#{imma just send you the biggest friggin bear hug through the interwebs <3 }

[rosebete]

Gift Exchange Fic

Happy Holidays! Hope you enjoy this, it’s been great getting to know you the past few weeks :D

Hooked on All These Feelings

  The snow fell, silently, onto the grounds outside the library window. Belle hadn’t yet noticed the change in weather, as she was currently reading one of the few mystery novels at the castle she hadn’t yet read, and was getting caught up in the unravelling investigation. While admittedly slow in the setup of the mystery, the novel was swiftly growing denser and denser with each revelation. She was sat on a window seat, one leg curled beneath her, the other dangling over the edge towards the floor. The curve of her skirt – a light green that brought out the same colour in her eyes – was deep enough to cover most of her lower body in its volumes of fabric, but it was not quite long enough, given her current position, to cover the good inch of her stockinged calf that showed between her skirt hem and her boot.

  The boot wasn’t hers – none of the clothes she was currently wearing belonged to her, as a matter of fact. She had arrived at the castle still in summer shoes and a light dress, to match the light, breezy October day. When November breezes had blustered across the countryside and begun to chill the castle, both the Beast and her servants had insisted that Belle wear some of the clothes in the wardrobes, since they were actually made with winter in mind. She had agreed, probably more out of her own discomfort than because the Beast had asked her to. They were still wary of each other then, unsure where either stood. The Beast flattered herself that they were closer now. It might have been because of Belle’s sweet smile, or the way she could laugh at the Beast, or crack jokes. Or it might have been because seeing a beautiful woman wearing the Beast’s old clothes, and looking far more comfortable in them than she ever had, did something complicated and strange to her heart.

  Belle’s foot swung idly back and forth, in time to the rhythm of some song that only she could hear. The Beast watched her out the corner of one eye. The eyelets caught the light as her foot moved, glinting copper. The same copper could be seen in Belle’s hair, thick and resplendent over her shoulders. The Beast could count the number of times Belle had worn her hair loose on one hand. The first had been the night she ran into the woods, and the Beast had run to save her.

  (She can still remember it now, over a year since the transformation, although she doesn’t like to. The loss of her temper, and the look of terror on Belle’s face. How Belle ran out of the castle as quickly as she could, reneging on her promise – and who could blame her? A guilt-ridden check of the mirror, which revealed the wolves, which resulted in her following Belle to the forest before she consciously chose to. She can still see the scars on her forearm that the wolf-fight left, no longer raised and pink, but there nevertheless. She can still remember the split-second before the wolves noticed her presence, and one was inches away from Belle’s face. She doesn’t remember fainting from shock, or the half-conscious state in which Belle eased her onto Phillippe and took her back home. But she remembers waking up in her armchair before the fire, and seeing Belle, her hair loose around her shoulders, worn out and worried, but there, for better or worse.)

  The second time had been a week ago at some point during the night, when both of them had come to the library for some comfort-reading. Belle had been in her shift, dark circles under her eyes and hair half-falling out of the plait she had braided it into for sleep. It had taken her a moment to realise that the Beast was there, and she had jumped at the sight of her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” she’d said. “I didn’t realise anyone was awake.”

  “I come here sometimes, when I have trouble sleeping,” the Beast had responded by way of explanation. “Books are a comfort, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Belle had smiled. “I never felt quite as alone, growing up, as long as I something to read. Whenever I had a nightmare, or trouble sleeping, I’d open my curtains and read by the lamplight – or the moonlight, once we moved to the country.”

  “You didn’t always live in Molyneaux?” The Beast had sat at that point, realising that the conversation would not be their typical short exchange.

  “No,” Belle said. “My parents and I used to live in Paris, many years ago. But there was a plague scare, when I was around five or six, and they decided to leave for Lyons. After my mother died, Papa decided to move to the countryside, and we lived in several different towns before Molyneaux.” The speech, tempered as it was with a hint of a smile, had the air of something well-rehearsed.

  “Have you been living in Molyneaux long?” the Beast had asked. A decade of speaking with the same people had left her conversational skills rusty, to say the least, but she could remember the basics of politeness.

  “Since I was fifteen, so … nearly five years, now,” Belle said. “I didn’t realise it had been that long,” she added in a murmur.

  “Did you … like it there?” The Beast was unsure why she had kept questioning her. The topic of Belle’s life was one which could only bring awkwardness to both parties. But there was something intriguing in Belle’s words and manner which had urged the Beast to keep her talking.

  Belle had shrugged. “It was very beautiful,” she’d said. “Like a painting. Or a model set. And the town was always bustling with some news or other.”

  The Beast had said nothing, instead letting her tail swish silently beneath the folds of her shift. She had almost forgotten that she was wearing something feminine in front of Belle – but when trousers were more dignified for everyday use, and the cut of her old clothes only emphasised the form which she no longer possessed, it was little wonder that stays, petticoats, and bodices held little of the appeal they once had. She now only wore her shift to sleep in, and she had decided long ago not to question how her clothes had altered to her new size.

  Judging the conversation to be at an end, the Beast had walked over to the farthest corner of the opposite sofa to where Belle was sitting, just close enough that the candlelight could reach her. There, she picked up the book she had abandoned earlier that day – a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo she was making her way through for the third time. Silently, the two women had read until the candle began sputtering hopelessly – and by then, the first light of predawn had begun to stain the horizon. The Beast had looked up, noticing the differing quality of light, only to see that Belle had fallen asleep in the middle of reading her book. Her plait had come fully undone by then, the shimmering ribbon tangled in her dark hair. Without putting much thought to the action, the Beast had lifted a spare throw from another chair and draped it over Belle’s body, tucking it in with almost impersonal neatness at her shoulders, knees, and feet. She’d fled in a panic moments later, once her thoughts had caught up to her again, and Belle hadn’t mentioned the incident in the week since then.

  Now, the Beast realised with a rising horror that she had allowed her gaze to linger on Belle’s form for too long, and she was looking back at her with a vaguely puzzled expression.

  “Is everything alright?” Belle asked.

  “I – uh – well, yes – it’s snowing,” the Beast said in a clumsy rush, jerking her head to the window beyond Belle. She hoped that while she had been distracted, she had been looking at least slightly at the window, for her excuse to be at all plausible. Belle turned her head, and the Beast saw the curve of her cheeks rise in a smile.

  “So it is,” she agreed. “It hasn’t snowed since – since the night I came here,” she said. “I wonder if it’ll stick.”

  The Beast hummed non-committedly. “It’s a pain when it snows.”

  “Really?” Belle asked. “I love the snow – even when it means extra work, shovelling the paths and taking care of Phillippe, I can’t help but look out at the untouched countryside and just … just drink it in.” She laid aside her book, keeping a finger in her place. “And you can warm yourself by the fire, just thinking about how good it is that you’re in a warm house, and can look out at the snow – of course, if it’s stormy then that’s a different matter. But I don’t see what’s so awful about snow.”

  “Whenever I go out in it, the snow clumps around my legs so that I look like I’m covered in large, white pebbles,” the Beast did not whine. “I walk stupidly until they can melt off, and even then it’s a choice between letting it melt before the fire, and rinsing it off with hot water.”

  “Oh, woe are the sufferings of suchlike as ye,” Belle teased. “If it’s stuck tomorrow I’m going out there, and you’re coming with me, and you’ll enjoy it.”

  The Beast laughed. “I never said I disliked snow – just that it was a pain, which it is. Even you can’t deny it.”

  Belle blushed prettily, and the Beast felt a sudden flutter in her chest. “That may be,” Belle said, and the Beast suddenly had to concentrate on what she was saying. “But I’d still like to go out, if it’s clear.”

  “Alright, then,” the Beast smiled. The two of them smiled companionably at each other for a moment, before Belle picked up her book again. The Beast felt a hunger within her, for the conversation to continue. For her to make Belle smile or blush again. “What are you reading?” she asked casually. “You go through these so quickly, it’s like you’re on a new book every three days.”

  Belle laid her book aside again. “It’s The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. I’ve never read it before, and the blurb was intriguing, to say the least.”

  “I remember that one,” the Beast said. “The one with two sisters – one ugly and intelligent, and one beautiful and naive, isn’t it?”

  “And a man,” Belle laughed. “Since he begins the narrative, I’m surprised you forgot him.”

  “I choose to remember the enjoyable parts,” the Beast countered. “And men, valuable though they may be, hold little enjoyment compared to the exploits of women.”

  She didn’t know why she said that. She had never told a single soul outwith the castle about her nature before. But ever since she had been rescued from certain hypothermia and a blood infection, the Beast had trusted Belle. Hidden behind her legs, the very tip of her tail began thrashing to and fro as an outlet of nervous energy.

  “I have to agree with you there,” Belle said. “It’s a shame that our contemporaries view women as too weak or feeble to have adventures of their own, otherwise I would scarcely bother reading about the thoughts and feelings of their male characters – which, of course, are always vastly superior to the thoughts and feelings of their female ones.”

  Words which were innocent enough – a girl’s expression of frustration at not reading about adventurous, excitable women. But there was something in the tilt of her head, the shy half-curve of her lip, that assured the Beast that Belle, quite definitely, viewed women the same way that she did. The Beast smiled fully, and Belle ducked her head, allowing her hair to fall over her shoulder and hide her face like a curtain.

  “You would probably enjoy this part of The Count of Monte Cristo, then,” the Beast said. “Dumas has many dynamic characters, of course. But in my reading, I had forgotten just how engaging Eugenie Danglars and Louise d’Armilly were. They are … intimate friends, who plan to run away together.”

  “Intriguing,” Belle said, setting aside her book with a bookmark, rather than her finger. She swung her other leg down off the window seat, so that now her skirts hung an inch or two above her dangling toes. “But when you say intimate friends …”

  “I don’t know how familiar you are with the Greek poets,” the Beast said, “but Eugenie apparently wears Minerva’s breastplate, which was said to cover Sappho.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand the reference,” Belle said.

  “They are … certainly more than friends,” the Beast said with a chuckle. “Sappho lived on the isle of Lesbos, with only women.”

  Realisation dawned on Belle’s face. “I see,” she said, tucking a strand of her behind her ear and winding the rest of it along her finger. “Do you have any of her poetry?”

  “I don’t think so,” the Beast said. “My parents … my father prioritised Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Cicero, Dante – the Classical men.” Her lip stiffened. She remembered her father as a loving man, but he and her mother had died so long ago that her memories of them melded with the impressions they had left upon the castle. “Whatever female writers you find in this library are my mother’s influence, and hers alone.”

  “Oh,” Belle said quietly. “Well,” she continued in a slightly brighter tone, “it’s good that Mmlles Danglars and d’Armilly have each other to run away with.”

  “You can read it, if you like,” the Beast offered. She held the book out slightly, but Belle shook her head a little.

  “I would, and happily, but you’re in the middle of reading it. It hardly seems fair to take you away from it.”

  “I’m right at the chapters where they run away,” the Beast pleaded. “It won’t be any trouble to me – I’ll even mark the page.”

  “You could read it aloud,” Belle suggested. “I – I mean,” she suddenly continued, blushing steadily, “it just seems like a simple solution to the problem – this way we can both experience it at the same time – I’m sorry, you’ve probably got better things to do –”

  “Belle,” the Beast said with a small smile. “It’s quite alright. I’d be happy to read it aloud. I must warn you, though,” she said with a grimace masquerading as a smile, “that my voice will not stretch to different character’s voices.”

  “I like your voice just fine,” Belle said. “It’s deep, and husky, but it suits you.”

  While there were few things about her curse that the Beast was thankful for, the absence of a visible blush was one of those things. Belle had paid her idle compliments before, praising her taste in books or laughing at her jokes. Those had been, to the Beast’s knowledge, the kind of things any girl would say to her friend – or someone she was cordial with, at least. But to have a compliment from her now, with the knowledge that they were both women who loved other women …

  “Come over here, so you can hear me better,” the Beast said. “Sit by me; tell me if I’m going too fast.”

  Harsh words; words which Belle would have bristled at three weeks earlier. But the Beast had stammered over every one of them, and had patted the sofa beside her gently, twice. Belle stood, her skirts swinging down to the floor, and settled beside the Beast. She kept a little distance, but not enough for the Beast to be unaware of her steady breathing, and the heat of her arm.

  The Beast took a breath, and began to read.

    “… and the people gave a great shout. ‘Arthur is King.’”

  “Told you so,” Ève said with a grin.

  “Ève, you’ve read this book before,” Belle laughed. “You know what happens in it.”

  “Am I not allowed to take pleasure in re-reading my own books, now?” Ève gasped melodramatically, clasping one hand to her heart. “You wound me, Belle. You really do.”

  “Drama queen,” Belle smirked. She lifted a hand to Ève’s chin, and pulled her down into a kiss. Ève hummed happily, moving her hand down Belle’s shoulder to her waist. The book fell, forgotten, out of Belle’s hand to the floor as she ran her fingers through Ève’s long, fair hair. Belle’s bodice was soft against Ève’s fingers, and she rubbed in light, soothing circles as they parted lips with an intake of breath.

  “Ève, you made me lose my place,” Belle complained, only half-serious. “We are supposed to be reading this to practice English for the Ambassador.”

  “I didn’t catch you complaining,” Ève smirked. She slipped her hand further around Belle’s waist, shifting her closer by the small of her back, and was gratified by her slight blush. “And besides, you are the one who kissed me, so the distraction is really your fault.”

  “Your interjection started this whole conversation –” Belle started, but was swiftly cut off by a rain of kisses over her face from Ève. When she eventually reached her mouth again, Belle twined her arms around Ève’s neck, the force of which sent them tumbling backwards onto the sofa. After a few minutes of thorough kissing, Belle pushed herself up on her elbows, her lips slightly swollen and her eyes bright.

  “Do you ever wonder if this … this joy will stop?” she asked. “Not completely, I mean, but – well, it still feels like a honeymoon phase. I keep finding myself wondering when we’ll settle down and be calmer about everything.”

  “It’s been almost a year already,” Ève said, reaching up to stroke Belle’s face. “And we’ve fought more than once since that day, my darling. This might be what it’s like for us.”

  (Last January: The ball with Belle, which had been entirely Cogsworth’s idea and which had (in the end, at least) worked. Ève had worn hose and an old riding jacket of her mother’s, since the thought of exposing her ridiculous body in one of her resised dresses was too much to bear. Surprisingly, she hadn’t hated the way she’d looked. Belle, of course, had been radiant as the sun in that golden dress. Ève’s tongue had been hopelessly tied throughout dinner and on the balcony. If she hadn’t learned that Belle was also like her, and Cogsworth, she would never have even begun to work up her courage.

  She skips over the evening and long night of despair, when she remembers it. If she could skip over the man in red, too, she would; but the man in red who tried to kill her is engraved on Ève’s mind forever, for better or worse. The moment of mercy she gave him, and the immediate betrayal when he saw that Belle had rejected him for something neither human nor male. To this day Ève is unsure which enraged him more – Belle could have told her, from a desperate plea in the village gone wrong, but she never had.

  Instead, Ève remembers the last moments as a Beast, in the dim light before the sunrise of her twenty-first birthday, that would seal her fate. Belle crying, holding her paw to her face. The whispered hint of her lips on Ève’s palm, before Ève …

  And then the transformation, and the look of disbelief on Belle’s face. The discovery that even as a woman, Ève was taller, broader, more muscular. The fear of a moment that had lasted for eternity; it was one thing to love a woman who looked nothing like one, but when presented with a girl the same age – but Ève’s thoughts had cut off there, when Belle had stepped into her space and ran a strand of her ash-blonde hair through her fingers. She had cupped Belle’s sweet, intelligent, funny – and yes, beautiful – face between her hands, and had leant down to kiss her.

  And, miracle above all else, Belle had kissed back.)

  “Maybe,” Belle said. She sat back on her heels, over Ève’s thighs, allowing Ève to push herself up slightly. “And I suppose you have a point about our occasional disagreements.” Ève slid a hand around the back of Belle’s neck, keeping the other planted behind her for balance.

  Belle suddenly gasped. “Ève, look! It’s snowing!”

  Ève twisted around to see out the one window where the curtains hadn’t been drawn – and sure enough, the snow was falling steadily outside. “First snowfall of the year,” she said, turning back to face Belle. “It’s awfully late for it. Let’s hope it sticks.”

  “I hope so,” Belle said with a wide smile. “I’m more than ready to beat you again at snowballing this year.”

  “Want to bet?” Ève asked, a familiar glint in her eye. “Now that I don’t have fur to stick to the snow, I’ll be faster.”

  “I still managed to cover you in it,” Belle pointed out, her eyes and nose crinkling as she laughed.

  Ève took the opportunity to slide her hand back down to Belle’s waist, flipping them so that Belle was lying on the couch now. Belle gasped at the sudden movement, still laughing, and Ève joined in helplessly a second later. “Careful now, Belle,” she smirked, leaning down to drop a series of short kisses to her neck. “We both remember how frozen we were last year after the battle; don’t you remember that revenge is best served cold?”

  Belle shivered below her. “Game on,” she said, claiming Ève’s lips again in a kiss. “But not until tomorrow.”

  “You have a point,” Ève said, pushing up off of Belle and sitting properly on the sofa again. “I suppose we should get back to Arthur’s exploits?”

  “Cheer up,” Belle said, joining her and picking the book up. “Guinevere shows up soon.”

  “I await her with bated breath,” Ève said. “Now, where were we?”

  “Uh … here,” Belle said. “And the people gave a great shout. ‘Arthur is King’.”

  Ève settled beside her, laying an arm casually over Belle’s shoulders and peering down at the book in an attempt to translate the English in her head before Belle read it aloud. Outside the window, the snow continued to fall.

    Two notes:

I am very unfamiliar with 18th century literature, so I just went ‘Eh’, and made it 19th century instead. See also why Belle is reading Wilkie Collins and not another French author, and why Ève is reading Alexandre Dumas in a pre-/no-Revolutionary universe.

I also shared this with a group of other writers, when I was unsure what the Beast’s name was going to be. I jokingly said ‘Well since everybody thinks the beast’s name is adam, fem!beast should be Eve since, yannow, Adam and Eve?? Kinda like how Beau is always male!Belle’s name??’ This was both the best and worst thing to happen, as now I can’t stop calling her Ève.