Archive of Our Own

There are noises coming from the great hall.

A thud, a crash, and then a loud, offended, “Oh, fine, see if I care!”

Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t help but smile, hearing his little maid’s voice raised in such annoyance. There was no one else in this castle, save himself. None of his crockery or his ornaments possessed voice personality; there were wards up to prevent intrusion by outside forces.

All of which could mean only one thing: Belle was, once again, verbally abusing his belongings.

A thought and a curl of smoke had him standing directly behind her. For a moment – a brief moment, so short he could deny it altogether – he was caught off-guard by the sight of her pert behind shifting from side to side, as she rummaged headfirst in one of his great chests. She was so small that her knees were lifted from the ground, and she hinged on the lip of the chest, her legs on one side and head hanging down on the other at a right angle. Her backside stuck perfectly in the air, wiggling as she moved; it was hard to stare.

“What are you doing?” he enquired, when he had collected himself.

“Ah!” a startled noise came from the chest, and Belle forced herself upright, hitting her head on the lid of the chest as she hauled herself out of it. “Rumpelstiltskin!” she cried, breathing rapidly, rubbing her head as she looked up at him with wide, guilty eyes. “You’re… you’re back.”

“Have been for quite some time,” he told her. “Just because I don’t announce my return to you, dearie, doesn’t mean I’m not around.”

“Right,” she tried to slow her breathing. It was a shame: her chest had been heaving rather becomingly, and there was an intriguing blush blooming in her cheeks that spread across her collarbones. “Right.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” he reminded her, tapping his boot for emphasis, folding his arms. With her on her knees on the floor, for the first time in a while Rumpelstiltskin had the opportunity to loom menacingly over her. Belle had a bad habit of treating him as an equal, and forgetting her place as his prisoner and his servant. Worse, Rumpelstiltskin had a bad habit of letting her. He took some small comfort in moments like this, when he had the upper hand, and could regain a little lost ground.

It was over far too soon: Belle’s blush cleared, her breathing slowed, and a ready retort came to her lips. “I was just looking for a bowl,” she explained, still rubbing the back of her head. “You didn’t need to startle me!”

“You live in a monster’s lair, little maid,” he reminded her, trying to reassert himself through use of the diminutive. She snorted through her nose; it didn’t work. “If you will let your guard down, such things will happen.”

“I could remain on guard at all times,” she agreed, but he knew he hadn’t won so easily. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever winning an altercation with Belle. “Or, you could stop trying to shock me every chance you get!”

“But where would be the fun in that?” he sneered, childishly, wrinkling his nose. He was disgusted (and pleased, even gratified) when a giggle bubbled out of her, lighting her pretty face and filling her rich blue eyes with warmth. “Did you find what it was you were looking for?” he asked, if only to stop her laughter. It was rich, musical, and far too pleasing to the ear.

“No,” she grumbled, her hand finally leaving the back of her head. “There’s so much in here, it’s hard to see.”

“You… were blindly rummaging in the holding chest?” he asked, perplexed. “That was what you were cursing just now?”

“It’s got to have a big bowl in it!” she protests. “I mean it’s got everything else!”

“It does at that,” he confirms, humming to himself in thought. “Including several ever-cutting blades that draw more blood than you’d expect. I do hope you were careful.”

“I was perfectly careful,” she retorted.

“Which explains the knock to the head,” he replied, enjoying baiting her far too much. Belle’s temper flared, her eyes flashing and cheeks flushing.

“That was your fault!” she cried. “You startled me!”

“Why ever do you need a bowl?” he asked, neatly sidestepping her accusation. “Do we not have several hundred in the kitchen? You surely can’t have broken all of them.”

“I haven’t broken any,” she replied. “But they’re plain, normal bowls. I need something special.”

“Oh? What for?”

She sighed, and dropped her head. To his horror, the fight drained from her and she looked crumpled, defeated in a way that didn’t sit well on her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “Forget it.”

Rumpelstiltskin considered her for a moment. Then, with a slight flourish, he crouched on the balls of his feet beside her, and placed one hand delicately on the lip of the chest. It was still warm from her body, and for a moment he wondered how long she had suspended herself in the bottomless chest, searching for something she had no hope of finding alone.

“Sevassic ceremonial bowl,” he said, clearly. A shiver of magic passed through the chest, and he reached inside. His fingers clasped the handle of the large terrine a moment later. He withdrew it, and rose to his feet, holding it by two of its four handles. Belle followed, her eyes on the prize clasped in his hands. “Is this what you were looking for?” he asked.

Belle nodded, a look of consternation on her face. “I just had to ask?” she demanded. He grinned, and nodded to the chest.

“The holding chest can hold up to ten tonnes of anything one places within it,” he explained. “So to find anything, one must request it.”

“So if I’d just said ‘bowl’,” Belle’s eyes narrowed. “It would have handed me that?”

“Perhaps that will teach you to ask before you take what isn’t yours,” he sneered. He was amazed when she actually nodded, with something resembling repentance.

“Well… thank you, Rumpelstiltskin,” she smiled in gratitude, apparently letting go of her irritations with the chest. She reached for the bowl; he held it away, out of reach.

“Ah-ah,” he shook his head, and grinned with all his teeth. “This bowl is very valuable, dearie. To part with it, I shall require something in return.”

“But you didn’t even want it a moment ago!” she said. “It was languishing in that chest!”

“It is mine,” he shrugged. “Whether I have use for it is neither here nor there. If it has value to you, that makes it valuable to me. Or do I need to explain the basic rule of supply and demand?”

“And what do you demand?” she asked, impatiently. He considered the question.

“You must tell me what you need with it,” he told her. “And if I don’t like it, no bowl.”

“I need permission?” she asked, incredulous. He grinned.

“You are my maid, dearie,” he pointed out. “You do as I say.”

“Since when?” she muttered under her breath. He snorted. At least she was aware of her disobedience, then.

“Do we have a deal?” he pressed. She nodded.

“Fine,” she agreed. “Give me the bowl.”

“Tell me why you want it first,” he insisted.

She looked at him, and for the second time that day he saw her mood shift in a moment. Where just before there had been the spark of defiance, impatience, and that festering annoyance she couldn’t quite shake at having needed his help, there was now something warm, soft, even yearning. “I need it for Wassail.”

The wind went out of his sails, and Rumpelstiltskin stared at her. “For… for what?”

“For wassail,” she replied, stronger this time, lifting her chin. “I have my mother’s mulled cider recipe memorised, and all the ingredients ready. I only need a bowl to make it in.”

“And… none of the ones in the kitchen would do?” he asked, bewildered. There were some beautiful pieces of crockery in the kitchen, fine china covered in beautiful patterns. The meanest of them was still far higher quality than the crude clay pot he and Bae had used, so very long ago.

But, he supposed, Belle was a princess. Belle was used to finer things.

“It ought to be special,” she defended herself. “It should be nicer than what we use for every day, no matter how lavish that might be. You can’t short-change the gods, you know?”

“I suppose so,” he muttered. He’d never held much stock in gods, for what use was a god who would allow peasant children to die in pointless wars? If gods could not do what a demon could, then Rumpelstiltskin knew what real power looked like.

He handed over the bowl. Belle held it defensively to her chest, small arms wrapped around its large circumference. “Thank you,” she said.

“No matter,” he replied. “It’s a fairly useless piece of pottery, but do attempt not to break it, hm?”

“I will,” she offered him a smile, acknowledging his comment for the quip it was.

Belle bustled away to the kitchens, the huge bowl held tight in both arms. If she hugged it to her chest, her hands could clasp her opposing wrists. He couldn’t fathom what she intended to do with that volume of cider, but the kitchens would – as always, as with anything in this castle, perhaps even himself included – provide anything she needed.

---

It had snowed for a week solid.

Belle had long since given up on tracking the days since she’d arrived at the Dark Castle. They bled together, often enough, without her town’s calendar of duties and events to mark the time passed.

Today was snowy, frozen, and the sun was already setting in the late afternoon. It was as good a day as any to call Wassail, and thus bring a little warmth and luck into the castle.

Belle hummed to herself as she finally cut the string across the hearth. The cores of her roasted apples still clung to the twine, but the flesh had long since softened to a pulp in the blazing heat from the fireplace, collected in the bowls she’d haphazardly placed below.

The apple cores she threw out into the snow, before the puree was poured into the huge bowl Rumpelstiltskin had given her. It was a beautiful thing, with four huge, curved arms to carry it, the whole surface decorated in a mix of pure white, deep blue and rich, shimmering gold. It was a magnificent bowl for wassailing, and Belle was humming an old folk song as she added two huge bottles of hard cider from the pantry, and set the bowl on the stovetop to heat through.

As the cider bubbled, she rummaged in the pantry for spices.

A merchant had come two or three times a year to Avonlea to sell such luxuries, and her mother had always set aside enough to add to the wassail bowl in the winter. She couldn’t imagine Rumpelstiltskin, in all his self-conscious opulence, would resist such a luxury, even if he usually ate rather plainly. She’d already found a basket of oranges in the larder, two of which she had pilfered for the cider. Oranges were a rare treat in itself, but spices would be the real prize.

To Belle’s delight, a basket on a low shelf revealed bounty beyond her dreams. Large, neatly labelled pots and bags held a small fortune in spices: cinnamon and nutmeg, cloves and allspice, cumin and coriander, oregano and tarragon. There were more, with names Belle hardly recognised and wasn’t sure she could pronounce, but she promised herself she would return to write them all down and research their usage and properties in the library.

The greatest treasure, however, lay in a glass jar behind the basket. It was full to the brim with a rich, dark brown powder, which stuck together in large clumps. Belle recognised the label – ‘sugar’ – but she didn’t believe it until she stuck her index finger in, and tasted it for herself. Sweetness exploded across her tongue, purer and more intense than any berry, and Belle beamed to herself. Pure sugar was expensive and exceedingly rare, imported from the tropics of Exandria on a separate continent far to the south, and the spice merchant had charged a fortune for just a small bag. Yet here, in Rumpelstiltskin’s pantry, Belle held a huge jar full of the stuff, and seemingly unused.

Belle scrambled to her feet, clutching her quarry to her chest, and quickly added the requisite amounts of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to the mixture.

She settled herself into a chair, and read for the time it took for the cider to come to a boil and simmer away on the stove. Once it was sufficiently heated, Belle strained it, her mother’s firm instructions ever-present in her mind. Lady Colette had always been clear that it was the lady of the house – however high born – who should prepare the wassail bowl.

Belle felt closer to her mother then, with apple puree and hot cider staining her hands and forearms, than she had in all the long, bitter months since her death.

Finally, a smooth, thin, drinkable liquid filled the bowl. Beaming to herself, Belle added a liberal handful of rich, dark brown sugar to the cider, and stirred it all with a heavy wooden spoon. The final ingredient – a liberal slug of brandy – was the easiest to acquire, Rumpelstiltskin being fond of a drink after his meal.

Belle dipped a ladle into the bowl, and took a sip. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she sighed in pleasure. It tasted as good as she remembered, and her heart tugged at the memory it invoked. She could have been in her father’s hall, surrounded by friends and family, her mother’s hand on her shoulder. She could have been home, as she was last Wassail, the world safe and right and good. No ogres, no loss, no sacrifice. She could almost smell the pine wreathes and feel the heat of the fire on her back.

For a moment – a brief moment, so short she could deny it altogether – Belle felt completely, utterly alone. A wave of homesickness swelled, threatening to break and swallow her whole. This was the worst part, she thought to herself: she was not just missing Avonlea; she was missing a place that no longer existed. She was missing her home, with her mother and father, her library and her childhood bed, her friends and those rolling hills. The ogres had destroyed it all: the library was a ruin, the hills blasted and charred by their torches, her father had turned hard and her mother was lost forever.

She swallowed hard, and brushed her tears before they could fall. She took another sip of the cider, and swallowed, letting the pleasant heat of the alcohol warm her throat and her belly. She still had this. This, at least, had not been taken.

Determined, needing to move, Belle took the wassail bowl in both hands, and carried it through to the great hall.

“There you are!” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice, usually so intriguing, grated right then. He was waiting for her it seemed, lounging against his long table with his arms folded, smirking. Belle couldn’t take his questions, his snide comments and his jibes, not right now. “And the bowl’s in tact – a miracle!”

Belle forced a smile, and tried to walk past him. She would sit by the fire, read an old favourite, and drink the whole bowl. She figured at some point the alcohol would have to numb the lonely hollowness in her chest.

It was a terrible plan, but it was the best she had.

“So you aren’t planning to share?” he called after her. Belle stopped dead, incredulous. She heard him tut. “Such gratitude, to use my ingredients and my bowl, and then to hoard the product! Isn’t Wassail about sharing?”

She turned to him, anger replacing her misery, and for that she was grateful. It was so much easier to shout than to weep. “You made me bargain for your bowl, and I only used your ingredients because mine are half a world away!” she cried.

“Semantics,” he sneered.

For just a moment, she hated him.

It was irrational and unjustified: he hadn’t set the ogres on Avonlea, or killed her mother, and she had summoned him with the full knowledge that she would have to sacrifice something great in return for his aid. Had he halted the ogre wars for free, her life now would be little better. Her father would still have turned over-protective and secretive, she would still have to marry cruel, brutish Sir Gaston, and her home would still be lost to her.

But he was here, and he was sneering at her, and hating him was all she had.

“You want some?” she demanded, hotly. “You can’t just leave me to do this, you really want to share Wassail with your little servant?”

“Who else have I to share it with?” he asked.

For all his affected nonchalance Belle was caught off guard by the words. His eyes darted, flicking from the steaming bowl to her face and back again. Her false hatred drained as fast as it had come. He was just as alone as she was, trapped by his curse and his deals as she was trapped by her promise to serve him. He was right. Wassail was for sharing, and who else did she have to share it with but him? What did any of them have of any value, when one discounted gold and empty wealth, but one another?

Slowly, she held out the bowl.

Rumpelstiltskin eyed it like it might bite him, for all he had demanded a taste. He crept closer, his hands fluttering from his sides to cover hers and hold it too. He reminded Belle of nothing so much as a woodland creature, offered a treat from a stranger’s hand, desperate for a taste but scared of the hunter’s axe that could follow.

How could he be all of these things at once? How could he be by turns cautious and gentle as a fawn, cunning and cruel as a venomous snake, and volatile as a fuming volcano? How could he draw her near, inexplicable and irresistible as the tide, and yet force her back with every step?

His hands covered hers on the bowl, and Belle was surprised to feel soft, firm skin against the backs of her fingers. She had expected scales, perhaps, or something rough like uncured hide. She shivered all over. She hadn’t realised how starved she was for human contact until he’d touched her, and a slow warmth spread from his palms and up over icy skin, soothing an ache too deep to be felt until it was relieved.

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes widened, and Belle knew he’d felt it too. She had hugged him after he had let the thief go, and sometimes she dared to touch his arm in thanks or in passing, when she felt brave or forgot herself. This was different: their hands were pressed skin-to-skin, the heat of the wassail bowl radiating out through her and into him, and this time he had initiated their contact; he had touched her.

“Happy Wassail, Belle,” he said, his voice pitched far lower than it had been moments before. It was gravelly, even: more human than she’d ever heard it, a tinged with an accent that had been hidden always before by his twittering affectations. She nodded, and together they lifted the bowl to his lips, and tipped it so he could drink.

Belle watched, enthralled by the way the muscles in his neck danced and moved as he swallowed the cider down. She had the sudden urge to lean forward and press her tongue to those muscles, to feel them jumping for herself, to see if he felt as human there as his hands did.

She caught herself with a jolt, and by the time he looked back down at her, lowering the bowl back to rest between them, Belle’s eyes were carefully trained on the floor.

“That’s delicious!” he complimented her, and when her eyes flicked back to meet his in surprise there was a warmth there she’d never seen before.

That wasn’t true: it was there often, whenever she caught him watching her when he thought she couldn’t see. But he’d never looked into her eyes that way. Belle found herself smiling back, a slow and tentative thing, a little blush rising in her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she replied. “It’s my mother’s recipe.”

“Your mother?” Rumpelstiltskin frowned. “I don’t remember another lady present at our first meeting.”

Belle swallowed hard, and shook her head. “She… she died,” she said, softly. “In the first ogre attack. It was about five months ago now.”

“Oh,” Rumpelstiltskin swallowed, and withdrew his hands slowly, stepping back away from her. “I… I’m sorry to hear that, Belle,” he said, awkwardly. She could see him fight the urge to make some crass comment, to break the tension that had built between them. Belle shook her head.

“It’s… it’s what it is,” she sighed. “She died protecting me, but when I woke up after the attack I couldn’t remember how. All I know of her final moments is that she was a hero. She must have been: I wouldn’t be standing here otherwise.”

“There are many enchantments that could fix that, you know,” he said, tentatively. “That restore lost memories, I mean. A simple potion would suffice.”

Belle swallowed hard. Images flashed before her eyes: the mountain, the trolls, a purple stone falling onto a far ledge and Anna’s hand grasping on, her voice begging for help. The long, fading cry as Anna’s hand slipped, and she fell to her certain death, both stone and friend lost to a moment of weakness. Belle had had her chance to be a hero, to sacrifice as Colette had, and she’d failed and gotten Anna killed in the process. She didn’t deserve an easy victory after that.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I think… I don’t think I should know.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. “The truth can be more than we can bear, sometimes,” he said. “Forgetting is not always a curse.”

Belle nodded, swallowing down an explanation, the urge to tell the whole sordid tale bubbling to the surface. She couldn’t say it aloud.

“I suppose,” she replied, a mimicry of his odd answer from earlier. She sighed, and tried to shake off her self-pitying woe. Nothing could change the past, and at least her being here had saved many others in Avonlea. She could be thankful for that, at least.

And, she thought, she could be thankful that the beast she had traded herself away to was not such a beast after all.

He was a contradiction, a force of nature, and she knew his darkness was as real as the glimmer of light in his eyes, but he wasn’t cruel to her. He was, in fact, remarkably good company. He was a challenge, but Belle felt her soul burnished, strengthened and brightened in her opposition to him. She took enjoyment from sparring with him, even going out of her way to provoke him. The way he smiled at her laughter, pantomimed and said outrageous things to incite her questions and her outrage, told her everything she needed to know. He wanted her close, wanted her to pry and to query everything he tried to hide and keep secret; to explore and to touch what she oughtn’t; to find comfort, and to make herself at home. All of that applied as much to his person as it did to his castle, and Belle had known it from the moment he had created a whole new wing of books just to entertain her.

Perhaps he was a beast. But he was her beast, as much as she was his maid. It was strange, wonky and perhaps a little broken, whatever it was that lay between them. But it was theirs, and Belle was thankful for that.

“Happy wassail, Rumpelstiltskin,” she said, with a genuine smile this time. She lifted the bowl in cheers, and took a deep draught of the cider herself. The hot, sweet liquid burned down her throat and settled warm in her stomach, and she felt the world soften just a little, the smile readier now on her face.

She offered him the bowl. He took it, and set it down on the table behind him, taking a seat in his grand chair. He picked up the bowl, and took another long drink.

With a wave of his hand, a chair appeared behind Belle and scooted forward, catching her behind her knees and pulling her to sit at Rumpelstiltskin’s right hand, around the corner from him. She yelped out a laugh of surprise, caught off guard by the sudden presence of soft velvet cushioning beneath her, sitting down where a moment ago she had been stood. He’d never summoned her a chair before, she thought with a pleased little smile. He liked to unsettle her, to make her sit on the table while he sat regally at the head.

He had a bad habit of treating her like an equal, when he was caught off-guard. Belle liked him far more that way.

“It’s bad luck not to finish the wassail bowl, is it not?” he asked, lightly. Belle beamed, and nodded.

“Oh yes,” she agreed, trying and failing to sound deadly serious. “Terrible luck.” She ruined the effect with a little giggle, and lifted the bowl to her lips once more, taking a long drink.

They shared the bowl between them that way for the next half hour, until the bowl was almost empty and the room was swaying, and Belle was more relaxed than she had been in months.

Rumpelstiltskin was watching her closely. “Belle?” he asked. “How much alcohol did you put in this?”

Belle thought for a moment. “Two bottles of the hard cider in the larder,” she told him, “And a large cup of brandy.”

“Ah,” he nodded, his eyes a little unfocussed. “We never used alcohol for wassail,” he murmured, and Belle wondered whom he meant by ‘we’, hungry as ever for titbits of his hidden past. “Well, that explains why the room is dancing.” Belle nodded happily.

“I’ve never had that much to drink before,” she told him. “It’s nice. Very warm.”

Rumpelstiltskin considered her. “It suits you,” he told her, idly. Belle stared at her: she couldn’t remember the last time he’d paid her a compliment. Perhaps this was the first.

“Being drunk doesn’t suit anyone,” she replied. “Papa gets all red-faced and he shouts and gets into fights.”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, an indulgent smile playing about his lips. “Your cheeks are flushed,” he told her. “And it brightens your eyes. Very lovely,” he crooned. Belle felt something tighten in her gut, something hot and warm, low and deep in her belly. She really, really liked him complimenting her in that tone of voice.

“My cheeks aren’t hot!” she protested, embarrassed by the thought of looking like Sir Maurice when he was in his cups, blotchy and bleary. She raised her fingers to her cheeks, and felt only a little warmth there. “Not flushed,” she announced. Rumpelstiltskin grinned, lazily.

“Perhaps it is just my imagination,” he agreed. A moment later, he had leaned forward and raised his hands to rest just a hairsbreadth from her cheeks. Belle’s breathing became shallow; his face was far closer than it had been a moment ago.

He was very handsome, her Rumpelstiltskin: she had always thought so. His eyes were so wide and so interesting, and he had that long nose and expressive mouth, with lips that looked so soft. She had only ever kissed one man before, and Sir Gaston had treated it more like a battle campaign than an expression of affection. She couldn’t imagine Rumpelstiltskin kissing like that. She thought he would be as dextrous, talented, and committed to detail as he was with his spinning or his spellcraft.

She blushed deeper, thinking that. A little line appeared between Rumpelstiltskin’s eyebrows, and his hands closed the final gap, cupping her cheeks with gentle reverence. A pulse of pleasure ran from Belle’s face down through her body, making her breath hitch and her eyes close for a moment.

“Your cheeks are enflamed, my dear,” he murmured, his voice pitched so low she felt it reverberate in her bones, soft and warm and deep. She wanted to curl up and sleep in that voice, to drown in it.

“Drink suits you too,” she said, the words out without her conscious choice. “It makes you be nice to me.”

He sighed, and slid his hands down her cheeks, across her neck and away. Belle mourned the loss of his warmth instantly, her body screaming out for more contact. “I always want to be nice to you, Belle,” he sighed, and looked so defeated and self-loathing that Belle’s heart twisted with sympathy.

“Then why don’t you?” she asked.

“Because it’s dangerous,” he replied. “You shouldn’t show kindness to something you don’t intend to become attached to.”

“But you are kind to me,” she objected, frowning at his comment, at how incorrect every word had been. How could someone so clever be so blind? “You saved my town, you give me free reign in the castle, you talk to me and help me… you gave me a library!”

“I never said I wasn’t a fool,” he muttered. “Or that I don’t often endanger myself, with or without intent to do so.”

“You think kindness is foolishness?” she asked, the thought anathema to everything she knew to be true, everything she believed in her gut. “But kindness is… it’s the only thing that matters. It’s what separates us from monsters and animals. It’s what sets us free.”

“And therein lies the fault in your logic, little Belle,” he said, with a twisted smile. He tapped her on her nose, and Belle wrinkled it. “I am a monster, and I am hardly free. Kindness has no meaning to me, it is hardly currency.”

“Kindness is what proves you’re not a monster,” she retorted. “You shared my Wassail bowl with me. You keep me company.”

“You wouldn’t need company had I not trapped you here,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose, as if plagued by a headache.

“You would be alone, though,” Belle reminded him. She reached out a hand, and covered his where it rested on his thigh. “So would I.”

“You would have you family and your friends,” he pointed out. Belle shook her head.

“My mother is gone, Rumple,” she reminded him, slipping into the diminutive without conscious thought. He caught it, she knew he did, but he didn’t object. “I was being forced to marry a cruel and unkind man, the man who started the ogre war by torturing one of their young. My father forced me into the marriage, so that we would have arms to fight them.”

“And so, you saw a choice,” he sighed. “One monster or another.”

Belle shook her head, annoyed by his constant need to put himself down. “I saw two paths,” she said. “I knew what Gaston was, I knew what trials I would face as his wife. I didn’t… I don’t know what you are. I couldn’t be sure of what I’d face with you, but that uncertainty was still preferable to a life of Gaston’s bullying.”

“Well, to start with I’m not a ‘what’,” he replied, drolly. Belle rolled her eyes. “And you know more of me now, you must do. If given the choice again-“

“I’d choose the same,” she said, immediately, cutting him off. “Every time. I would seek you out, and choose you.”

Her breath came sharp and quick, her outburst silencing them both. “Belle,” he started, but she cut him off, shaking her head.

“No, don’t tell me I’m wrong,” she begged. “Please, Rumple, please.”

“I won’t,” he held up his palms, helpless in the face of her distress. “I just… don’t understand, sweetheart. Why would you choose this?”

“My mother’s gone,” she said, her voice small and weak. “She’s gone. And I would have had to make her cider for my father, who sold me to Gaston in exchange for an army, and for Gaston, who bought me. There’s no one left there who loves me. Sometimes I think she was the only one who ever did, who ever could. Papa loves me as his daughter but he doesn’t want me to be who I am. He doesn’t love the person I am; only the person he wishes I was. How is that love?”

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, his eyes wide, wrong-footed by her outburst. “I… I don’t have an answer to that, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “As someone whose soul has been darkened beyond recognition, I don’t know how anyone could disapprove of yours.”

Belle sniffled, and shook her head. “Your soul isn’t dark, Rumple, even if your actions can be. I mean, I really don’t like that you kill people,” she told him, bluntly. “Or torture people. Or steal babies. Or enjoy hurting people. I disapprove of that.”

“I know,” he agreed. “Having met the sort of woman who did, I think I’d like you a lot less if you approved of me.”

“You like me?” she asked, blinking. She’d suspected, hoped, but she’d never heard him say it and she always did have a stellar imagination. It was something wholly different to hear explicitly what had only ever been implicit.

“Who could dislike you, Belle?” he asked, sounding a little caught out. “You’re… you’re so full of light, it hurts to look at you sometimes. If your father didn’t see that, then he was twice the fool I took him for.”

Belle smiled at him, not knowing what to do with the compliment, the latest of many since they’d started drinking. “I like you too,” she told him. “Even though I don’t approve of hurting people for fun and profit.”

“You wouldn’t have liked who I was before all that,” he told her with an airy gesture, his voice wistful and sad. She frowned.

“Before… before the curse? There was a ‘before’?”

He nodded, his lips pressed together hard. “I wasn’t anyone,” he told her. “I was small, lame, poor and talentless. I was a deserter and a coward. My boy and I cooked and pressed the cheapest apples we could buy at the market into a jug, added some honey and a little water, and drank that for Wassail. The bowl we drank from was cruder than the chamber pot in your bedroom.”

Belle bit her lip, trying to imagine the great and terrible Rumpelstiltskin as a poor spinner, struggling to feed a scrawny, beloved child. Her heart clenched with sympathy. “You have his clothes upstairs,” she murmured. “Your son’s.”

“He’s lost to me now,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “But I’ll find him one day. And then… then maybe, you could make your cider again?”

Belle beamed, the hopefulness in his voice making her heart flutter. “I’d be happy to,” she said. “When you find him, maybe we can all share it. With maybe a little less brandy.”

“No, the brandy’s good,” he shook his head. “Makes you even more beautiful. I didn’t know you could be more beautiful.”

Belle blushed to her roots, blooming under his hazy-eyed appreciation.

Then she sighed; his wistfulness was catching. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It won’t ever mean anything.”

“What won’t?” he asked, perplexed. He was so handsome when he was confused.

“Whether or not I’m beautiful,” she explained.

“I don’t understand.”

Belle huffed out her breath, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Why do women want to be beautiful?” she asked, rhetorically. “So that they will be desired. So that they can receive what comes from desire?” She leaned toward him meaningfully, eyebrows raised.

She saw the moment he caught on: he started, his eyes wide like a shocked maiden. “Oh,” he said, his voice high again, twittering and uneasy. “I… I see.”

She slouched back in her chair, “But you took me before I could be married,” she said. “And Gaston only wanted me because I was beautiful. He kissed like he was invading a country. I shudder to think what else he might have tried to invade.”

“I see,” Rumpelstiltskin was watching her warily, like a deer ready to bolt. Belle laughed: wasn’t she the captured maiden here? Shouldn’t she recoil in shocked virtue from him, not the other way around? “Do you… do you wish to be married, Belle?” he asked, his nose wrinkled with distaste. “I could probably arrange a very profitable deal for a bride as lovely and accomplished as you, if that was what you truly wanted.”

Belle stared at him, and for a moment she considered it. Traded again, to another stranger, although she doubted Rumpelstiltskin would pick anyone oafish or unkind for her. He would probably be handsome, a strapping young hero. And he’d probably be dull as a brick, and half as interesting.

She’d met plenty of young men in her time whom she’d found handsome or charming. She’d only ever met one man who appeared in her dreams at night, who could infuriate and excite her all at once. There was only one person in the world who could draw her to the surface of her skin, who could make her feel like every nerve ending was a livewire, like every emotion was a tidal wave. There was only one man in the whole world who made her feel this fully and completely herself, and so wholly alive.

“Do you want to marry me off, Rumpelstiltskin?” she asked, instead of answering. “I thought you wanted me here forever.”

“I’m trying to be kind,” he told her, rasping as if the words were dragged from an unwilling throat. “You said you value kindness.”

“If I wanted to be married, then I wouldn’t be here,” she told him. “I just… wish I knew what it would feel like. I can’t help but be curious.”

“What what would feel like?” he asked, puzzled by her yet again. “Marriage?”

“No,” she shook her head, curls swaying in her field of vision. “That whole… other part,” she waved a hand, “You know, desire, wanting, lovemaking, all of that.”

She saw Rumpelstiltskin stiffen, saw his eyes widen to saucers. She watched as his tongue darted out to wet his soft lips, his eyes running over her involuntarily. She shivered all over. For the first time (or perhaps the thousandth) Belle saw how truly, deeply lonely he was, and felt an answering tug deep inside. He liked her. He thought her beautiful. Did there really need to be more than that, to satisfy the ache in her skin that called for his?

“Rumpelstiltskin?” she said, hesitantly, when he didn’t reply.

“Yes?”

“I… there’s only one serving of the cider left,” she said, unable to say whatever it was she’d thought of first. “Do you want it?”

He shook his head. “You take it.”

“No, I want you to have it.”

He blinked at her, and when he spoke she felt he was referring to something other than the hot cider in the bowl between them. “Why?”

His bewildered eyes caught hers, and for a moment she held his gaze, the bowl caught between them. Then, without looking away, without breaking the spell, he reached forward, and took the bowl in both hands and pouring what was left into his mouth. When he was done, he placed the bowl back on the table, and looked to her, his face full of uncertainty.

Belle leaned forward, her hands braced on his knees, and softly pressed her lips to his. For a moment, he was completely still, paralysed by shock or fear or repulsion she did not know.

Then, a moment later, his lips slanted over hers and she was kissing her back. A soft noise, a moan or perhaps a whimper, something helpless and sweet, escaped the back of his throat. When her tongue darted to touch his lips, she could taste the cider.

His lips opened for her, and at that moment Belle was suddenly out of ideas. Gaston had forced his tongue inside and all but choked her with it, and that had been unpleasant. She wasn’t sure what was supposed to be done, once the kiss was initiated. She wanted to drink the cider from his mouth, to celebrate and revel in him. She wanted to express whatever it was that he evoked in her, the swelling feeling that made her burst from her skin. She wanted him, just him, always him.

Thankfully, at that moment Rumpelstiltskin took control. His hand cradled the back of her head, carding through the soft mass of curls at the back of her neck and holding her still. His tongue touched hers, and all of a sudden the kiss was a caress, his lips and tongue and even his teeth stroking at her mouth, sending sparks and shivers through her body. She melted against him, clinging to his shoulder with one hand. He tasted of apples, brandy and spice, and she drank him in greedily; chasing every part of him she could reach.

Finally, he pulled back, and she hauled in a shuddering breath. Her eyes drifted open, and she met his with a small smile. For just a second, he looked so helpless and so adoring that her heart ached in her chest. How had she never seen it before? How had she ever doubted how he valued her?

Rumpelstiltskin released her, suddenly, as if the touch of her burned him. “No,” he shook his head, “No, you don’t want this.”

“What?” she frowned, her mind fuzzy, unable to follow his logic. “I kissed you!”

“You’re drunk, Belle,” he said, his voice disgusted. “You should go to bed, before you do something you’ll regret.”

“I don’t want to go to bed alone,” she said. “I want you.”

“You’re lonely,” he sighed, slouching back in his chair. The position pulled his sinful leather breeches tight, and she could see plain as day that sending her away was the last thing he wanted. It bolstered her, gave her faith that he really did want her. “You’re lonely, and you think you want me because I’m your only option. It’s understandable.”

“I do want you,” she repeated. “There’s no one else in the world I want. My home is gone. My fiancé was a tyrant; my father didn’t care. But you care. You don’t have to, but you do. You’ve cared about me for a long time, haven’t you? You have a kind soul, Rumpelstiltskin, for all your darkness.”

He shook his head; he didn’t believe her.

“Fine,” she said. “Use magic, sober me up. See if my answer changes.”

“You’re sure?” he frowned. She nodded.

He took her hand in both of his, and she felt a ripple run through her, the drowsy, hazy softness of the world receding as things cleared. She became more aware of the sharp edge of the table against her forearm, the draft from the open door and the heat from the fire. Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes bored into hers.

“So?”

Belle didn’t answer. It was a ridiculous question. Yes, sometimes she felt she almost hated him. Yes, sometimes she resented his darkness, how it haunted him, how it made him lash out at the world. Yes, he took pleasure in shocking her, riling her, bringing out her urge to fight and scratch and win. But she loved all of that, too. She loved how deeply he made her feel, how alive she felt with him, whether at his side or in opposition. She loved that she could incite something in him, too: something kinder, warmer and sweeter than he ever seemed to expect.

She leaned in close and kissed him again, her hand cupping his cheek. He had done her a favour here: if kissing him while intoxicated warmed her through, then kissing him with her full capacities set her alight.

He made that same helpless little noise as before, a little louder this time, and Belle felt herself hauled forward, his strong arms coming around her waist to pull her into his lap. Rumpelstiltskin tilted her head to the side, and Belle sank in against him, loving the feel of his firm body beneath her as he devoured her. Gaston’s forceful kisses had been sloppy and uncomfortable, but Rumpelstiltskin kissed her with a kind of reverence that offset and yet augmented his urgency, his desperation to be as close to her as he possibly could be.

His mouth slipped from hers, and he rained kisses across her jaw and down the column of her neck, his mouth worshipping every inch of skin he came across. Belle clutched at the back of his head, her hands woven into his hair to clutch him closer.

“Rumple,” she panted, “Rumple, please…”

His little groan reverberated through her, and she kissed his temple, stroked his hair, did anything she could to share an ounce of the pleasure he gave her.

He stood in one fluid motion, Belle safe and cradled in his arms, and placed her on the table in front of him. She shifted back, and knocked the wassail bowl, catching it before it could tip. It vanished in a puff of smoke before she could move it. She caught his eyes, and Rumpelstiltskin shrugged.

“It was in the way,” he explained, a wicked glint entering his eyes.

Belle grinned, and arched up, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him and kissed him, her legs coiling around his waist. He wrenched himself away from her after a long minute, and shook his head. “Not here,” he panted.

“Here,” she insisted, “Please, please.”

“You deserve better than this,” he said. “A bed, at least, or…”

“Time for that later,” she told him.

“Later?” he looked stunned, and she grinned. She rubbed her nose against his affectionately, enjoying his dumbstruck smile.

“Later,” she agreed, and kissed him again, her hands clawing at his back as he hauled her closer. With her legs around his waist, there was suddenly very little between the hard bulge in his breeches, and the place between her legs that ached for him. The sudden pressure when he held her flush against him made her moan and tremble in his arms.

“This is really what you want?” he asked, and this time it was a challenge, a provocation. His voice rumbled, low and rough in her ear. She nodded.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Please.”

Rumpelstiltskin’s hands smoothed down her sides and stroked down her legs, until he found the hem of her skirt puddled on the table. He drew it up slowly, inch by inch, until Belle felt gooseflesh rising on her skin at the fresh chill. He stroked her inner thighs teasingly, and Belle wished she knew what to ask for, wished she knew the right words to say. She wanted so much and yet knew so distressingly little.

“Higher?” he asked, his breath huffing in her ear, making her shiver.

“Y-yes,” she nodded, and he moved his hand up her thigh, over her stocking top to the hem of her drawers.

“Higher still?”

“Please,” she panted, shaking with desire for him. “Please, touch me, please…”

He grinned, and kissed her jawline as two firm fingers slid down over the damp fabric of her drawers, pressing at her folds. They both moaned at the contact. “You’re so wet, Belle,” he murmured, in fascination.

“That’s… that’s good, right?”

He laughed, indulgently, and nipped at her bottom lip. She chased his mouth as she pressed her hips against his hand, but he kept teasing her, his fingers only stroking, his mouth brushing butterfly kisses against hers without ever really satisfying.

“It’s extraordinary, my little Belle,” he murmured. “Tell me what you want, tell me how to please you.”

“Kiss me,” she begged. “Touch me. I… I don’t know…”

“Shhh,” his breath rippled against her lips as he kissed her, a tender, gentle, plucking thing that made her melt against him. “To touch you properly, these will need to come off,” he told her, his mouth still a scant inch from hers. “I can…”

“Do what you will, Rumpelstiltskin,” she replied. “I trust you.”

He stared at her, his wide eyes flicking between hers, searching for a lie and finding none. His next kiss was hard and bruising, as a shimmer ran over Belle’s upper thighs, tickling her between her legs, making her gasp as her underwear vanished and cold air hit wet flesh. Suddenly, pressure became true touch, his fingers dipping and roving restlessly between her little nub and her entrance and back again, charting paths that only her own hands had ever traced before.

It hurt, just a little, when he eased one digit inside her. Her muscles clenched around him, but she had been prepared for that, for the pain, and bit her lip hard to keep from making noise. He rubbed her back, and when his thumb returned to her nub and his finger moved, she realised – to her delight and surprise – that the little pain slowly became a sharp heat, an intensely pleasurable thing. He moved his finger in and out slowly, stroking inside her, and she rocked her hips, panting sharp and fast. Pleasure coiled up inside her, burning and building between her hips, up and up and up with every movement of his finger and his restless, rolling thumb.

She was almost to the peak, the pinnacle she had experienced only a handful of times in the dead of night, so close she could taste it. She felt an extra pressure then at her channel, another finger seeking entrance, and she moaned in pain when the muscle expanded, the heat flickering to pain and back again.

“Alright?” he breathed into her hair. She moaned and trembled, wordless. “Belle, Belle, sweet beautiful Belle, speak to me sweetheart.”

“H-hurts,” she panted, and she felt him start to withdraw. Her hand clamped down on his wrist, “No, no don’t, don’t stop.”

“I don’t want to cause you pain,” he told her, his voice anguished. She cupped his face with her free hand, and shook her head.

“It’s good pain,” she told him, already feeling it recede and return to that overwhelming heat, his second digit starting to please her. “It means I can feel you. You’re so gentle with me,” she breathed against his lips, the moment before a kiss, “My Rumple.”

His second finger pushed deeper ever so slowly to join its partner. Belle shuddered and quaked around him, her thighs tightening and relaxing as she grew used to the intrusion, her muscles relaxing at last, allowing him to withdraw and return in a slow thrust. She moaned, and so he did it again, and again, his thumb rubbing and rubbing at her. The pleasure spiralled higher and higher, and she felt so full, so overwhelmed by him, and then suddenly it broke into a thousand shimmering stars, her whole body rocking and shaking against him as a cry was torn from her throat, her climax leaving her trembling and breathless.

Rumpelstiltskin withdrew his fingers slowly, petting her folds gently as she came down from her high, still shaking with aftershock.

“There we go, there we go, shhh,” he murmured, petting her back in slow circles, her head limp and buried in his throat. “So beautiful, so perfect, lovely Belle.”

Belle shivered all over, finding herself colder without the heat curling through her. She had expected to feel satiated now, to lie back and let him do what he would without complaint. She didn’t expect to feel restless still, to feel as if the miracle of his fingers had only whet her appetite for more, sharpened her need into an aching, undeniable thing.

She clenched her legs tightly around him, to keep him from leaving her alone with this thirst. Her hands, shaking and fumbling, fiddled with the stays of his breeches, trying desperately to untie them and release what lay beneath.

“You want more, little maid?” he asked, and she could hear the little teasing note in his voice, the tone that tried to reassure her and lighten the mood. She appreciated it, and felt the diminutive now as a term of endearment, where earlier that day it had raised her hackles, made her indignant.

“Need you,” she pleaded, devoid of her ability to make light, to take his clever words and dance with them. All that was left was that all-consuming need for him, desire that went far beyond lust, that shot straight to her heart and made her ache for him. “My Rumple, please…”

“Yes, yes,” he nodded, and his quick, nimble fingers did far better than her fumbling efforts to undress him. His leather breaches were untied in a matter of moments, and Belle’s eyes widened when his member sprang free.

“That’s… a little larger than your fingers,” she swallowed hard, worried now about possible pain. Rumpelstiltskin’s pupils were dilated, his eyes wide and dark, his breath ragged. Against her breast, she could feel his racing heartbeat. It matched her own, hard and fast, bonded in this desperate, greedy thing.

“I can use a little magic?” he suggested, softly. “To ease the way?”

“I… if it hurts, maybe,” she nodded; soothed by the thought that her inexperience wouldn’t prevent this, and by his reaffirmation that he would not hurt her. She had known that (had always known that, from the moment she’d broken that cup and he’d barely blinked) but it was helpful to have it restated.

He nodded quickly, and she gasped and shuddered as his quick fingers returned to her numb, so sensitive now after her climax. The pleasure flickered in her now, sharp and almost too much, quick and fast and overpowering. He spread her wetness from her entrance and over her lips, slickening her, and in turn his touch caused her to grow wetter for him. Belle was soon trembling against him, her hips bucking helplessly against his fingers to increase the friction, to guide him, to find the places where the pleasure sparked and sent her flying.

She felt his hand curl over her belly, and another of those magical shimmers, just a little twist that shook inside her. “Just a precaution,” he explained, softly. “To prevent further complications.”

“To… prevent pregnancy?” she asked. He nodded, and kissed her throat.

“Only for now,” he promised. “With your courses, the magic will lose its effect.”

Belle nodded, thankful he’d thought of it because she surely had not. She hadn’t even known whether a cursed man such as him could father children, much less whether he would want them. She surely didn’t, at least not here and now. She barely knew what she was to Rumpelstiltskin: there was no room for new life in their odd little relationship.

“Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded, breathless, and kissed his temple, his hair; any part of him she could reach. It was never enough to abate the need in her for him.

She felt the sides of his clenched fingers as he lined them up, and then the rounded, thick head of him breaching her folds. He ran his length along her lips once, twice, letting her grow accustomed to him there, letting her get a sense of his length and girth. She was thankful now for Rumpelstiltskin’s smaller stature: his body was a far better fit for her petite form than hulking Gaston might have proved.

Still, when the head breached her entrance, she gasped and felt her muscles tighten again, that same burning pain as he tried to enter. “Magic,” she panted. “P-please, Rumpelstiltskin.”

He nodded, and his finger traced through her wet lips, a pleasurable tingle running through her from where his fingertip touched her. Her muscles relaxed, welcomed him, and in a moment, he was inside her.

It was an odd sensation, being filled so deeply, but when she shifted and her muscles tightened again it felt marvellous to have something hot and hard to clench around. When Rumpelstiltskin pulled back and thrust into her once more, a gasp of pleasure was forced from Belle’s lungs, her head thrown back as Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth descended on her throat and collarbones, lavishing every inch with kisses. They were joined as closely as two people could be, and while she held him inside her she felt she could save him, could protect him, could keep him with her and keep him warm and safe. And loved. She could make him feel loved, here, and wanted too.

He kissed her as he set up a slow, gentle rhythm, the hand between them making sure to brush her nub with every in stroke. He spoke so harshly, so dismissively, of kindness and of his capacity for it. And yet, here in their coupling, he was kindness itself. He gentled her, coaxed her, his mouth on her lips and jaw and throat, his finger between them and his cock inside her all easing her up and up, through those realms of pleasure again until she was crying out, bucking her hips, trying to get him to move faster, deeper, to give her more of him. She wanted everything he could give her, to gorge herself on him. When his huge, opaque eyes met hers, his mouth descending once more to kiss the breath from her, she knew he felt the same.

“Come on, Belle,” he growled against her lips, “Lovely, kind, perfect Belle, my Belle, come for me, let me see you.”

Belle cried out, her muscles contracting around him, her whole body set alight as the pleasure burst inside her. She writhed against him, hips bucking, keening cries falling from her lips as she came and came around him, every thrust of his hips and press of his fingers prolonging her pleasure.

As she started to drift down, she felt him stiffen, his mouth falling slack and a low groan rumbling from his throat as he spilled himself. She held him as he jerked against her, his own pleasure ruining his usually impeccable control of his body. She stroked his back in slow circles, wondering how it was she could feel so loose when she was still almost fully clothed, how much better this could feel if she could touch his skin, could feel it pressed to her own.

He released a shuddering breath, and slid out of her, summoning a handkerchief and using it to clean himself as he tucked his softening member back into his breaches.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice low and thick with concern. He had hidden his face in her neck to avoid her eyes; she drew him up with both hands, and kissed his uncertain mouth.

“I’m wonderful,” she told him, softly. “And I believe something was said about a bed?”

“I think so, yes,” he agreed, laughing, the freest, most genuine laugh she’d ever heard from him.

“Wassail is for sharing, after all,” she teased. He nodded, and kissed her again, using her distraction to surround them with smoke and transport them to his huge four-poster bed. Belle sat back with a little jolt of surprise, but soon grinned when her hands met soft silk sheets, the most luxurious bed she’d ever seen.

She opened her arms to him, and he crawled into them, covering her with his body and kissing her again, and again, his hand already roving over her body.

“Now,” he grinned, “Where were we?”