stubborn girl. The scarecrow, with his ruined green coat and eyes that wouldn’t look away.
His legs wobbled as he shifted his weight, joints complaining in loud metallic protests. Dorothy grabbed his arm with both hands, heels digging into the dirt. The scarecrow moved in instinctively, steadying him with a straw-stuffed shoulder.
“Can you speak?” Dorothy asked, staring up at him, eyes wide.
He swallowed out of habit, metal throat scraping against itself.
“Y, yes,” he rasped at last, voice rough and hollow. “I think so.”
Dorothy lit up like a lamp.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Hello! I’m Dorothy. This is Toto. And he’s,”
“An alleged brainless wonder,” the scarecrow put in. “But ‘Scarecrow’ will do.”
Boq turned his head fully, plates grinding.
He looked at him.
At the straw hair poking through the brim of a ruined hat. At the familiar cut of the coat, even shredded, he recognized it. At the way the man wearing it still stood like a prince who hadn’t quite figured out that the throne he’d been promised was a lie.
Fiyero.
Fiyero, bound to a pole. Fiyero walking away with Elphaba that night, choosing her cage over Glinda’s crown. Fiyero, who’d thrown his lot in with a green girl and walked into the cornfields because he thought he could take the beating and come out the other side still himself.
Boq’s anger looked at him and thought, At least you chose your ruin.
“Nice to meet you,” the scarecrow said lightly, blue eyes steady. “Sorry about the… situation.”
Dorothy bounced on her toes.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “And why were you, why did you,” She glanced at his rust-stained seams, cheeks pink. “Is it rude to ask why you were stuck like that?”
A dozen answers crowded Boq’s tongue.
My name is Boq.
I was a clerk.
Nessa tried to keep me and Elphaba tried to fix me and now I’m something between a warning and a weapon.
I was on my way to the city, and I never made it.
He thought of the Wizard’s face on posters. Of Glinda’s carefully edited speeches. Of the little girl in front of him who had already had a house dropped into her story, whether she wanted it or not.
He thought of you at your desk in the tower, pen in hand, cutting dangerous truths into shapes that might not get you killed.
“My name…” he said instead, bitterness coating the choice as surely as rust coated his joints. “People call me the Tin Man. For obvious reasons.”
Dorothy’s gaze swept him again, taking in plates and rivets and seams.
“That’s not very nice,” she said, immediate and earnest. “Did… did a witch do this to you?”
Anger flared again, bright and cold, sharp as a new-forged blade.
He thought of Nessa over the Grimmerie, eyes wild. She can’t have your heart.
He thought of Elphaba over his body, spells spilling from her mouth like apologies. Let him never die.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “The Wicked Witch of the West.”
It was true and not true, twisted the way everything in Oz was twisted now. Half-lie, half-weapon.
Dorothy’s face crumpled with sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “She’s hurt a lot of people, hasn’t she?”
The scarecrow’s eyes flicked to Boq’s, sharp.
Boq held his gaze and didn’t blink.
“Yes,” he said. “She has.”
Dorothy nodded, small hands balling into fists around the oil can.
“Well,” she said. “When I see her, I’ll tell her to stop. Or I’ll,” she hesitated, thinking very hard, “I’ll throw something. I’m not sure what yet.”
Despite himself, a rough little laugh scraped out of him.
It sounded wrong in his new chest. Thin and echoing.
“You’d do that?” he asked.
“She scared everyone in Munchkinland,” Dorothy said, fierce. “She’s hunting Glinda, and she hurt you, and someone said she’s why the Wizard is so worried and my house fell on her sister and… it’s not right.”
“Careful,” the scarecrow murmured. “You’re starting to sound like you believe you can fix things.”
“Well, I have to try,” she said.
Boq looked between them.
The stubborn child who thought throwing something at a witch might matter. The man of straw who made jokes while the wind tried to blow him apart. The dog who barked at everything and seemed convinced that was enough.
He envied them their hope.
He resented it, too.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Oh! To the Emerald City,” Dorothy said promptly. “To see the Great Wizard. He’s going to help me get home.”
“And allegedly give me a brain,” the scarecrow added. “We’ll see.”
Dorothy glanced back up at Boq, eyes searching his faceplate as if she could see past metal.
“Maybe he can help you, too,” she said. “With… everything.”
Boq turned his head toward the faint green glow on the horizon.
Emerald City.
Speeches you’d softened.
A Wizard who hid behind curtains and other people’s faces.
And maybe, somewhere in all that, a small office with a small desk where a woman sat with Boq’s stolen sweater pulled around her shoulders, writing lists of all the lives they were never going to get.
“If the Wizard can give you a brain,” Boq said slowly, “and send you home… perhaps he can tell me whether I still have a heart.”
Dorothy’s expression gentled.
“I hope you do,” she said. “You sound like you should.”
The scarecrow huffed a quiet, humor-laced breath.
“Very rigorous methodology,” he said. “If you sound like you should have a heart, you probably do.”
His eyes met Boq’s over Dorothy’s head.
For one breath, it was just them.
Two boys from Shiz. Two men turned into things that weren’t men anymore. Standing in a talking orchard on the way to a city that had chewed them up and called it progress.
Recognition sat there.
Understanding.
Old guilt.
New anger.
No names.
Just: I see you.
Toto barked at something only he could smell, then took off back toward the road.
Dorothy stepped onto the Yellow Brick again and waved.
“Come on!” she called. “We’ll be safer together.”
“Or at least more interesting,” the scarecrow said. “Variety is very important in a balanced disaster.”
Boq lifted one heavy foot.
Set it down on the bright path.
His joints screamed. Oil gleamed in the seams. The axe was wrong in his hand, too heavy, too symbolic, but he didn’t let it go.
Behind him, the apple trees muttered to each other about rude travelers and ungrateful metal.
Ahead, the road climbed toward the Emerald City, where a Wizard waited, and a Good Witch lied, and somewhere, maybe, you were still rewriting other people’s sentences and saving space in the margins for him.
Boq’s anger walked with him, cold and sharp. So did his questions. So did the stubborn, aching knowledge that whoever had done this to him, Nessa, Elphaba, the Wizard, Oz itself, would eventually have to look him in the eye.
He didn’t know yet that every step he took beside Dorothy and the scarecrow was also a step back toward you.
For now, it was enough that he was moving.
That he could speak.
That he wasn’t alone under those awful trees anymore.
And as they followed the yellow bricks toward the man behind the curtain, Boq made a quiet promise of his own:
When the Wizard finally laid eyes on him, the Tin Man would look back without flinching, and demand answers for the boy he’d been, the metal thing he’d become, and the life Oz had tried very hard to convince him he no longer had the right to want.
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Want to follow this fic down the Yellow Brick Road? 🌪💛 🫧
As the road darkens and Kiamo Ko finally comes into view, Boq’s vow to kill Elphaba.
30. Heartless
The road had stopped feeling like a parade.
Hours of walking will do that to you.
The Yellow Brick had lost some of its shine, dust gathering in the seams, Dorothy's skipping slowing to a determined trudge. The fields had given way to a low, creeping forest, the trees leaning closer over the path with every mile, like they were trying to eavesdrop.
You could feel the day sliding away.
The light was changing. That late afternoon gold that made everything pretty and a little ominous at the same time. Shadows got longer. Birdsong thinned out. Even Toto's trot had turned into more of a careful, sniffing investigation of every bush.
Dorothy broke the silence first.
"I've been thinking," she announced.
The scarecrow made an encouraging noise. "Dangerous habit. Go on."
"When we get to the witch," she said, "I think I'll just ask nicely. People listen better when you're polite. Aunt Em says so."
You opened your mouth.
Boq grumbled.
Everyone looked at him.
"No, I mean it," Dorothy insisted, brow furrowing. "Maybe... maybe nobody's asked her nicely before. Glinda said she was terrible and wicked and all that, but then everybody kept yelling about her. If people yelled at me all the time, well, I'd be cross, too."
The lion nodded, mane rustling.
"Sometimes being yelled at makes my claws come out," he admitted. "I don't want them out. They just... do that."
"See?" Dorothy said. "So we'll go to her castle, and I'll knock, and I'll say, 'Excuse me, Miss Witch, may I have your broom, please? The Wizard needs it very much,' and then maybe she'll say—"
"I'm going to cut her down," Boq said.
The words landed on the road like a dropped blade.
Everyone stopped.
Dorothy turned slowly, eyes wide.
The lion's ears flattened.
The scarecrow's head tipped, burlap face suddenly very still.
You stared at Boq.
"You're what?" you said.
He didn't flinch.
He stood there on the yellow bricks, axe in his hands, tin catching the last of the light, and said, very calmly, "I'm going to cut. Her. Down."
Dorothy's mouth opened and closed.
"Oh, my. Um," she said faintly. "I don't think that's... asking nicely."
"She's a witch," the lion whispered, as if he needed to remind them all. "The Wicked Witch. You can't just—"
"I can," Boq said. His voice had gone cold. "It's due to her I'm made of tin. Her spell made this occur."
His fingers flexed around the haft of the axe.
"For once," he went on, and there was something awful in the tightness of his tone, "I'm glad I'm heartless. I'll be heartless killing her."
The silence afterward felt heavier than the air.
Even the trees seemed to hold their breath.
You took a step toward him before you thought better of it.
"Boq," you said. "You don't… you could never live with that. You would hate yourself."
He turned his head, joints creaking just enough to betray the strain you'd missed this morning.
"I already do," he said.
That made something in your chest crack.
Dorothy shook her head, braids swishing.
"We're not supposed to kill people," she said, voice small but firm. "In stories, you... you stop them. Or you put them in a tower. Or you... I don't know. But you don't just— you can't just kill her, can you?"
His gaze swung to her.
He hesitated.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then the anger surged back up, hot and vicious, and he clung to it like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
"She took everything from me," he said. "My body. My life. My work. I don't sleep. I don't feel. I hear my own footsteps like hammers. I'm not a man anymore; I'm a warning nailed to the world."
His jaw clenched.
"She did that," he insisted. "Elphaba. The Wicked Witch. Don't tell me I can't end what she started."
You opened your mouth.
Closed it.
He'd died and then woken up in metal alone.
And neither sister had been there when he ran into the storm.
"Boq," you tried again, lower. "It wasn't just—"
"Don't defend her," he snapped.
The scarecrow hadn't said a word.
That, more than anything, unsettled you.
You glanced at him.
Fiyero was there in the slope of his shoulders, in the way his hands had gone still at his sides, straw or not. His eyes; stitched-on brows and painted pupils or not, were fixed on the horizon, on some point far ahead that clearly wasn't the patch of road they were standing on.
"Scarecrow?" Dorothy whispered. "Say something."
He swallowed.
"I," he began, then stopped.
The scarecrow never stopped mid-sentence.
That alone made the hair on your arms prickle.
Boq went on, words picking up speed like they'd been waiting a long time for a road to spill out on.
"It was her spell," he insisted. "Her book. Her idea. She looked at me and decided she knew what was best for my body. For my life. She didn't ask. She didn't care."
He jabbed the axe into the air between them.
"For once, it's my turn," he said. "My choice. The Wizard wants her broom. Fine. He can have ashes instead."
"That's not the deal," you snapped. "That's murder."
"She's murdering the country," he shot back. "She's burning fields, hitting trains, stealing animals—"
"She's freeing animals," you said sharply. "The Wizard took them first."
Dorothy's head whipped back and forth like she was watching a particularly upsetting tennis match.
"The Wizard said—" she started.
"Dorothy, the Wizard lies," you and the scarecrow said at the same time.
The lion whimpered softly.
Toto sneezed.
The scarecrow finally exhaled.
"You are not going to cut her down," he said.
Boq rounded on him.
"And why not?" he demanded. "Because you still— because you think there's some noble, tidy way out of this? There isn't. The Wizard wants a spectacle. Elphaba wants a spectacle. We're the ones stuck in the middle."
"Because you're not a killer," the scarecrow said quietly.
Boq laughed, short and ugly.
"You don't know that anymore," he said.
"Yes," the scarecrow said. "I do. You couldn't step on a beetle at Shiz without apologizing to it. You've been angry for years and somehow the only person you've really hurt in all that time is yourself."
Boq's chest hitched.
"People change," he said.
"Not that much," the scarecrow countered.
Dorothy shuffled closer to you, fingers brushing the back of your hand like she needed to know you were still there.
"Maybe we could... talk to her first," she said. "Before we decide who... who cuts who."
Your throat felt tight.
"Dorothy's right," you said. "We don't even know what we're walking into. The Wizard gave you an impossible task on purpose. He doesn't want a broom; he wants her gone."
"And I want an end to this," Boq said. "If I have to be the one to swing the axe, so be it."
"What if you miss?" the lion blurted suddenly.
Everyone stared at him.
He shrank a little but pressed on.
"I just mean," he babbled, "what if you go in there all roaring and... clanking and you try to... to cut her down and she stops you? Or she turns you into... I don't know, more tin? Or nothing at all? You're not the only one who might... might..."
He trailed off, eyes huge.
"Die," the scarecrow supplied gently.
The lion nodded, swallowing.
Boq's hands flexed again around the axe.
"Good," he said roughly. "Then at least it's over."
Something inside you snapped.
"Stop it," you said.
His head jerked toward you.
"Stop pretending death is some brave, noble conclusion," you said, voice shaking with how hard you were trying to keep it level. "Stop pretending you don't care what happens to you because you're... angry and metal and tired. I care. Dorothy cares. Fiyero—" you shot the scarecrow a sharp look— "cares whether he's saying anything or not. The lion cares. Glinda cares. You don't get to pull some grand martyr act and call it justice."
His tin jaw worked.
"Easy for you to say," he rasped. "You still have skin."
You flinched.
He saw it.
Regret flickered across his face for half a heartbeat, then buried itself again.
You took a breath that hurt on the way in.
"Then don't do it for you," you said, quieter. "Do it for us. For the little girl from nowhere who thought she could ask nicely. For the lion who hears cages. For the idiot in straw who can't stop loving a woman everyone's decided is a villain. For me. Don't decide you're going to kill her before we even see what we're walking into."
Silence stretched.
Wind moved through the trees at the edge of the field, making a dry, whispery sound like pages turning.
Boq stared at you.
Finally, he let out a long, harsh breath.
"I won't promise not to try," he said. "If she stands there and laughs. If she reaches for that book again. If she lays a finger on you—"
His voice broke.
Your heart did something complicated and painful in your chest.
"Fine," you said, because it was the only ground that seemed remotely solid. "Don't make plans you can't keep. But for now, we focus on getting there alive. On getting Dorothy there alive. No more killing people in theory before we've even reached the castle."
Dorothy nodded vigorously.
"I don't like killing in theory," she said. "Or in practice. Or at all, really."
The lion shuddered.
"Me neither," he whispered.
The scarecrow rolled his shoulders, straw rustling.
"Excellent," he said lightly, though his eyes were still too serious. "So the plan is: go to castle, avoid death, improvise wildly, try not to let anyone swing axes unless absolutely necessary."
"No axes at all would be ideal," Dorothy said.
"Noted," the scarecrow said. "We'll add it to the list of improbable goals."
Boq didn't look entirely convinced.
But he did lift the axe down from that tense half-guard he'd held it in, letting the head rest lightly against his shoulder instead.
It wasn't an apology.
But it was something.
"Come on," you said softly. "We lose more light every minute we stand here yelling at each other."
The road waited.
They started walking again.
This time, the group's formation shifted.
Dorothy still walked in front, but not as far ahead; close enough that your hand could catch her sleeve if she bolted toward something shiny. The lion kept himself just to her side, body a warm, solid line of fur and muscle between her and the trees.
You moved to the middle.
Boq stayed slightly behind you, footsteps heavy but measured, as if he'd decided that if he couldn't scare you back to the City, he could at least put himself in a place to reach you faster if something lunged from the brush.
The scarecrow drifted from side to side, scouting the edges of the road, occasionally poking a suspicious-looking shrub with a stick.
No one spoke much.
As the sun sank, the landscape began to change.
The gentle roll of the fields dipped, then rose again in a low ridge. Beyond it, you could see the tops of darker trees; not the half-tame orchards of Munchkinland, but something older, thicker, knotted together like hands clasped around secrets.
And there, faint and far on a hill like a broken tooth, was a shape.
Black against the bruised sky.
Kiamo Ko.
Even from this distance you could see where one of its towers leaned at a strange angle, where the outer wall had been half-devoured by some old rockslide. A single, narrow plume of smoke curled up from somewhere inside, steady, stubborn.
Dorothy stopped without realizing it, basket dangling from her fingers.
"Oh," she breathed. "It looks..."
"Unfriendly," the lion supplied.
"Haunted," the scarecrow said.
"Like Elphaba," Boq murmured, "found somewhere that matched."
You looked at it and thought of a girl at Shiz who had always chosen the farthest desk, the highest balcony, the most precarious tower, and wondered how much of that castle was refuge and how much was cage.
The sky was already sliding from gold into purple.
You adjusted the strap of your satchel and glanced back down the road.
"We won't make it there before full dark," you said. "We'll have to camp. Or find some kind of shelter closer in."
Dorothy squared her shoulders.
"We can do it," she said. "We've made it this far."
Her voice shook a little, but she held your gaze and then Boq's and then the scarecrow's, like she was daring any of you to tell her turning back was an option.
No one did.
"Forward, then," the scarecrow said, trying on a jaunty tone that didn't quite land. "Toward the extremely hospitable murder-castle."
"Wonderful," Boq muttered.
You took a breath, feeling the weight of Glinda's signature in your bag, the shape of Boq's cardigan around your shoulders, the eyes of half of Oz on your backs whether they knew it yet or not.
"Toward Elphaba," you said quietly.
And together, you all stepped forward, the Yellow Brick Road carrying you closer to the witch, the wizard, and whatever version of yourselves would be waiting on the other side.
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Want to follow this fic down the Yellow Brick Road? 🌪💛 🫧
On the road back to the Emerald City, you force Boq to stop hiding behind his self-loathing.
34. I Want You
The road looked different going back.
Still yellow, still neat bricks cut through green, still the same little rise and fall over hills, but the shine seemed dulled somehow. Or maybe that was just you. Or the fact that every muscle you owned had filed a complaint.
The broomstick rode on Dorothy's shoulder, bristles bobbing with every step.
She refused to let anyone else touch it.
"No," she'd said, the first time the scarecrow had offered. "I'll carry it."
And that was that.
Now she walked slightly ahead, jaw set, Toto trotting close at her heels. The lion limped beside her, tail flicking anxiously every time a breeze made the broom creak. The scarecrow ambled along on Dorothy's other side, coat still singed on one sleeve, straw poking out through the charred edge.
They talked a little.
Not much.
Dorothy asked questions in bursts. About home, about whether the Wizard could bring back someone who was really, really sorry, about whether melted witches could feel. The others answered when they could, or didn't when they couldn't.
You and Boq walked at the rear.
He hadn't said a word since the castle.
His axe hung loose at his side, not raised, not ready, just... there. His steps were even, but every few strides you heard it: a faint squeak, a grinding catch in one knee, the slight hitch of a shoulder joint that had taken more strain than it liked on the climb.
You'd offered oil at the castle.
He'd ignored you.
You'd offered again when you stopped to drink.
He'd tightened his jaw.
Now, hours later, the squeaks were worse.
You could feel him closing in on himself with every mile. The way his silence had shifted from shell-shocked to something tighter, darker. Whatever left of Elphaba on those stones, it had come back with you and settled under his tin ribs like a weight.
He thought, you knew, that this should have fixed something.
Two witches dead. Two ghosts that had haunted the map of his life, gone.
He should feel lighter.
Instead, every creak and grind seemed to prove everything he already hated: that he was still this, still metal and seams, still unable to hand you anything except sharp edges and echoes.
You watched his profile for a few paces, the green glow of the very distant city catching on the curve of his cheekplate, on the join at his jaw.
His steps stuttered.
The knee locked, just for a second.
He compensated automatically, weight shifting to the other leg, but you saw his eye pinch at the corner.
"Stop," you said.
He kept going.
You reached out and caught his arm.
"Boq. Stop."
He did, more out of habit than obedience, boots scuffing a little as he halted.
The others tramped a few more paces before they realized you weren't with them.
Dorothy turned, broom bumping her shoulder.
"What's wrong?" she asked, eyes wide.
"Nothing's wrong," you said. "We just need a minute. We'll catch up. Keep going till that bend, then wait."
You pointed to a curve in the road where a stand of trees leaned in, making a natural little alcove.
Dorothy hesitated, looking between you and Boq.
The lion shifted, unsure.
The scarecrow watched Boq for a heartbeat, something knowing passing through his stitched-on expression. Then he nodded.
"Come on," he said gently, touching Dorothy's elbow. "The sooner we get back, the sooner we can all find new ways to be profoundly disappointed in the Wizard."
Dorothy made a noise that might have been a laugh if she weren't so wrung out.
"Alright," she muttered, and turned back up the road.
Toto cast one last look at you, then trotted after her.
The three of them moved away, voices shrinking to a murmur, broom bobbing like a strange, solemn flag.
You waited until they were far enough that they couldn't really hear, then stepped in front of Boq.
Up close, you could see the fine dust of dried mud along his shins, the new scuffs along his chest where rocks had bitten, the little shiver of the joint in his knee.
"You're seizing up," you said. "Sit."
"I don't need—"
"Sit."
You didn't raise your voice, but you poured every shred of tired, stubborn authority you had left into the word.
His mouth tightened.
For a second, you thought he'd dig his heels in purely on principle.
Then, with a sound that might have been a sigh or just tense metal releasing, he stepped off the road and lowered himself onto a smooth rock at the edge.
It was an awkward, careful movement, too aware of where his joints would protest, too practiced.
You dropped onto the ground in front of him, knees complaining, and dug in your satchel.
The oil can was dented but still blessedly full when you shook it.
You unscrewed the cap.
He watched you, jaw clenched.
"You don't have to," he said.
"I know," you said.
You reached for his knee.
His hand caught your wrist, metal fingers closing around your skin.
The touch was firm, not hurting, but there was an edge of panic to it.
"Don't," he said.
You looked up at him.
"Why?" you asked, more gently than you felt.
He looked away, toward the distant city, toward the hills, anywhere but at you.
"Because," he ground out, "I can do it. I don't need— I can manage."
"You can," you agreed. "You also didn't."
His jaw worked.
"It doesn't matter," he muttered. "Rust or not, it doesn't change anything."
"It changes whether your leg locks completely before we hit the next hill," you said. "Please let me not have to drag you to the Wizard's front door like a very shiny statue."
A flicker of something almost like amusement tugged at his mouth.
It vanished quickly.
His grip didn't ease.
"Why are you still doing this?" he asked quietly. "After everything. After... her. After that house and that cellar and what I am. Why are you still—"
"Tending to you?" you cut in. "Caring? Being here?"
His fingers tightened.
"Yes," he said, rough. "Why?"
You stared at him for a moment, the answer so obvious in your chest it hurt.
"Because I love you," you said.
The words fell between you with a dull thud.
His eyes snapped to yours, something almost wild in them.
"Don't," he rasped.
Your temper flickered.
"Don't what?" you demanded. "Don't say it? I've already shown it, Boq. Several times. In multiple departments."
He flinched, tin shoulders drawing in like you'd hit him.
"I'm not—" he started.
"What?" you pushed. "You're not what? Not the boy I loved at Shiz? Not the clerk I fell for all over again in the City? Not the man who crawled out of a forest, came to my door at dawn, and left my bed smelling like cinnamon and ink and hope?"
His face went utterly still.
Your voice shook; you didn't let it stop you.
"I was ready to build a life with you before you ever came to the City," you said. "When all we had were letters and memories and the faint hope that you'd get out from under Nessa long enough to breathe on your own. I wanted you in my little rented rooms with their drafty windows and overworked kettle. I wanted you in every version of a future I could picture."
You yanked your wrist out of his grasp, not roughly, just enough, and reached for his knee again.
He didn't grab you this time.
You tipped oil into the stiff joint, watching it seep into the seam.
"You keep acting like this—" you gestured vaguely at his body, at the tin, at the funnel hat dented from the climb "—erased him. Erased you. Like I'm some sad, noble woman 'settling' for what's left."
You moved to the other knee, the elbow that had started to grind, the shoulder that had taken too much strain.
"You're not," he said, but it sounded reflexive, not convinced. "I won't let you."
You sat back on your heels and stared up at him.
"Boq," you said, very carefully, "do you hear yourself? You're not giving me anything. You're trying to take my choice away."
His eyes flashed.
"That's not what I—"
"Yes," you said. "It is. You've decided what I do and don't deserve, what will and won't make me happy, and you're making decisions for me based on a standard I never agreed to. Because your skin is tin now. Because your heart—" your throat tugged a little on the word "—is complicated."
He looked like you'd ripped a seam down his chest.
"I can't give you—" he started, then bit it off.
"Give me what?" you pushed. "Children? We don't know that. A quiet life? You wanted that, remember? You dreamed it so hard you wrote it in margins. Hands that don't creak? A face that blushes? You think I care about any of that more than I care about you being alive? Being here?"
He stared down at you, tin chest heaving in small, pointless motions.
"I hate this," he whispered. "I hate what I am."
"I know," you said. "And you're allowed to. You get to be angry. You get to grieve what you lost. Elphaba did something without your consent. Nessa did something without your consent. The Wizard used you without your consent. You have every right to rage."
You reached up and pressed your palm flat over the place where his heart would've been.
The metal was warm under your hand.
"But don't," you said, voice low and fierce, "dare tell me that my love for you is pity. Don't you dare insult me like that."
He flinched again, whole body jerking.
"That's not—"
"Yes, it is," you said. "Every time you say 'you deserve better' what you're really saying is 'your feelings are wrong.' That I don't know myself well enough to choose you. That the years I've spent wanting you, the nights I stayed up writing your name instead of sleep schedules, the way my chest physically hurt when I thought you were dead—none of that matters because you don't see what I see."
Your throat burned.
You kept going.
"I see the boy at Shiz who always made room for one more chair at the table. The man who pushes himself out of bed at dawn to read decrees because he believes the right word in the right place can still save someone. The person who ran straight at a flying monkey with an axe because it had its hands on me. On Dorothy. On anyone of your friends."
Your hand slid from his chest to his wrist, fingers curling around cool metal.
"I loved you before the tin," you said. "I love you with it. Not because of it, not regardless of it. With it. It's part of the story now. It's part of you. And I am not some fragile, tragic figure who will break at the thought of loving a man who creaks."
Something in his eyes cracked.
All the fury and self-loathing and confusion he'd been holding tight seemed to slip, for just a second, and you saw the boy underneath; bewildered, hopeful, terrified.
"You deserve more," he said again, but it sounded weak even to him.
You smiled, tired and sharp.
"You don't get to decide what I deserve," you said. "That's my job. And guess what? I chose you. Over Nessa's temper, over the Wizard's agenda, over the option of staying in my nice, safe office and letting this world eat itself alive. I choose you, Boq, over and over, even when you're being infuriating and stubborn and determined to martyr yourself."
You squeezed his wrist.
"If you don't want me," you finished softly, "if you truly, honestly, deep down in whatever you have where your heart used to be don't want me, then say that. To my face. And I'll believe you. I'll grieve it, and it will kill something in me, but I'll believe you. Don't hide behind 'I'm doing this for your own good' because you're afraid of what you are now."
The silence that followed felt very, very loud.
Wind swept along the road, tugging at your hair, carrying the faint sound of Dorothy's voice from up ahead as she chattered nervously at the lion to keep herself from crying again.
Boq looked down at you like you'd taken the entire world he'd built in his head and turned it upside down.
"I want you," he said.
The words came out hoarse.
He sounded startled by them.
You swallowed.
"Okay, then," you said, all your anger suddenly held together by sheer, thin stubbornness. "Start acting like it."
You let go of his wrist, screwed the cap back on the oil, and pushed yourself to your feet.
Your knee protested. Your shoulder flared.
You ignored both.
The city was a faint, brighter smear on the horizon now, the towers just starting to separate themselves from the line of the land; a promise, or a threat, depending on who you were.
You dusted your hands off on your skirt, took one steadying breath, and then leaned in close enough that you could see your reflection curved in the metal of his cheek.
He held perfectly still.
You kissed him there. Just at the edge where cheekplate met jaw, warm tin under your lips, the faintest scent of oil and smoke and forest still clinging to him.
It wasn't tentative.
You didn't linger long enough for him to talk himself out of it, either.
Just a firm press of mouth to metal, a promise and a challenge in one, and then you straightened.
His eyes were very wide.
"You coming?" you asked, already turning back toward the road.
You didn't wait for an answer.
You tucked the oil back into your satchel, whistled softly for Toto, and started forward, limping a little, back straight.
Up ahead, Dorothy turned and waved wildly when she saw you, broomstick lifted like a banner. The lion's ears perked. The scarecrow tipped an imaginary hat in your direction.
Behind you, you heard the faint, familiar squeak of a knee joint.
Then a soft, newly-oiled step.
Boq fell into stride a few paces back, axe at his side, the city gates slowly rising into view ahead.
He still hated what he was.
He still didn't know how to be the man he'd planned to be.
But as he walked, metal catching the growing green light, he reached up, almost unconsciously, and touched the place on his cheek where your lips had been.
His fingers came away warm.
For the first time since the castle, something other than anger settled under his tin ribs.
It hurt.
It also felt a little like hope.
🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚
Want to follow this fic down the Yellow Brick Road? 🌪💛 🫧
Glinda offers Boq a real place in Oz’s future with a job, a home built to hold him, and the first true chance for the two of you to stop surviving in the margins and begin a life together.
38. Reinforced Beams and New Beginnings
Glinda’s summons came on thicker paper than usual.
Not the cheap pulpy stuff the Palace scribes used for memos, but the good stock they saved for proclamations and Very Important Decrees, the kind that tried to intimidate you with its weight before you even read the words.
You flipped it over twice, searching the back out of habit, as if Glinda might’ve scribbled help or tea? in the margin.
Nothing.
Boq watched you from the table, elbow joint disassembled neatly in front of him, a smear of oil like ink on his thumb.
“Well?” he asked. The light from the window picked out the new polish along his jaw, turning the tin sharp and clean. “Have we been promoted or executed?”
“Unclear,” you said, breaking the seal. “It’s either a trap or a performance. Place your bets.”
You scanned the elegant script, the precise loops of her ‘G’.
“‘Requesting your presence,’” you read aloud. “‘At your earliest convenience.’ In Glinda, that means ‘now.’”
Boq flexed his fingers, reassembling the elbow with careful little clicks.
“You don’t have to drag me along if you don’t want to,” he said. “She asked for you too. Might be personal.”
You snorted.
“Glinda doesn’t do personal,” you said. “She does ‘symbolic gestures with witnesses.’ Besides, she wrote your name first.”
That made him still.
“She did?” he asked.
You held the paper out so he could see.
There it was in elegant ink: To the attention of Clerk (Y/N) and Mister Boq, Tin Man.
He stared at it a moment longer than strictly necessary.
Something complicated flickered through his eyes, gone before you could pin it down.
“Alright,” he said at last. “Let’s go see what she’s painted.”
The Wizard’s grand meeting room had never felt like it was for you.
Or for anyone, really.
It had always been a theatre more than a hall, high ceiling, echoing stone, a stage where the giant green head could loom, smoke belching, lights flaring, while citizens craned their necks from below and pretended they didn’t see the seams in the drapes.
You’d expected the head to be gone, now that the Wizard was halfway to nowhere in his balloon.
You hadn’t expected… this.
“Oh,” you breathed, stopping just inside the newly opened doors.
Boq clanked to a halt beside you.
“Sweet Oz,” he said blankly.
Glinda had redecorated.
The hideous stone face that used to glare from the wall was gone, replaced by tall windows and long swaths of pink and gold fabric that caught the light instead of swallowing it. The great round platform in the center of the room remained, but the edges had been softened, curving benches instead of cold marble steps, little tables scattered like invites instead of barricades.
Light poured in, washing the room in rose glow instead of sickly green.
It looked less like a place you came to be judged and more like somewhere you might, begrudgingly, feel safe telling the truth.
On the far side of the room, Glinda sat in one of the curved benches, skirts spilling around her like a pink sunrise. She looked up when you entered.
Her smile tugged crooked around the edges.
“You came,” she said. “Good. Good good. That saves me sending a guard, and I’ve had quite enough of men with spears for one lifetime.”
“Calling us with Very Important Paper tends to work,” you said, stepping down from the doorway. “You’ve redecorated.”
She glanced around as if she’d forgotten.
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. It was this or let them put my face where his was, and I thought Oz had suffered enough.”
Boq’s funnel hat tipped back a fraction as he took in the pink, the gold, the utter absence of flame and smoke.
“It’s… different,” he said carefully.
Glinda’s eyes flicked to him.
“Masterful observation, Mister Tin Man,” she said dryly. Then, softer, “Thank you for coming.”
You hesitated by the nearest bench.
Boq stayed where he was, on the edge of the platform, too big and too careful for the dainty furniture, shoulders drawn tight.
Glinda noticed.
Of course she did.
“There,” she said, patting the curved bench across from her. “Sit. Tin Man can hover menacingly nearby if he likes. I assume he does that anyway.”
You shot Boq a look.
His hands flexed once at his sides, then settled.
“I’ll stand,” he said. “If it’s all the same.”
Glinda’s gaze softened the smallest bit.
“As you wish,” she said. “There’s no Wizard here anymore. No one’s going to shout if you don’t sit in the right place.”
You lowered yourself onto the bench.
The cushion was new.
It did not squeak.
Somehow that made you more nervous.
“What’s this about?” you asked, fingers lacing together in your lap. “We can only handle so much upheaval before breakfast, Glinda.”
She smoothed her skirts once, twice, as if trying to press her thoughts into place.
When she looked up again, the room’s pink glow didn’t soften the lines of exhaustion around her eyes.
“I need to give some things back,” she said.
You blinked.
“That’s… new,” you said. “Usually people in your position keep them.”
“I tried that,” she said. “Didn’t sleep for three nights. Turns out guilty conscience is very bad for the complexion.”
Her gaze moved past you to Boq.
“In the interest of beginning with something small and manageable,” she went on, “I thought I’d start with promises I can keep.”
Boq straightened a fraction.
Metal caught the light along his chestplate, flashing heart shaped where the watch lay underneath.
“I don’t follow,” he said.
Glinda took a breath.
“When I stood in that square and told Oz to fear the Witch,” she said quietly, “I used you as part of that fear. I let them see the axe and the tin and the anger and I said, look; he is what happens when we don’t listen to good authority. I let you be a warning instead of a person.”
Boq’s fingers twitched.
Your own hands curled into fists in your lap.
“Glinda,” you began.
She held up a hand.
“I’m not asking for absolution,” she said. “I’m not… that naive. I’m saying I won’t do it again. And I intend to prove that by offering you something that has nothing to do with broomsticks or heads or any of the mess we’ve just crawled out of.”
She gestured around the room.
“Oz needs boring people now,” she said. “Desperately. Clerks. Inspectors. People who read contracts before signing them and notice when words like ‘wicked’ and ‘traitor’ slip into law where they don’t belong.”
You could feel where she was angling.
Your shoulders tightened.
She looked at Boq as if there were no one else in the room.
“I’d like you to be one of those people,” she said. “Officially. Not as someone trapped in a provincial office under a Governor who never let you leave, but as a citizen of the Emerald City. With a job that uses your maddening sense of detail, and a home that doesn’t expect you to fit into furniture meant for someone else.”
Boq stared at her.
“I’m… not a clerk anymore,” he said slowly. “I’m tin. I wield an axe. I frighten children.”
“Children who ask to touch your arm and then squeal,” you muttered. “There’s a difference.”
He ignored you.
Glinda did not.
“You’re a man who survived what Oz did to him,” she said. “You’re also someone who knows exactly how dangerous the wrong line in a proclamation can be. I need that.”
She lifted her chin, a flicker of the old Galinda spark in her eyes.
“I’m offering you a position,” she said. “Chief…” She wrinkled her nose. “No, that sounds too grand. Senior legislative adviser. You’d help draft and review new laws. Especially anything having to do with Animals, Munchkins, and… people who’ve been caught between magic and administration.”
His jaw clicked softly.
“And the… home?” he managed.
Glinda’s smile crooked.
“Ah,” she said. “Yes. That.”
She leaned back, gesturing vaguely toward the Palace’s far side.
“The Wizard had a set of guest quarters built into the north wing that he never used,” she said. “Too close to the kitchens. He preferred the tower, where he could glower down on people. They’re solid. The beams are thick enough to hold three lions, two scarecrows, and a tin man doing jumping jacks. I checked.”
You choked on absolutely nothing.
Boq made a horrified strangled sound.
“Why,” he demanded, “would you measure that.”
“Because I wanted to see if they’d hold,” Glinda said, as if it were obvious. “You’re not… light. And I learned some things from watching him put Nessa in charge of Munchkinland. If I’m going to invite someone into my government, I’m not going to make them do it from a chair built to collapse under them.”
Something in your chest eased.
You hadn’t realized how much tension you’d brought into the room until it started to leave.
“So you want to put him in a job,” you said. “And you’re giving him somewhere to live. This feels suspiciously like… respect.”
“Yes, well,” Glinda said, picking at an imaginary thread on her sleeve. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
Boq still hadn’t moved.
His fingers flexed once, twice.
“What’s the catch?” he asked.
Glinda’s eyes met his.
“No catch,” she said. “Just the understanding that if I ask you to help me write a law that hurts people like you, you’ll tell me the truth.”
Her voice wobbled just a little on the last word.
“And,” she added, softer, “that you’ll let her…” she tipped her chin at you “help you when your joints seize up and your stubbornness makes you pretend they aren’t.”
Heat crawled up your neck.
Boq’s gaze flicked to you, then back.
He stood there in the middle of the pink washed room, a man made of tin and spite and carefully mended hope, and you watched him weigh every part of himself against the offer.
At last, slowly, he nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “On three conditions.”
Glinda’s brows shot up.
“Three?” she echoed.
He lifted a finger.
“One: I won’t be used as a prop,” he said. “No more waving my axe from balconies to make a point. If you ask me to stand behind you, it will be because I’m part of what you’re saying, not the proof that someone else should be afraid.”
Glinda inclined her head.
“Agreed,” she said.
“Two,” he said, second finger rising. “I get to read whatever Animal legislation crosses your desk before it’s signed. All of it. Not just the parts written in letters big enough to show on posters.”
A muscle jumped in her cheek.
“Agreed,” she said again, after a heartbeat.
He hesitated on the third.
His eyes slid to you.
You stared right back, heart thudding.
“Three,” he said. “Any… domestic arrangements I make are my own business. Not fodder for rumor. If people assume things, you won’t… use them.”
Your breath caught.
Glinda’s gaze moved between the two of you.
For a moment, something like amusement sparked under her tiredness.
“I see,” she said. “So you’ll need reinforced furniture and strategically placed curtains.”
“Glinda,” you hissed.
She laughed, quick and short, the sound cracking down the middle.
“Fine,” she said. “Agreed. Your personal life is yours, unless it threatens to bring down the ceiling, in which case I reserve the right to complain about the plaster.”
Boq’s shoulders loosened.
“Then yes,” he said simply. “I accept.”
Something in the room shifted.
Not magic.
Just… direction.
Like the world had been tilted, and someone had finally shoved a wedge under it to stop the slide.
Glinda let out a breath you hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Good,” she said. “Very good. Excellent, even. I’d hug you, but I’ve seen what tin does to silk.”
She rose, smoothing her skirts automatically.
“Come on,” she said. “Let me show you your new kingdom of boring paperwork and solid beams.”
The north wing smelled like fresh plaster and old stone.
Glinda walked ahead, talking as she went, about the staff who’d clean the rooms, about the cooks who would complain about having another person to feed and then quietly double their recipes, about the tailor who was already designing “formalwear that won’t shred when he moves his arms.”
Boq followed with a careful, measured clank.
You walked beside him, half a step behind.
“Here,” Glinda said at last, stopping before a heavy door with new hinges. “This is yours, if you want it.”
She pushed it open with a little flourish.
Inside was light.
And space.
The main room was larger than your entire suite, with a proper hearth, thick rugs, a table that looked like it had been built to hold three elephants and a very enthusiastic party. The chairs had wide, solid legs. The bed, visible through an open doorway, had a reinforced frame, sturdy posts, and a mattress that didn’t squeak when Glinda bounced her palm on it to demonstrate.
“I had them test it,” she said. “With sacks of grain. And a cow.”
You blinked.
“A cow,” you repeated.
“It was very patient,” she said. “Probably confused, but patient.”
Boq took two slow steps into the room.
His feet made soft thuds on the rug.
He looked at the hearth, at the table, at the bed, at the windows that overlooked a small internal garden instead of the main street.
“What if I… dent something?” he asked.
Glinda shrugged.
“Then we fix it,” she said. “Or we leave the dent and call it character. Either way, it’s better than you rusting on a mountainside.”
He swallowed, pointless, but still.
You watched the way his hand brushed the back of one of the chairs, fingers tracing the grain as if testing the weight.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Glinda added, stepping back toward the door. “Keep the key. Think about it. Or move in tonight and terrify the laundry staff. Up to you.”
She pressed the metal into his hand before he could protest.
Then she turned to you.
“And you,” she said. “I expect you back in my office after lunch unless you’ve eloped or been eaten by a lion. If you have eloped, I want the story. If you’ve been eaten… well, that’d be disappointing.”
You stared at her.
She smiled, small and wry.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured. “I can do some things right.”
She left before you could say thank you.
The door clicked shut behind her, leaving you and Boq in the middle of a room that smelled like wood polish and possibility.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Boq turned the key over in his palm, the metal bright against tin.
“Well,” you said at last. “Reinforced furniture. She wasn’t joking.”
He huffed something almost like a laugh.
“No,” he said. “She wasn’t.”
He walked a slow circle, testing the give of the rug, the width of the doorway, the distance from hearth to table. His movements were smoother now, the craftman’s work and your nightly oiling paying off in glides instead of catches.
Finally, he stopped by the window, looking out at the little garden, the patch of green tucked inside the Palace walls, flowers already trying to reclaim the stones.
“So,” you said, coming to stand beside him. “What do you think?”
He was quiet long enough that you turned to study his face.
Grey eyes, familiar lines, the faint gleam where the shopkeeper had polished away the worst scars.
“It’s…” he began, then trailed off.
You waited.
“Strange,” he said finally. “To have somewhere… offered. Instead of assigned. To imagine putting things in drawers and expecting them to be there when I come back.”
Your throat got tight.
“You could,” you said. “Put things in drawers. Expect them. Expect… me.”
His hand twitched on the windowsill.
He didn’t look at you, but his voice went softer.
“It’s closer to your office,” he said. “To Glinda’s. To… everything.”
“Yes,” you said. “It is.”
“And it has…” He gestured vaguely around. “Space. For chairs. And tables. And… guests.”
You bit back a smile.
“Boq,” you said. “Are you asking me to move in, or just hinting until we both rust?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up helplessly.
“I’m not…” he started, then gave up and looked at you fully.
His eyes were very clear in the pink washed light.
“I’m saying,” he said slowly, “that if you wanted to… not have to walk across half the City every night to get home… I wouldn’t mind. At all. In the slightest. Ever.”
Warmth flooded your chest like sunlight.
“You wouldn’t,” you said, pretending to consider. “Even if I put annotated bills on your table and left ink on your bed linens?”
He stepped closer.
“I’d be offended if you didn’t,” he said.
Your heart did something very undignified.
You reached up and tapped the key still resting in his palm.
“Then we’ll need two copies,” you said. “Equal access. It’s in the contract.”
He laughed, a real, surprised sound that made something new and fragile settle between you.
“Senior legislative adviser,” he said. “Already negotiating terms.”
You rose on your toes and pressed a quick kiss to the edge of his jawplate.
“Someone has to keep up with you,” you murmured.
His hand came up, hovering at your waist like he was still getting used to the fact that you weren’t going to break under him.
“We don’t have to rush,” he said quietly.
“We’ve been rushing in circles for seven years,” you said. “I think it’s alright if we try walking in a straight line for once.”
He huffed, amused and wrecked.
“Walk, then,” he said. “With me.”
You turned to the window again, shoulder brushing his, looking out at the small garden that would now, somehow, be part of your orbit.
A job for him. A room built to hold his weight. A key between his fingers.
A life that, for the first time in a long while, didn’t feel like something snatched in the margins, but like something you might be allowed to write on the main page.
Behind you, the old Wizard’s head was gone.
Ahead of you, the city was still a mess.
Between the two, in a pink washed room with reinforced furniture, the Tin Man stood beside you and, without quite saying the words, asked you to stay.
You slid your fingers between his.
“I will,” you said, to the window, to him, to yourself.
His hand tightened around yours.
Outside, somewhere in the maze of streets and towers, the bells of Emerald City chimed the hour.
For once, they didn’t sound like an ending.
They sounded like a beginning.
🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚 🌪️ 🌈 💚
Want to follow this fic down the Yellow Brick Road? 🌪💛 🫧
On Boq’s first day in his new role, a councilor’s flirtation exposes his fear that his tin body has changed what he can be to you, leading the two of you to choose honesty, intimacy, and the ordinary future you still mean to build together.
40. First Day
You woke up to the sound of metal moving through fabric.
Not clanking, he'd gotten better about that. Just the soft slide of tin against the linen sheet, the quiet shirr of him pulling his arm free from where it had been tucked under you.
You frowned into the pillow.
"No," you mumbled. "Absolutely not. We protest."
Beside you, Boq went very still.
"I'm not doing anything," he said, voice low and amused. "I'm just existing."
You cracked an eye open.
He was half-sitting on the edge of the bed, back to you, morning light pouring over the new room in soft gold. The sheet had fallen to his waist. Above it, his spine and shoulders caught the light in clean planes and fitted seams, freshly polished tin gleaming along every line you'd learned with your hands over the last few nights.
Currently, he was staring down at his own chest.
"You're glaring at yourself," you said.
He twitched.
"I'm trying to decide if I need a uniform," he muttered.
You propped yourself up on your elbows, watching.
"For what?" you asked. "You're literally made of armour."
"That's not the same," he protested. "Guards have uniforms. Councilors have robes. Glinda has... whatever that is."
"Weaponized satin," you said.
"Exactly," he said. "And I have..." He gestured helplessly at his bare tin torso. "This."
You bit back a smile.
"Boq," you said. "You're going to sit behind a desk and argue about commas. You don't need a breastplate on top of your... breastplate."
He huffed.
"It's my first day," he said. "They'll all be watching. I should look like I belong."
You slid closer, sheet rustling, until you could wrap your arms around his middle from behind. Tin was cool where your cheek pressed between his shoulder blades, but the faint steam at his joints warmed the air.
"You do," you said.
He rested his hands lightly over yours.
"You're biased," he murmured.
"Violently," you agreed. "Also correct."
You felt more than saw the way his posture eased, the tension in his shoulders bleeding out an inch at a time.
"Glinda said no uniforms," you added. "Her exact words were, 'If he wants to wear something, he can. But if anyone expects him to, I'll hit them with my wand.'"
"I'm not sure that's a legal enforcement mechanism," he said.
"I am," you replied. "I've seen her do it. Trust me, you're fine."
He sighed, long and theatrical.
"Fine," he said. "No uniform. Just me."
"Terrifying," you whispered against his back.
You felt the quiet laugh shiver through him.
He twisted enough to look at you over his shoulder, catching your mouth in a quick, soft kiss.
"Stay in bed as long as you can," he said. "Just on principle."
"Yes, Senior Legislative Adviser," you said.
"That isn't..." he started, then stopped as you smirked. "...I walked into that."
"You did," you said. "Now go be terrifying."
He stood, stretching to his full height. For a heartbeat, in the morning light, he really did look like something out of a story, silver and sharp, steam curling faint off his joints, funnel hat in his hand.
Then he bumped his elbow into the wardrobe and muttered an apology to it, and the spell broke.
You grinned into the pillow as he left.
The Emerald City's day-face was all glitter and ceremony.
By mid-morning, the Pink Room, that was what people were already calling the repurposed Wizard's hall, was humming with the new routine. Less looming head, more actual governance. Less theatrics, more ink.
Your desk had migrated.
Instead of being tucked in a side office, you now occupied a small table just off the main chamber doors, half receptionist, half gatekeeper, entirely indispensable. Papers flowed across your blotter in waves. Requests. Petitions. Meeting notes. The occasional apology from Glinda scribbled in the margin of something truly awful she was trying to untangle.
Boq's new office had a door of its own.
You'd watched him walk into it that morning, no uniform, no sash. Just tin and an expression that said I dare you to underestimate me. It had been... satisfying.
You'd barely had time to enjoy it.
"Excuse me," a smooth voice said now, dragging you out of a particularly stupid clause. "Are you the clerk assigned to Lady Glinda's provincial negotiations?"
You looked up.
The man standing at your desk was tall, in the casual, relaxed way of someone who'd never been denied a doorway. His robe was Winkie cut, long, flowing lines of dark gold and brown, collar embroidered with the double-chevron sigil of the western councils. His hair was slicked back. His smile was not.
"Yes," you said, sliding the current draft aside. "You must be Councilor Harren."
He inclined his head.
"At your service," he said. "And..." his gaze flicked over you, appreciative, "delighted to make your acquaintance."
You forced your mouth not to flatten.
"Glinda is finishing with the Quadling delegation," you said. "She'll join you in ten minutes. In the meantime, I can go over the agenda."
"I'm sure we'll manage the paperwork," he said lightly, dismissing the stack without even looking. "I was hoping we might discuss... softer points. Before the formalities."
Your brow arched.
"'Softer points,'" you repeated. "Such as?"
He leaned an elbow on the edge of your desk, bringing his too-white smile closer.
"Such as how Lady Glinda is so good at choosing her staff," he said. "I admit, when they told me there was a new clerk handling cross-country treaties, I pictured someone older. Stern. Less..." His eyes skimmed you again, deliberate. "Lovely."
You blinked.
"I'm very good at being stern," you said. "It's practically a hobby."
He chuckled, like you'd made a joke.
"I can see that," he said. "Still. It's nice to have something pleasant to look at while we talk about land rights and tariffs, don't you think?"
There were moments you really missed Elphaba.
She would've set his robe on fire.
You settled for a flat, professional smile.
"Pleasant or not," you said coolly, "my job is to ensure you don't sign something you'll regret. That tends to distract from being decorative."
He opened his mouth, probably to tell you being decorative was half the job, or something equally tedious.
He didn't get the chance.
"Councilor Harren."
Boq's voice cut across the hall, low and unmistakable.
You didn't have to turn to know exactly where he was.
You did anyway.
He stood a few steps away, just outside the doorway to his office, no uniform, but somehow, suddenly, unmistakably official. He held a slim sheaf of papers in one hand, the other resting lightly on the staff he'd started carrying in place of the axe inside the Palace. Symbol over threat. It still looked like it could do damage.
Harren's smile faltered a hair.
"Yes?" he said. "You are... the Tin Man, aren't you?"
Boq's jaw tightened almost invisibly at the title. Then he inclined his head.
"Boq," he said. "Senior legislative adviser. Lady Glinda asked me to make sure the revised draft of the Winkie land charter was ready before your meeting."
He held the papers out.
Harren took them, flicked through with a bored sort of interest.
"I see," he said. "Well. I'm sure we'll have time to..."
"And," Boq added, tone still smooth, "I'm also responsible for ensuring members of this administration aren't subjected to inappropriate comments while doing their jobs."
Your cheeks warmed.
Harren's eyes flicked between the two of you.
"Inappropriate?" he repeated, a small, incredulous laugh in his voice. "I was merely complimenting your colleague. Surely there's no harm in acknowledging beauty where it exists."
Boq's mouth curved, but it wasn't a smile.
"Harren," he said pleasantly. "In your country's law, do compliments come with conditions?"
The councilor blinked.
"I... what?"
"If a minor clerk in Winkie Country were told she was lovely," Boq went on, "would she be expected to smile and indulge further remarks to keep the peace? Or would she be allowed to say, 'this is a professional setting, and I would prefer to discuss the matter at hand,' without it affecting her standing?"
Harren's jaw tightened.
"Of course she would," he said. "We're not savages."
"Good," Boq said. "Then I trust you'll offer our clerk the same courtesy."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't loom.
He just... stood there. Straight, steady, tin catching the light. Behind him, a few other clerks had paused in their walking, sensing something shift. The guards at the far doors had turned their heads, just enough to see.
Harren's gaze darted around, suddenly aware of the audience.
"I meant no insult," he said stiffly. "If you felt..."
"I'm sure you didn't," you cut in, tone polite enough to pass a cursory inspection and sharp enough to fillet. "And I'm sure we can all agree that future compliments will be saved for outside working hours, yes?"
His eyes flicked to you, then back to Boq.
Something cautious slid behind his smile.
"Of course," he said.
Boq held his gaze a second longer.
Then, slowly, he inclined his head.
"Excellent," he said. "In that case, Councilor, I'd be happy to walk you through the revised clauses regarding Animal land rights before you see Lady Glinda. I'd hate for any... misunderstandings to linger there as well."
He gestured toward his office.
Harren hesitated.
Then, with a tight smile, he nodded and followed.
As they passed your desk, Boq's hand brushed the corner, just once, a quiet point of contact where your fingers rested on the wood.
It felt like a promise.
Later, when they emerged for the formal meeting, Harren didn't lean on your desk.
He didn't call you lovely.
He said "thank you" when you handed him the agenda, and that was all.
You made a note, mentally.
Boq: 1, Winkie Country: 0.
He was quiet that evening.
Not absent, not cold. Just... quieter.
The new rooms had begun to feel like home in small, ridiculous ways, your boots by the door, his staff propped in the corner, the kettle's offended rattle when you forgot to warm it before filling. You moved around each other easily now, a practiced dance of chair legs and tin shoulders and shared space.
Tonight, though, Boq moved through it like he was half somewhere else.
His replies were shorter when you told him about Glinda's latest attempt at rebranding the Wizard's old propaganda press. ("We're calling it 'Good News.' I don't think she hears herself anymore.") His laugh at your impression of Harren's offended face was a little late, like it had to travel.
You noticed.
Of course you did.
You waited until after dinner, after you'd eaten and he'd pretended to be scandalized by the amount of bread you could put away under stress, before you cornered him.
He was standing by the window, looking down into the little internal garden. The city beyond it was all pinprick lights and the distant hum of wheels.
You crossed the room and leaned your hip against the sill beside him.
"Is it me," you asked, "or are you brooding?"
He startled.
"I'm not brooding," he said. "I'm thinking."
"Mm," you said. "Loudly."
He made a face.
"Was today..." He trailed off, choosing his words. "Uncomfortable?"
You thought of Harren's eyes roving over you, the thin smile, the way your stomach had knotted.
"A little," you said honestly. "But I've had worse."
His jaw worked.
"I know," he said. "You shouldn't have to be good at it."
You tilted your head, studying him.
"This is about more than just Harren," you said.
Silence.
"Boq," you said softly. "Talk to me."
He drew in a breath.
"If I'd been human," he said, blurting it out in a rush, "I'd have pulled you away from that desk and kissed you until he got the message, and we'd both have had to pretend it was professional later."
You blinked.
"That is... specific," you said.
He huffed a humorless laugh.
"I'd have put my hand on your back," he went on stubbornly, as if he owed this confession to gravity. "Or on your shoulder. Something that said, 'she is not unclaimed territory for you to wander over with your eyes.'"
"Boq..."
"I can't do that," he said, harsher. "I can stand in doorways and cite law and make men sign the right lines, but I can't... I can't do what I would have done. And I hate it."
Your heart tugged.
"I don't," you said.
He turned to stare at you.
"You don't," he repeated flatly.
"I liked what you did," you said. "All of it. The law. The doorways. The... 'misunderstandings.' It told him the important part: that I'm not alone, and that his behavior wasn't acceptable here."
His mouth twisted.
"But it doesn't tell him..."
"That we're sleeping together?" you supplied.
He froze.
You watched his eyes flick over your face, as if he was checking for shock or embarrassment.
There wasn't any.
You'd already crossed that particular line once, in a room in the city that would never be a home. Your body remembered it, in muscle and nerve and ache. So did his. One of you just had more metal in the mix now.
"No," he said eventually. "It doesn't."
You let the word yet hang unsaid and stepped closer.
"Is that what this is about?" you asked gently. "That a tetchy councilor from Winkie Country doesn't know you share my bed?"
He flinched.
"No," he said. "Yes. Not exactly."
You waited.
Finally, he shoved a hand through his straw hair, making it stick up even worse.
"I've done nothing but tell you what you shouldn't settle for," he said. "Since I woke up like this. I've told you not to let me be your whole life, not to let this..." he gestured at himself, at tin and seams and rivets "...be the only shape your future takes. And I meant it. I still do."
"I know," you said quietly.
"But you wrote that letter," he said, voice rough. "You wrote all those things we were supposed to do. House. Garden. Arguments about flour. Bed that isn't owned by the Palace. You wrote them like they were already ghosts, like I'd made sure they died when I stayed in Munchkinland."
He swallowed, the sound a soft click.
"And then..." He looked at you, eyes grey and bright. "And then I found out they weren't dead for you. Not completely. You still moved. You still... came. Up the mountain. Into the castle. Into this room. Into my ridiculous life. You're here, and I keep thinking..."
He broke off, jaw clenching.
You reached up, cupping the side of his faceplate where his cheek would have been.
"Keep thinking what?" you asked.
"That I don't want your last memory of being in my arms to be from a body I don't have anymore," he said, hoarse. "I don't want you to have to reach back seven years and pretend that was enough. That it counts for now."
Your fingers tightened.
"Boq," you whispered.
He covered your hand with his.
"I don't know what I can do," he said bluntly. "I don't know what this body can... manage. I don't know how much I can feel. I don't know if I'll ever be able to touch you the way I did then. But I can't keep... not trying. Not if I'm asking you to build a life here with me."
You just looked at him.
"I don't want Harren's eyes to be the last person who thinks you're desirable," he said, low and fierce. "I want you to know that when I look at you, I..." He laughed once, short and incredulous. "I ache. Even like this. I want you. All the time. And I've been so busy trying to be noble that I haven't let myself say it."
The room went very still.
Somewhere outside, one of the palace bells chimed the quarter hour.
You took a breath that felt like a drop off a cliff.
"Come with me," you said.
You didn't give him time to panic.
You laced your fingers through his and tugged him toward the bedroom, toeing your shoes off as you went. Your heart was hammering, but not with fear. Not with the old Shiz uncertainty of does he want me the way I want him.
You knew the answer to that now.
This was logistics.
And love.
And seeing what stayed.
In the bedroom, you closed the door behind you, less for privacy and more to give this a boundary. A line that said: this is where we try. This is where we get to say what we want.
Boq stood just inside the threshold, looking suddenly, absurdly unsure.
You crossed back to him, laid your hands on his chest.
"Look at me," you said.
He did.
"I don't want you to be noble," you said. "I want you to be honest. And right now, my honest reaction to what you just said is: thank Oz. Because I've been walking past you every night wanting to climb into your lap and not knowing if I was allowed to want that out loud."
His eyes widened.
"You..."
"Yes," you said. "Since Shiz. Through all of this. Including now. Especially now. So let's stop pretending we're not thinking about it, and... see what happens."
He swallowed.
"What if I hurt you?" he asked. "What if something catches, or I misjudge, or..."
"Then we stop," you said. "Immediately. And make a note: 'attempted position A, not recommended, leads to bruised rib and offended kettle.'"
A laugh startled out of him, half-choked.
You smiled.
"We don't have to do everything tonight," you added, softer. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for. This isn't about proving something. It's about... curiosity. And closeness. And not letting a fear of what's changed kill what hasn't."
He searched your face for a long breath, like he was looking for any crack of doubt he could use as an excuse to back away.
He didn't find one.
Slowly, his hands came up to your waist, palms spanning the curve with care you could feel even through linen.
"Tell me what feels good," he said. "Every step. And if I get too far into my own head, tell me to shut up."
You felt your mouth curve.
"Yes, Senior Legislative Adviser," you said.
He groaned.
"If you call me that in bed, I'm leaving," he said.
"In bed, I have other names for you," you murmured.
Heat flickered in his eyes.
"Show me," he said.
You did.
You started simple.
Standing on your toes, you slid your hands up around the back of his neck, into his straw-mussed hair, and kissed him.
Kissing Boq as tin wasn't like kissing flesh, but it wasn't not like it, either. His mouth was still his mouth, shaped the same, moving with the same hesitation melting into surety you remembered from dark corners at Shiz and that single, blinding night in the city.
His hands tightened at your waist, drawing you closer, anchoring you against the cool solidity of his chestplate. You could feel the faint vibration of the watch under his panels, ticking faster when you tugged lightly at his hair.
He made a sound against your lips, low, surprised, almost a groan.
"Good?" you murmured.
"Yes," he said, voice rough. "More."
You smiled into the next kiss.
You learned things quickly.
That the seams along his jaw were sensitive, your fingertips tracing the edge made him shiver. That pressing close where his chestplate curved left him almost still, as if he were terrified to move and crush you and desperate to be closer anyway. That his hands shook a little when they slid from your waist to the small of your back, and steadied when you whispered his name.
He learned, too.
That you still made the same small, involuntary noise when he angled his mouth a certain way. That your fingers dug into his shoulders when you were losing track of the floor. That you relaxed when he said you're safe into your skin, even when there was nothing obvious to be afraid of but vulnerability.
Clothes came off, slowly, between kisses and laughter and a few muttered curses when a button refused to cooperate. He watched your face constantly, asking without words, this? here? now? and only moving on when you answered with your own body.
You didn't test everything that night.
You didn't need to.
You found enough, enough ways to fit, enough angles that didn't pinch or pull, enough moments where you forgot, altogether, that there had ever been a question of can we and fell headfirst into oh, yes.
At one point, afterward, you lay sprawled half across his chest, breath slowing, limbs pleasantly heavy. His arm was under your shoulders, braced carefully so he didn't put too much weight on you; the other hand traced idle patterns over your spine.
He stared at the ceiling like he was trying to memorize it.
"Well?" you asked, voice scratchy and smug.
He huffed out a stunned laugh.
"Well," he echoed. "I... think we've established one thing."
"What's that?" you murmured.
"That you're never allowed to talk about what we were 'supposed' to do in the past tense again," he said quietly. "Because apparently, we're still very capable of being... spectacularly unspectacular in bed."
You laughed into his chest.
"Unspectacular," you said. "That what we're calling that?"
"If I start listing adjectives, we'll be here all night," he said. "And I'm already in danger of becoming insufferable."
You tilted your head to look up at him.
"You're already insufferable," you said. "I like you like that."
Something soft and amazed moved over his face.
He lifted his hand, touched two fingers lightly to the panel over his heart-watch.
"There's room," he said. "For this."
"For what?" you asked, sleepy.
"For more than anger," he said simply. "For wanting things. With you. For you."
You reached up, brushed your fingers over the same spot, over metal, over ticking, over folded paper and ink.
"We're going to get that little house someday," you said. "Painted any color but green. Garden. Arguments about flour. Armchairs. All of it."
He studied you.
"And until then?" he asked.
You smiled.
"Until then," you said, "we'll do exactly what we did today. You'll glower at councilors who flirt badly. I'll threaten to annotate Glinda's speeches. We'll come home to this ridiculous room and figure the rest out between us."
He exhaled slowly, something like contentment in the sound.
"Alright," he said. "Deal."
You shifted up just enough to kiss the corner of his mouth.
"Boq?" you said.
"Yes?"
"If another council member flirts with me tomorrow..."
He tensed slightly.
"Yes?" he repeated carefully.
"...You're allowed to put your hand on my back," you said. "For the record. Committee-approved."
His mouth curved slowly.
"I'll make a note in the minutes," he said.
"You would," you muttered affectionately.
He laughed, low and warm.
Under your palm, the tin over his chest felt solid.
Underneath that, the watch kept ticking.
Underneath that, ink and paper and all the things you were still supposed to do together shifted and settled, no longer ghosts but promises.
He drew you closer.
And for the first time since waking up in a forest of rude apple trees, Boq let himself believe that when you looked back someday, you wouldn't have to reach seven years into the past for the last time he'd held you like this.
You'd have tonight.
And tomorrow.
And the slow, ordinary miracle of every day after.
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Pressed into the spotlight by Glinda, Boq overcomes his fear and delivers the new travel law himself.
41. Free Roads
Glinda hated the balcony.
She loved the idea of it, the angle, the light, the way the Emerald City spread below like a sea that happened to be green instead of blue. But the actual stone slab you had to stand on, with the wind trying to take your hat and the flags snapping like judgment behind you?
Hated it.
"This word is a crime," she announced, squinting down at the page. "I refuse."
Boq looked up from his spot by the doorway.
"It's 'jurisdiction,'" he said. "You've said it in every rehearsal."
"Yes, well, that was inside," Glinda said. "With natural lighting and no cross-breeze and my sensible lashes. These..." she fluttered the current pair, which frankly could have fanned the crowd all on their own "...are performance lashes. They don't do consonant clusters."
You, perched on the edge of her desk with your legs crossed at the ankle, tried very hard not to smile.
"Glinda," you said carefully, "the law doesn't care what your lashes do."
"It will when they water and I can't see," she muttered. "Honestly, why do we have so many words..."
"Because we need them," Boq said, before he could stop himself.
Both of you looked at him.
He shifted his weight, joints ticking faintly, but he didn't back down.
"We need the words," he said more firmly. "Jurisdiction. Repeal. Restoration. Equal passage." His fingers brushed the edge of the speech where it lay on the lectern. "We used the wrong ones for so long. If we're going to fix that, we have to say the new ones out loud. Properly. In front of everyone."
Glinda watched him, lashes and all.
"Then you say them," she said.
He blinked.
"What?"
You sat up a little straighter.
Glinda took the speech off the lectern, smoothed it once, and held it out.
"Boq," she said, "this is your law. You drafted it. You fought for it. You argued me into two separate fits and one headache over the precise distance between 'authorized travel' and 'unfettered movement.' You believe every line of this."
"I wrote it for you to say," he protested.
"And I am saying," Glinda replied, "that if I tangle my tongue on 'jurisdiction' in front of half of Oz, the papers will spend three days calling me 'Glinda the Good but not Good with Grammar,' and nobody will remember the part where we gave the Munchkins their roads back."
She took a step closer, eyes suddenly very, very clear under all that paint.
"They'll listen to you," she said. "Because you're from there. Because you wore that law like chains. Because they made you the Tin Man and you still came back to write something better than what hurt you." Her mouth curved. "Also because you're shiny and children like that."
You snorted.
Boq stared at the speech as if it were a spell from the Grimmerie that might explode if he took it.
"I'm not..." He swallowed, the sound a small click. "I'm not a speaker."
"You're a clerk," Glinda said. "You've read everything everyone else wrote, and half the time you made it make sense. You know how this sounds when it's wrong. That's most of what speaking is."
He still hesitated.
Glinda rolled her eyes and, very gently, pressed the pages into his hands.
"Boq," she said, soft but unarguable. "You wrote a law that says Munchkins and Animals can walk where they please without asking permission from people who never asked them what they needed. You climbed a mountain and walked into a castle for a girl with stolen shoes and a dog. You tell me which of those was harder than standing on a balcony and reading your own words."
His fingers tightened on the paper.
Below, the murmur of the waiting crowd drifted up through the stone, Munchkin voices, Emerald City merchants, a scattering of Animals who had come into the square with wary eyes and shoulders braced, as if expecting someone to tell them they didn't belong.
You slid off the desk and came to stand beside him.
"You don't have to be perfect," you said quietly. "You just have to mean it."
He looked down at you.
In your face he saw the library at Shiz, the letter on his desk in Munchkinland, the mountain, the courtyard, the nights in this new place where you'd oiled his joints and laughed at his terrible jokes and kissed him like tin was nothing but another kind of skin.
He exhaled.
"Fine," he said. "But if I fall off the balcony, I'm haunting both of you."
"Please do," Glinda said. "We need more honest ghosts in this place."
She spun toward the open archway, pasted on her balcony smile, and swept out into the sunlight as the herald boomed her name.
You and Boq followed.
The light hit like a wave, bright, hard, reflecting off every surface. Flags cracked in the wind. The Wizard's old crest had been taken down. Glinda's new one, that stylized G woven with a circle of stars, hung in its place, not yet weathered, still insisting on being seen.
The crowd roared when she stepped up.
Glinda lifted her wand, the universal signal for quiet, please admire me in an orderly fashion, and the noise settled into a low hush.
"Citizens of Oz!" she called, voice ringing out clear and practiced. "Friends! Neighbors! People who were told they were too small or too loud or too inconvenient to be heard, today we are changing the rules."
Scattered applause, a few sharp whistles.
Someone yelled, "We love you, Glinda!" from near the front.
She flashed a quick grin.
"I adore you too," she said. "But more importantly, I adore laws that make sense. And I have... someone who knows a thing or two about those."
She turned, holding out a hand.
"Boq?" she said, just loud enough for the crowd to catch the name. "If you would?"
For a heartbeat, he didn't move.
Then your fingers brushed the back of his free hand, just once.
You didn't push.
You just were there.
He stepped forward.
The balcony felt narrower under his feet than it had looked from the doorway. Stone under tin. Air on three sides. Hundreds of eyes below, faces turned up, catching glints of him like sunlight on a blade.
He heard the mutter ripple through them.
"That's him..."
"Tin Man..."
"From the stories..."
"Thought he lived in the woods..."
"Look at the shine on that..."
He could feel their expectations stacking on his shoulders, tin ones, but still somehow heavy.
He set the papers on the lectern.
His hands looked wrong on them for a second, metal fingers on soft, rough-edged sheets. The ink on the page seemed suddenly clumsy. The words too long. The lines too straight.
He almost stepped back.
Then his eyes snagged on your handwriting in the margin, tiny, sharp notes from late nights at your shared table.
Too harsh?
Clarify this clause.
Boq, you are not allowed to write 'under penalty of my personal wrath' in a legal document.
His mouth twitched.
He cleared his throat.
The sound came out rough, edged with rust and nerves.
Conversation dipped.
He leaned a little closer to the speaking tube Glinda's staff had rigged from the balcony to the square, the same one that had once carried the Wizard's booming, artificial voice.
"Good afternoon," he said.
No echo. No theatrics. Just his voice, tin-deepened, but still undeniably his, rolling down into the square.
Silence spread, curious and tentative.
"I'm... not used to this," he admitted, glancing up once. "Standing here. Talking to all of you instead of hiding behind the people who do."
A few quiet laughs, quickly swallowed.
He took a breath.
You saw the exact moment his training kicked in, the part of him that had spent years reading incomprehensible decrees and quietly fixing them so they wouldn't hurt quite as much.
He looked down at the first paragraph.
"This statute," he began, the old clerk cadence steadying his voice, "repeals restrictions on travel in and out of Munchkinland and associated territories for Munchkin citizens and registered Animals."
The words sounded dry in his ears, the way they always did on the page.
But when he lifted his eyes, the faces in the crowd shifted.
Munchkins in the front row, small, compact, shoulders tight, leaned forward, as if to check he'd really said what they thought he'd said.
One of the Animals, an elderly Goat with careful spectacles, lowered the paper she'd been clutching and stared.
Boq's chest ticked.
"It means," he said, departing from the script without quite meaning to, "that if you live in Munchkinland, you no longer have to ask permission to visit your grandmother in Emerald City. Or your grandchildren. Or your doctor. Or the market." His fingers tightened on the speech. "You don't have to file five forms and wait for someone who has never walked your road to decide if your journey is 'necessary enough.'"
A murmur.
He heard a woman in the middle sob once, sharp, and clap a hand over her mouth.
"The previous law," Boq forced himself to continue, "treated Munchkins and Animals as potential traitors every time they crossed a border. It said that your business was... suspect. That your movement was a problem to be managed."
He let the page fall flat, the ink a steady black sheet.
"This one says," he went on, voice gaining iron that had nothing to do with tin, "that it isn't. That you are adults. Citizens. People whose reasons are your own. It restores your right to travel freely within Oz, barring only those limits that apply to everyone, criminal warrants, quarantine, actual emergencies, not whatever the Governor of Munchkinland happened to be afraid of that week."
A ripple of laughter. Uneasy, but real.
Glinda stood back, watching him with an expression you'd rarely seen on her.
Pride, unadorned.
Boq's gaze caught on a group near the base of the building, a cluster of Munchkins in work coats, hats clutched in their hands. They looked like his father's friends. Like the men who'd whispered over kitchen tables about new laws and old fears.
One of them was crying openly now, shoulders shaking.
"I grew up," Boq said, softer, "in a village where 'Emerald City' was a story you told yourself when you needed something bigger than your own horizon. Then the City decided it needed us. Our land. Our loyalties. Our silence. And suddenly, that story became a leash."
You felt your throat tighten.
He hadn't written this part.
He was giving them more than the law now. He was giving them the why.
"I spent years," he went on, "writing the forms that kept you from leaving. I stamped them. Filed them. Told myself I was helping, because if I did it, at least it would be... kinder." His mouth twisted. "It wasn't. It was a cage. Just with softer straw."
He straightened a little.
"This law," he said, tapping the page once, "is my apology for that. It doesn't fix everything. It doesn't undo the days or the opportunities or the lives the old law took from you. But it stops it from taking any more."
The square had gone so quiet you could hear the flags.
He felt the hush, heavy and expectant, and for the first time since waking in a forest of rude apple trees, he didn't flinch from it.
He stepped back to the text, grounding himself.
"Section one," he read, clearer now. "All previous travel restrictions specific to residents of Munchkinland and registered Animals are hereby repealed. Section two: movement within Oz shall be considered a fundamental right, not to be abridged on the basis of size, origin, or species..."
He went through each clause.
He didn't rush them.
He explained when the language got dense, slipping translations in between the lines.
"'Authorized passage,'" he said at one point, "means 'no one stops you at the bridge to ask if you're allowed to be there.' 'Mutual recognition of documents' means 'if your papers are valid in your village, they're valid here.'"
Every time he translated, you saw comprehension ripple outward, relief behind it, and something like disbelief.
He watched that.
He felt it.
And a strange thing happened.
His nervousness didn't vanish.
It shifted.
Off himself and onto the words. Onto the work. Onto this small, ridiculous miracle of standing in the sunlight telling the truth where everyone could hear.
By the time he reached the end, his voice had settled into something steady.
"—and this act shall be known as the Free Roads and Open Gates Statute," he finished. "Effective immediately."
He lowered the page.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then the sound hit.
It wasn't the mindless roar you got when Glinda waved from a balcony or the Wizard's fake head proclaimed something grand and meaningless. It built from the front, Munchkins clutching one another, Animals stamping, hands rising, and then surged outward until every corner of the square was noise.
Cheers.
Sobs.
A deep, rolling shout from the back that sounded like about time.
Boq staggered a half-step under it, breath catching.
He wasn't used to being the source of that sound.
He wasn't sure he ever would be.
He glanced sideways.
You stood just inside the arch, one hand pressed to your mouth, eyes bright.
When you saw him look, you dropped your hand and gave him the smallest, fiercest nod you had.
See?
Glinda swept forward again, taking her place beside him, wand lifted in acknowledgement.
"This is only the beginning," she called, voice warm and bright as she rode the wave Boq had set in motion. "There are more laws to change. More words to fix. But today, thanks to Senior Adviser Boq," she said his name like a title, "we have made Oz a little less small."
The crowd roared again.
Boq barely heard it.
He was looking at the paper in his hands, at the ink that had once been safe on a desk and was now, undeniably, real.
He could feel his heart-watch ticking hard under its tin casing. Not just from nerves now, but from something else. Something that felt dangerously like... hope.
As they stepped back from the balcony, Glinda bumped his shoulder lightly with hers.
"Well," she said under her breath. "You did it."
He let out a shaky laugh.
"I didn't fall off," he said.
"Even better," she replied. "They listened."
He glanced back one last time, at the sea of upturned faces, at the Munchkin man in the front row who was still wiping his eyes and laughing.
Then he looked at you.
You met him halfway to the doorway, sliding your hand into his without ceremony, without words.
Your fingers fit between his metal ones like they'd always belonged there.
"You were..." You shook your head once, struggling for the word. "Good."
He huffed.
"Don't say 'wonderful,'" he muttered. "I'll jump."
"Good," you repeated firmly. "The kind of good that matters. The kind that changes things."
He swallowed.
"Do you think...?" He gestured vaguely toward the square. "All that will last?"
You squeezed his hand.
"Laws can be rewritten," you said. "But people remember who gave them back their road."
He thought of the letter you'd written once, alone in your room, all the things you thought you'd lost.
We were supposed to grow old doing nothing spectacular.
Well.
Maybe this counted as a little spectacular.
He glanced down at the speech in his hand.
"I might," he said cautiously, "have more to say. Someday. If they keep listening."
You smiled, slow and sure.
"Good," you said. "Because I've seen the drafts you didn't submit. And Oz doesn't know what it's missing yet."
He laughed, tin shoulders loosening.
Behind you, Glinda was already arguing with a guard about taking down the last of the Wizard's banners before sunset.
Ahead, the Palace halls waited, full of bad laws and worse habits and people who thought nothing really changed.
Boq flexed his fingers around the pages, feeling the indent where his pen had pressed too hard over the words fundamental right.
"They will," he said quietly.
His voice didn't boom.
It didn't echo.
It didn't need to.
You heard him.
The square had.
And, for the first time, Boq believed that when he spoke in this new life, tin, title, nerves and all, it wouldn't just be on behalf of other people's stories.
It would be his, too.
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