Chapter Text
Keep It Clean. Keep It Simple.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
The couch creaked beneath them like it was judging their life choices. It hadn’t always been like this. There used to be rules: no staying over, no scenting, no emotions.
Now the only rule was: speak only if it’s to moan or lie.
The rules had kept them safe for a while: two allegedly mature, overworked surgeons resisting their biological urge to bond like it was a medical hazard. Who had time for mating when they were already married to their careers? That’s how they met, actually, through work.
There was a degree of professional respect once, before it turned into this, scent-slick thighs, withheld eye contact, and sex on a couch that reeked of antiseptic and very bad ideas.
Glinda hadn’t waited. There was no teasing, no candles, no soft music nor slow build. No sweet prelude to make it feel less like ruin. Just Elphaba’s mouth on her pulse and the sharp, humiliating drag of her back against the couch cushions.
Her hands scrabbling for purchase, and the full, catastrophic force of a decision she was already too wet to undo. She wasn’t seducing Elphaba. Instead, she was detonating herself. These days, she was fully committed to self-destruction via medically inadvisable sex.
The need was raw and immediate, the kind that left no room for second thoughts. She dropped onto Elphaba’s cock like she was trying to win a bet with herself and actively losing. Her hips moved in a punishing rhythm, thighs flexing with every grind.
She was wet, furious, relentless, every motion a tantrum, every thrust a suture: tight, exact, impossible to undo. It was a procedure without anesthesia, just pressure, rhythm, and consequence. She wasn’t fucking her. She was closing her up, one punishing stroke at a time.
Elphaba lay there like a sacrificial lamb, stoic, trembling, terrified to make a sound. She was being ridden by her crush, her colleague, her greatest emotional liability, and all she could think was: Don’t moan. Don’t scent. Don’t fall in love. Again. It was a great plan. Completely undone by the way Glinda moved like vengeance. All she could focus on was the sharp press of the couch against her spine, the scent radiating from Glinda: peony, sweet, spiked with something acidic. Her fangs itched, threatening to break skin.
She forced herself to think of other things: like the revision she was scheduled to assist on tomorrow, the leftover suture tension in a failed wound closure. Anything but this.
Glinda rode her like she was angry: at Elphaba, at herself, at the part of her heart that still reached out every time she swore it wouldn’t. Her nails bit into Elphaba’s shoulders, sharp enough to cut, like even holding on had to hurt to feel real. Her breath came fast and shallow, fogging the air between them with heat and desperation— anything to drown out the memory of begging for her knot and being told no.
“Eyes on me,” she said, clipped and breathless, like a surgeon trying to suture a wound that wouldn’t close.
Elphaba obeyed. She always did.
Good alpha, sit. Stay. Suffer in silence.
Glinda would never admit how much it turned her on: the discipline, the stiff-limbed control, the way Elphaba wrestled instinct like she thought she was above rutting entirely. She wasn’t sure why obedience scrambled her prefrontal cortex, but she was ninety-three percent sure it was Elphaba’s fault and seven percent some deeply unfortunate power kink she’d developed somewhere between puberty and med school.
“I should teach a course,” Glinda muttered, breathless, smug, and unbearably pleased with herself.
“Domination for Dummies?” Elphaba rasped.
Her pupils were blown, her jaw clenched, like she was trying not to beg. Glinda almost kissed her. Instead, she bounced harder. She hated how Elphaba took everything and gave back nothing but emotional restraint. No whimper. No plea. Just soul-gazing, trauma-rich eye contact. Was it hot? Yes. Was it infuriating? Also yes.
Still, she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Her thick, insistent slick smeared along Elphaba’s thighs, scented the room with heat that hadn’t fully faded. The worst of it had passed, but the edge of residual need still clung to her skin. She’d showered, bathed herself in lilac and lavender three times last week, and Elphaba’s scent still lingered on her. She didn’t mind and maybe she scrubbed less hard on purpose.
Now her hips rolled in slow circles. She ground down until her clit throbbed and her thighs trembled. The pleasure was sharp, consuming: imore punishment than relief. It hurt, but it grounded her. It reminded her what was real.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she lied—beautifully, mid-orgasm. Her voice cracked like her delusion.
Elphaba said nothing. Her silence practically winked.
This wasn’t anything beyond slick, friction, and a conveniently shaped trauma surgeon. Nothing to see here. Saying it made Glinda feel safe. Repeating it helped her believe it.
She leaned forward, bracing her palm over Elphaba’s chest, and felt the steady beat beneath her hand. Elphaba’s heart didn’t race. It never did. That rhythm infuriated her. There had been rules once. Now everything bled through.
“You like being used, don’t you?” she panted.
Elphaba took two seconds too long to respond. Then: “You’re not using me.”
Glinda’s soul short-circuited. How rude. How sexy. How devastating… Five stars. Her rhythm faltered. She hid it behind a sharp smirk and leaned in close, breath hot against Elphaba’s ear.
“I’m not yours,” she whispered. “And you’re not mine. Say it.”
Elphaba didn’t move. Her jaw flexed, once, barely. A breath caught in her throat, then slipped out too slowly.
There was a pause. An inhale. Then: “I know.”
Liar.
Glinda bit down on her lip and rolled her hips harder, chasing friction like it owed her something. Sweat slicked her chest, her curls glued to her neck, every drag of Elphaba inside her sending electric jolts through her thighs, her spine, her throat. Elphaba’s sharp, clean scent of cedar and jasmine set her nerves alight.
She was close. So close. And Elphaba hadn’t even touched her. Not until now. Fingers slid between her thighs in a steady, precise, maddening rhythm. They moved like they knew her, like they remembered every time she'd fallen apart in Elphaba’s hands and somehow weren’t surprised she was doing it again.
“You gonna come just from being inside me?” Glinda hissed, smug, breathless, unfair. “You’re not even rutting.”
Elphaba’s jaw twitched. Her nostrils flared like she was fighting for oxygen, or composure, or both.
Glinda clenched around her, tight, punishing, desperate to crack her open like a chest in surgery.
“Yes,” Elphaba breathed; hoarse, humiliated, already halfway gone.
It was the hottest, stupidest thing Glinda had ever heard. She came so hard she forgot what the rules were—moaning loud, head thrown back, vision white at the edges. Her breath stuttered and broke.
Oh good. Another orgasm, courtesy of feelings she wasn’t having.
Elphaba didn’t move. But her breath hitched. Her hands gripped Glinda’s hips in a steadying manner. She held her there, kept her from sinking all the way down. From staying. From bonding.
Glinda felt it: the twitch, the subtle flare at the base of Elphaba’s cock, swelling against the cheap, pharmacy-brand condom they both knew wasn’t for bonding prevention. Just pregnancy. Not quite a safeguard. Not quite a promise. Not a BondBlock™, of course. Just something cheap and ordinary. Enough to stop a consequence—but not this. She came inside her, and still wouldn’t let her fall.
She used to command a room with her smile. Now she commanded orgasms with a frown.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Elphaba sat in the on-call room twenty minutes later, gloves still on. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking until she scrubbed them raw, until the skin burned and the sink ran pink. Glinda’s scent still clung to her chest, faint and floral, like a secret. She told herself it would fade. That she wanted it to fade. She didn’t.
She opened her locker. Her spare scrubs were folded neatly inside, but they reeked of Glinda: peony, soft, expensive, like something that didn’t belong in a hospital. Mainly, they reeked of someone that didn’t belong to her. She stared at the fabric a second too long, then shoved it into the disposal bin like it had said something unforgivable.
She’d always been measured, controlled, and this wasn’t just a preference. It was policy. It was her entire personality, professionally sanctioned. And it had worked just fine for thirty years, thank you very much.
She was not the kind of person who buried her face in a coworker’s shirt. She was not the kind of person who got knotted in a coworker-with-benefits apartment and came so hard she forgot her own name. She was not—
Besides, it wasn’t like Glinda smelled like home. That would be ridiculous. Completely absurd. She shut the locker with more force than necessary. End of discussion.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
It had been Heat Number Three when things got murky. Not the first one, where they swore it was a one-time thing. Not the second, where they still made jokes afterward. No—this was the third time. The time Glinda begged.
“Please,” she’d whispered, voice cracked, legs trembling like a caffeinated fawn. “Want it. Want you to—just… please…”
The words barely came out, caught somewhere between desperation and a deeply ill-advised decision.
If her heat had a voice, it would’ve been screaming, This is not a drill! Insert alpha immediately! Mortifying—but accurate.
Her body didn’t bother with dignity; it went straight to soaked and scenting like a siren call. Subtlety? Gone. Control? A memory.
She was stripped bare, practically glowing OPEN . She’d been ridiculous. Indecent. Impossible to ignore.
Elphaba’s knot had pulsed at her entrance; thick, swollen, one thrust away from sealing the deal, from making everything worse.
“I want to be yours,” Glinda had breathed. “Just this once,” she begged. “Knot me, Elphie.”
Famous last words. Right up there with It’s just a phase and I won’t catch feelings.
They both knew “just once” was like “just one pair of shoes.” A boutique of bad ideas. And Glinda had tried them on in every color.
This wasn’t love, but it was close enough to hurt. It was a cocktail of pheromones, timing; the kind of chemical closeness that broke things open and made them impossible to fold back in.
Elphaba had frozen, like she’d seen a ghost. Or worse: a therapist.
She’d said no before. More than once. A college ex who cried when she refused to scent them. A rut partner who begged mid-heat. She always chose control over comfort. But now? Glinda had been beneath her, open and wanting. And Elphaba’s knot pulsed like it had never belonged anywhere else.
She hadn’t moved right away. Her cock throbbed, her whole body strung tight with panic. She’d held Glinda like maybe, if she squeezed hard enough, she could force instinct back into compliance. Her breath stuttered. But it was too sharp and close to breaking. And then, slowly, like it hurt, she pulled out.
“No knots,” Elphaba said, like she wasn’t buried inside her up to the regret. Like the knot was a curse she was nobly shielding Glinda from. Very tragic. Probably rehearsed in the mirror.
Her knot had been trembling. Her cock twitched. Release spilled hot across Glinda’s back.
Glinda could smell the truth beneath the sharpness of her own heat. What’s another ruined orgasm between coworkers? She could’ve framed it: Portrait of Restraint, with Lube.
Neither of them had spoken. But the room stank of almost. Elphaba didn’t touch. Definitely didn’t stay. Just breathed like restraint was a religion.
Glinda had lain there, twitching, legs still shaking, cunt still pulsing around nothing.
Cool. Casual. Totally normal. Definitely not the prelude to a lifelong bond she almost begged for mid-thrust.
Her slick had cooled on her thighs. Her core had ached, stretched and empty, like her body had opened a door and Elphaba had stepped back from the threshold.
No one had reached for honesty. Just lube.
She’d pulled the blanket over herself like it could patch the damage. Like cotton could seal up a bond-shaped void. She should’ve sprung for the hospital-grade BondBlock™ condoms. The ones that actually blocked things: feelings, scent, risk.
Too late, she’d ended up with Elphaba’s scent in her skin, a very specific ache between her legs, and a knot-shaped hollow in her body, and in her fucking dignity. The worst part was that she almost liked how it felt… almost.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Glinda had a bowel resection in five hours. Technically, she was “on call” tonight—or at least, that’s what she told Milla. It was easier than explaining the silk robe and the recurring trauma dick.
She was moisturized, freshly waxed, and lying across her bed like she’d just retired from caring. She should have been asleep. Instead, she was slightly anxious and trying to convince herself this didn’t count as a pattern.
Elphaba arrived like always: boots, coat, trauma in a discreet paper bag. She looked like someone’s obscenely hot professor—cream trousers, a black silk blouse tucked just so, and a long wool coat in a shade so elegant it made Glinda briefly forget her name. Her hair was pinned up like she’d done it one-handed while grading papers, and it still looked better than Glinda’s did for galas. Wire-frame glasses rested low on her nose, more accessory than prescription, and paired perfectly with that permanent scowl of someone who assigned extra reading just to ruin your weekend. She smelled faintly of cedar and luxury hand soap. She looked like she taught post-structuralism and broke hearts over espresso. Glinda hated how hot it was. Hated more that this was the casual version. And that it always worked.
Professor of Emotional Repression. Full tenure. Devastating office hours.
Glinda was already on the bed, moisturized, pink-robed, skin glowing like she belonged on a magazine spread. Her hair was pinned back, soft around her face, and she was wearing lip gloss that shimmered like it had been chosen specifically to wreck her. The robe was silk, just short enough to count as deniability. Her perfume, peony and something ruinously expensive, hung in the air like a dare. Elphaba had been with men, women, alphas, betas, and other omegas. None of them looked like this. None of them made her feel like she’d just walked in on something sacred and slightly stupid. This was a hookup. A casual arrangement. So why did Glinda look like someone Elphaba would never deserve?
Elphaba said nothing, but her green eyes absorbed every detail of Glinda, taking in as much as she could.
“You’re late,” Glinda said, perched on the edge of her mattress like this was a scheduled appointment and not her latest bad idea.
“There was traffic,” Elphaba drily replied.
Glinda narrowed her eyes but took the bag anyway. Inside: lube, condoms, silence. Her fingers hovered for half a second too long before curling around the edge of the paper.
She raised an eyebrow. “Your idea of foreplay?”
Elphaba’s mouth didn’t move, but one brow lifted, minimally, annoyingly. “I’m practical.”
Glinda snorted, stepping back just enough to make it clear this wasn’t going to be quick. “You always were a romantic,” she said lightly, voice dipped in sarcasm. Her eyes swept over Elphaba’s coat. “Subtle, too.”
Elphaba peeled it off with surgical precision, folding it once before tossing it over the back of the chair. Her movements were methodical, too smooth, like she didn’t care… no, like she absolutely did.
“Keep it clean,” she said, brushing invisible lint from her sleeve. “Keep it simple.”
“Do you want a Yelp review or a thank-you card?” Glinda asked, tone sunny, arms now crossed under her chest—an accidental push-up she pretended was strategy. Her foot tapped once against the floor, a soft but unmistakable tell.
Elphaba’s gaze dipped slightly. “You know I don’t do romance.”
Glinda smiled without showing teeth. “You always were a poet.”
Elphaba blinked slowly, jaw tight. “And you’re my muse,” she deadpanned. “Nothing inspires me like passive aggression.”
Glinda laughed once, short, low, and a little too loud in the room. “That’s the closest you’ve ever come to flirting. It’s concerning.”
Elphaba didn’t answer, but her hands flexed at her sides. Just once.
Glinda let the silence settle for a beat, then tilted her head, eyes sharp. “Well,” she said, voice deceptively light, “if you're going to fuck me like a lab assignment, you could at least pretend you care about the results.”
She paused, letting it land, then challenged her: “Or you could fuck me like you mean it.” She rose from the edge of the mattress, letting the robe slip halfway down her arms. Not dropped, peeled, in a soft motion, like she was unwrapping her own denial.
Elphaba didn’t move. So Glinda stepped forward instead, closing the space between them. Her fingers skimmed Elphaba’s sleeves, brushed over the curve of her elbow. She toed off one heel with a gentle click.
“You’re overdressed,” she said, not teasing anymore, her tone honest. She began unbuttoning Elphaba’s blouse, slow and practiced, clinical in its own way.
Elphaba’s breath stuttered, almost invisible. She looked down at Glinda, at her fingers working the buttons, and finally said, “You know I never fabricate data.”
Glinda froze, but only for a second. Then she smiled, a sharp, unreadable curve. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not submitting extra credit.”
And then she turned over, presenting herself without ceremony: knees wide, forearms braced against the sheets, back arched.
The silk robe pooled on the floor like a flag of surrender. She hated how easily her body knew the position. Hated more how it wanted it, how her hips tipped back without instruction, heat already slick between her thighs, everything in her aching to be filled.
They didn’t kiss. That wasn’t the arrangement. The arrangement was just heat, just pressure. Just Elphaba settling behind her, lining up like she’d done it a hundred times before. The sex was fast, rough, and careful in its own way. Glinda bit back a moan as Elphaba drove into her with practiced rhythm, deep, controlled, maddeningly focused.
“You’re timing your thrusts,” she panted, voice ragged between gasps. “Are you seriously using the surgical metronome?”
“It’s efficient,” Elphaba said, barely winded.
“Do I need to sign a release form or—fuck—do that again.”
Elphaba adjusted her angle, she was deeper than ever before. Glinda’s laugh cracked into a moan. Her forehead dropped to the mattress.
“You think this means anything?” she asked, somewhere between teasing and bitter.
Silence.
Classic.
She shifted slightly, arching her back, thighs shaking. Sweat rolled down her spine. Her skin flushed hot, not just from exertion, but from the sharp awareness that this was a bed, not a couch. A body, not a mistake. A pattern.
“You think I’m yours?”
Still no answer.
But behind her, Elphaba’s breathing changed. Her hands tightened at Glinda’s hips. Her jaw ticked. Her nostrils flared. Glinda couldn’t see her face, but she felt the pressure building; tension coiled in Elphaba’s body like she was holding something dangerous inside her own ribs.
Then she thrusted deeper. Glinda gasped, sharp, high. Her whole body jolted forward, then locked, back arched into the contact. Elphaba pushed in, hips flush with Glinda’s ass until her knot pressed up against her entrance. Not enough to lock, just enough to stretch, to ache, to beg. Glinda’s arms shook beneath her, her fingers twisted in the sheets, her cunt clenched around her: fluttering, empty, desperate.
Elphaba stayed buried. Her cock twitched inside the condom, thick pulses of heat radiating through latex like it wasn’t even there. Her hands stayed locked at Glinda’s hips, firm, immovable, fingers digging in just enough to bruise.
Glinda felt everything: the flare, the stretch, the maddening restraint. It wasn’t even the lack of bonding that wrecked her. It was how close she was to it. How deliberately Elphaba held the line.
“I’ve never knotted anyone,” Elphaba said suddenly, her voice low and too close to cracking.
Glinda blinked, dazed. “Should I feel special,” she asked quietly, “or underwhelmed?”
For a moment, Elphaba stayed quiet. Then, as if reluctant to admit it, she said, “I didn’t think I’d want to.”
Glinda reached back, fingers dragging through the mess where the condom caught it, hot and humiliating. Her breath hitched.
“And now you do.”
Elphaba didn’t answer. But her hands didn’t move. They stayed tight at Glinda’s waist, trembling slightly, like she didn’t trust herself to let go. Then, slowly, she pulled out. For a moment, Glinda thought that was it. That Elphaba would leave, like she always did.
Instead, she leaned forward. One hand slid up Glinda’s thigh, guiding her down gently. Glinda collapsed to the bed without resistance, cheek to the pillow, legs parted. She was still panting. Elphaba kissed her spine. The curve of her lower back. The space behind her knee. Then she turned Glinda over and dropped to her knees.
“Wait—” Glinda said, too late.
“I want to,” Elphaba said.
She settled between her legs, one hand bracing her thigh, the other cupping her hip. Her grip was steady but unshakable. The first touch of her tongue was slow, gentle. She didn’t dive in—she mapped, circled, pressed. Adjusted like she was reading muscle memory and nerve endings. Glinda’s thighs trembled. Her breath caught in her throat.
“You’re absurdly good at this,” she muttered, half-laughing, dazed. “Was this part of your board certification?” Elphaba hummed against her. The vibration made her twitch.
She meant to say something else, something biting or sarcastic, anything to stop herself from feeling too much, but it was already too late.
Elphaba flicked her tongue just right. And again. And again. Glinda gasped. Her hands twisted in the sheets. Her eyes shut tight. Elphaba didn’t stop or speak. She just worked, clean, focused, devastatingly precise.
When Glinda came, it was hard and fast and sudden, like being split open and held together all at once. Her body tensed, then convulsed. Her voice cracked into a moan she couldn’t bite back. Elphaba kissed her cunt through it slowly, like she meant it.
Then she stood. No kiss. No aftercare. No scenting. Just the quiet rasp of breath, the shift of her coat, the click of the lock. “Goodnight, Glinda,” she said softly. And then she was gone. Just like always.
Glinda lay there, wrecked: sweat cooling on her chest, thighs still trembling, lips parted from the moan she never meant to let out.
Her body ached with fullness that had already left her. She came from Elphaba’s mouth. Not her knot. Somehow, that felt worse.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
MILLA : Didn’t you say you were cutting back on night shifts?
MILLA: Just checking in. Let me know if you need to vent.
Glinda typed and deleted three different replies before locking the screen. Then she stared at the ceiling. And pretended silence meant control.