Chapter Text
Things were finally calming down, well, in the sense that they had less on their schedules than previous months. The premiers all across the world, the private screening Q&As, the press tour, the social media promo, the various talk show appearances. It was the most amazing time and while Ariana would not trade it for the world, Glinda was her dream role after all, she was excited for the small break to recharge. Sure they still had various award shows coming up, but she had some time to herself between those obligations.
It was only 3 days into one of their shorter breaks, it would only be about a week before they saw each other again, that the loss of being around Cynthia was starting to gnaw at her, especially after the movie night they had just had. They had been apart for longer before, but for some reason, with their obligations starting to die down, this stretch felt impossibly long. It was taking everything in her willpower to not reach out constantly, but over the course of the last year she realized that her feelings for her friend and co-star might be running deeper than the intense friendship that they blabbered on about in all of their press tour, and it had come to a head about 2 weeks ago. Ari wanted to take this time to back away a little bit and try and sort through those feelings. It’s no secret that she felt things very deeply and wore her heart on her sleeve. Somewhere in between the long emotional days on set, studio sessions, and promo Ari started feeling so much for Cynthia. She wasn’t sure where the line of friendship ended and romantic feelings began. For her it happened so gradually that she didn’t even realize her feelings ran deeper until she was too far gone. She had spent many nights thinking back trying to pinpoint when her feelings changed.
The two of them had been vocal from the beginning that their connection started before they had even sung together. It was when they met after getting offered the roles to go over the contracts. Immediately they promised to take care of each other. For this project to work they needed to be all in. Whatever one of them needed, the other needed. It was at that meeting that Ariana saw the potential in what Cynthia could mean to her. Growing up an absolute theater geek she obviously knew who Cythia was and she had been in awe of her talent. She had secretly been dying to meet her for ages, and when she was in the audition process and heard whispers of Cynthia auditioning she sent it out the universe that she needed that woman to be the Elphaba to her Glinda. She may or may not have been internally freaking out at that first meeting, but Ariana liked to think she kept her cool pretty well. The way they immediately were on the same wavelength proved that this was meant to be.
~~~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ariana nervously stood in front of the door after ringing the doorbell. She had talked to Cynthia a few times over zoom, but mostly with at least a few other people involved in Wicked. Aside from one call a few weeks ago when they missed a message about the call being pushed back 30 minutes so it was just the two of them.
After about 5 minutes of no one else showing up, Cynthia saw the message on her phone and shared it with Ari.
The pop star just laughed, “Of course. So do you want to just stay on and chat until everyone else shows up?”
“Sure,” Cynthia replied, “I had the whole hour blocked out. How are you doing? How’s married life?”
“It’s something.” Ari said with a smile and soft laugh, “I guess I’m still just kind of getting used to it.” Cythia nodded along supportively but could sense something deeper was going on. However they didn’t really know each other that well yet, so maybe it was nothing, but she definitely didn’t want to pry, but she also didn’t want to ignore it if Ari needed or wanted to talk about it. Sometimes talking about harder topics was easier with someone you didn’t know super well.
“I know I don’t have that experience, but do you want to talk about it?” she offered.
Ariana smiled but shook her head. “That’s sweet of you, I appreciate it, but I’d rather talk about how I keep getting more and more excited the closer we get to this! Jon mentioned going over contracts today. I’m going to be honest it’s been a minute since I’ve been in this kind of conversation that wasn’t about music, which I’m sure operates much differently.”
Cynthia nodded “I have a feeling this will be unlike anything we’ve done before. If you want to talk through things afterwards we can. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be either, obviously our agents and legal teams will want to look over everything too, but I’ve gotten pretty good at making sense of the legal jargon.”
“That would be fantastic actually,” Ari said. “You have my number right? It was in that document Jon sent out a couple weeks ago to the production team and us. We can maybe talk about it sometime after this if I have questions?”
They continued to talk until Jon, a couple producers, the legal team, and reps from both Ariana and Cythia’s team hopped on the call.
Immediately after the call ended the contracts were sent out with a deadline of 2 weeks to get back with any questions, clarifications, or revisions. After about 3 days of reviewing it Cynthia received a text, well a handful of texts.
Unknown Number: Hey, I have a crazy idea
Cynthia was debating by responding either asking who this person was and how they got her number, or just blocking them when more texts quickly came through.
Unknown Number: Well, hopefully not too crazy
Unknown Number: You can tell me if you think it’s weird
Unknown Number: Could we talk through our contracts together?
Unknown Number: Or is that weird?
So it must be Ariana then, she concluded. Also she made a mental note that Ari was one of those types to send each message as the thought passed through her head instead of just typing them all in one paragraph. So she quickly saved her number.
I actually think that is a great idea. Cynthia replied, What does your schedule look like next week? Or is that too soon?
Ari 👑: Not too soon at all!!! I’ve got some time in the middle of the week if that works for you?
Ari 👑: I’ve only got a couple things in the morning on Wednesday so we could do like after 2pm?
Ari 👑: Or Thursday I’m free until 4pm
Ari 👑: Do either of those times work for you?
Cynthia smiled to herself at the eagerness of Ariana. Let’s do Wednesday, that way we can take our time before you have to jet off somewhere.
Ariana responded with a string of smiley and heart emojis, Cynthia sent Ariana her address, and then received more excited emojis and a ‘can’t wait to meet you in person!’ message.
Just after 2pm the following Wednesday Cynthia’s phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
Ari 👑: OMW, got a little held up at the studio and lost track of time.
Ari 👑: Should be there in about 30!
Not a problem, Cynthia replied, See you when you get here. I’ve got snacks 🙂
Ari 👑: OMG YAY!
Cynthia laughed quietly and locked her phone before continuing to chop up some veggies.
“What’s so funny?” Lena asked as she rounded the corner and planted a quick kiss on Cynthia’s temple.
“Ariana’s on the way to look over contracts and she’s excited about the snacks.”
Lena nodded, “I think what you two are doing is smart. Not a lot of people would be comfortable with comparing like this. I’ve got a couple of zoom meetings, so I’ll hang out upstairs in the office for a while.”
Cynthia smiled, “You don’t have to lock yourself away up there while she’s here you know.”
Lena came back over after grabbing a water out of the fridge and wrapped her arms around Cynthia’s waist, “I know baby, but I want to give you your privacy to do this, and get to know your new costar. I’ll shoot you a text when I’m done with everything tho and you can let me know how it’s going or if you want another set of eyes on things. Obviously I’m not as good as your actual legal team, but I’ve gotten pretty good at this stuff.”
“Thank you love, I appreciate it.” Cynthia responded.
As if on cue, Lena’s phone buzzed with a 5 minute reminder before her meeting, and the doorbell rang. They leaned in for a kiss and parted ways from the kitchen.
Cynthia opened the door and was met with the pop star she had been seeing multiple times a week on screen, in person finally. She was adorably bouncing on her toes, from anxiety or excitement Cynthia couldn’t tell, but it brought a smile to her face.
“Hi, it’s nice to finally see you in person,” she said as she opened the door wider, wordlessly inviting Ariana in.
“You too!” Ari said as she stepped through the threshold. “Are you a hugger? Because I kind of want to hug you while I scream about how excited I am.”
Cynthia just opened her arms, she wasn’t usually a person that needed or wanted a lot of physical affection, but this felt like the right foot to step into this new role.
Ari let out a high pitched squeak and barreled straight into Cynthia who had to take a step back with the impact. Once she regained her footing she slid her arms around Ariana’s waist and let out a little giggle herself.
“Okay,” Cynthia said, “I’ve got snacks in the living room over there, so many highlighters and pens, I figured we could get comfy and just dive right in.”
Ariana nodded and followed Cynthia around the corner, “Okay this is cozy as fuck, I love how you’ve aranged the spaced.” she said as she made her way over to the fluffy rug and sat right down on the floor, back resting against the couch. “I’m kinda a floor person and this is absolutely divine.”
Cynthia laughed and sat down next to her, grabbing her contract off of the table, “I am too, that’s why I bought the rug.”
Cynthia was not expecting Ariana to dive in and suggest they go page by page, but that’s what she suggested, so that’s where they started. They made sure they each got what they wanted and needed. They also promised each other to advocate for one another during the whole process too. It was one of the easiest promises she’d ever made.
In between pages they would just chat about life, Ariana talked about what it was like growing up in the spotlight, Cynthia talked about feeling othered at drama school, they talked about what they wanted to get out of this film and just the experience surrounding it, and they talked about their pets.
Before either of them realized almost 3 hours had passed and Cynthia’s phone chimed with a text from Lena. L❤️: All wrapped up, how’s it going down there?
We’ve made a good dent in things. You’re more than welcome to come down and hang out if you’d like.
L ❤️: Sounds good. I’m going to fire off some emails and then I’ll be down.
“Everything good?” Ariana asked.
Cynthia nodded. “Yea, Lena, my partner, was just upstairs on some meetings but is wrapping up and is going to hang out.” She paused and looked at the time. “Oh wow like 3 hours have passed, She’ll also probably get started on making some food too.”
Ari started cleaning up her things, “Oh wow sorry I didn’t realize it was so late,” she noticed Lena coming down the stairs, “Sorry for stealing your girl for so long.”
Lena shook her head, “No worries, you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner if you guys aren’t done yet. I can’t imagine how many pages those things must be.”
Ariana hesitated, while she didn’t want to turn down the offer, and seem rude, being vegan always kind of threw a wrench in spontaneous meals, especially with having just met the two of them.
“Baby,” Cynthia called over, “Ari is vegan, do we have that good vegan cheese for eggplant parm?” Cynthia turned to Ariana, “I’m a vegetarian.”
Lena chimed in too, “So that means I am too when I’m here. Also yes we’ve got the vegan cheese. I’ll get started ladies. Ariana, do you have any allergies?”
“Oh, um, no, thanks for checking.” She said, almost in a daze.
Ariana just stared at Cynthia for a moment trying to remember when she had said out loud that she was vegan. “Did I say that when we were talking earlier?”
Cynthia blushed faintly, “Oh um, I may be a bit of a fan and have remembered that fact from an interview.”
“Shut up!” Ari exclaimed, “I’ve been over here playing it cool to try and not freak you out by how much of a literal goddess I think you are.”
The conversation dissolved from there, contracts forgotten for a bit, while they both talked a mile a minute about all of the stuff they loved that one another had done. Once again they lost track of time, because it felt like just a few minutes later Cynthia caught Lena leaning against the wall with a soft smile on her face, “Sorry to interrupt the love-fest, but dinner is ready.”
They spent the rest of the evening chatting about their various projects. Conversation flowed pretty easily between them all. It also helped that Lena was apparently a great cook. Plates were then cleared and Ariana took that as her cue to head out.
“Thanks again for going over all of that with me today. You probably had better plans than legal stuff all day. And thanks for cooking Lena, that was so good, don’t tell my Nonna I said that.” she finished with a laugh.
“Anytime,” Lena said, then her phone started to ring. She gave Ariana a quick hug, “It was great to meet you, sorry I’ve got to take this.” she said. As she walked back to the kitchen where her phone was she pressed a kiss to Cynthia’s cheek.
“She’s great.” Ariana said, “How long have you guys been together?”
“Almost 2 years, but we were friends and kind of in the same circles for a few years before we actually got together.” Cynthia said, not wanting to fully dive into their history right now. Plus Ariana could always google it if she wanted to.
“You compliment each other really well.”
Cynthia smiled, “Yea I think we do.”
Ariana leaned in for another hug, “Thanks again. I can’t wait to start looking over the scripts. Oh! Can we do this again when they come in?! If we’re both free?”
Cynthia nodded and gave her one final squeeze, “Sure, we’ll stay in touch. Text me when you get home safe.”
With a wave and a confirmation she would do just that Ari headed out.
About 45 minutes later she got the text. Ari 👑: Home safe! Thanks again. Sweet Dreams!”
Cynthia smiled and liked the message before turning in for the night herself. Her final thoughts before drifting off were that it seemed like her and Ari were going to get along just fine.
~~~~~~~End of Flashback~~~~~~~
Ariana smiled as the memory of that first night helped lull her to sleep. She would text Cynthia tomorrow, just to check in. That wasn’t too needy right?