They've been tip-toeing around it for months, Belle realizes. There have been kisses, usually something quick and soft and hidden away from any prying eyes. But there has been little else. He pulls away before anything can go further and she's not sure if he's doing that to preserve whatever sort of maidenly virtue he thinks she has.
She has plenty, she supposes.
Enough that she's not sure how to approach him about what she wants.
But not enough that she's not curious about what she wants. She reads, after all. And the library he's given her is full of fascinating books on anatomy and relationships and more amorous pursuits. So she knows it all from a clinical standpoint.
But that's not really enough. She wants to know it. And she's come to realize that their chaste kisses, the occasional soft touch, the looks…they all make her want to know it with Rumplestiltskin.
Even if she can hear her nurse react with horror to the mere thought.
Really, though, what does maidenly virtue matter to her anyway? Alone in a castle with the Dark One…surely they've all thought that's happened anyway. And if Belle wants it to happen? Well, she told him once that she was the only one who controlled her fate. She won't have the ghost of her nurse or her father or all the women of the castle nipping at her heels, telling her she's wrong for wanting to experience such things.
And so she has spent weeks, well, months really, trying to figure out how to approach this with Rumplestiltskin. Though most of that time has involved nothing more than her sad attempts at touching him in places that usually cause him to stiffen and pull away.
She's not sure he wants to. But she wants to. And she needs to find out soon if he does too. But books only tell you how and not how to approach such things with a very skittish sorcerer.
It's late one evening when she's reading alone in the room that she even thinks to ask Stan. Rumplestiltskin is out and has been for two days. She's bored. She's lonely. And she's…well, something that's better off not spoken of. Her face reddens at the mere thought.
"Stan?" Her voice is quiet and she almost hopes he doesn't hear her. But no, that would be too easy.
"Belle!" he shouts and she's instantly trying to hush him. Rumplestiltskin might not be home, but she wants to take no chances.
She takes a deep breath. "Do you…" Here she pauses, can't quite get the words out. Another breath. "Do you have a mate?" There. The words are out and she almost hides her face while waiting for his response.
Stan sneaks closer and stares at her, his great big eyes unblinking. "Yes."
"Oh," she says. She wonders what has become of his mate in the time since he's been living with them.
"You want a mate!" Stan shouts, the words far too loud in the empty castle
"Stan," she hisses. "If Rumple…"
"You want Rumplestiltskin as your mate!" She rather frantically waves her hands at him. Sometimes Stan really can be horribly obtuse.
"I…" It's true, but what does she say to it, really? "I don't know how…"
Stan watches her for a moment and then his eyes blink once. "You're rather small," he points out. As if Belle did not know this fact.
"So is Rumplestiltskin," Belle shoots back with. She's not even sure what that has to do with anything, really. They're both small people and for some reason that makes her feel good. Like they fit together somehow. She remembers when her father announced her engagement to Gaston. The knight stood head and shoulders above her and he consistently used that to his advantage, pushing her aside to block her view of things he consider "unseemly," which included Rumplestiltskin of course.
Not that she had spent much time thinking of the logistics of bedroom things in relation to Gaston. She really had spent more time trying to figure out how to get out of that arranged married than into the knight's bed.
"He'll want someone larger," Stan says and his voice is eminently reasonable.
Belle looks down at herself. "You mean…"
"Males want big females. Larger than them. Big females produce more eggs."
Belle lets out a little laugh. She supposes it's sage advice…if she were an octopus. Which she most certainly is not. "I'm not sure it really works that way for humans." She sees the way Rumplestiltskin looks at her, the way he has to force himself to pull back when things get a little too heated. He wants to. She knows it. Which is why it's just ridiculous that she even has to question all of this. She really should just drag him off to bed. He'd get the point then, surely. If he doesn't then he's being purposely obtuse.
"Thanks," Belle finally manages. She doesn't want to laugh at him. He seems so serious about it all.
"Don't say I didn't warn you!" Stan shouts in his big booming voice before disappearing back into his tank.
Belle shakes her head. She's going to have to plan out this seduction carefully and so retreats to her library to read and think and contemplate.
In the end, it doesn't take much to convince him. She should have known it wouldn't. When he arrives home the following day he's looking a fair bit disheveled, a little tired, but he's found what he was looking for.
Not that he tells her what that was.
But he's gleeful about it even as he banishes said thing to some room somewhere in the castle, warning her not to touch it.
She's not sure how she's supposed to not touch the thing when she's not even seen it, but this is not unusual for Rumplestiltskin. His mind simply doesn't work the way other people's minds work and that's all there is to it.
When she steps closer, he's instantly on alert and when she wraps her arms around his neck, he offers her a gentle kiss. Gentle is not what Belle wants, however. She's had gentle. For far too long, she's had gentle. And so she grabs tight to each side of his vest and pulls him closer to her.
He goes along with it perhaps more out of confusion than anything else, his mouth opening on a gasp of shock. She takes advantage of that, her tongue dipping in between his lips. She doesn't know what to do really. They've had several sweet kisses, chaste, but nothing more. She's read what to do, uses for the tongue in such scenarios. And it's messy but he's responding and his hands come around her to settle at her waist.
When she accidentally bites his lower lip, she pulls away with a laugh. "Bedroom?" she asks and she knows there's nothing innocent to the sound of the word.
"Wha…" Rumplestiltskin manages to get out and there's something so adorable about him when his mind is all addled and his eyes are half closed and there's that little furrow between his brows.
She tugs at this hand and he takes a step forward but then stops. "Well?" she says and puts her hands on her hips. She hopes the pose is saucy, suggestive. But she knows she probably looks ridiculous. It doesn't seem to matter, really. Rumplestiltskin is doing nothing more than standing and staring at her.
"I don't understand," he says.
Belle tries so very hard to keep in the dramatic sigh she wants to offer. "Hmmm…I thought you had more experience in these matters than I do." He has a son. Surely he must know more, must have some seduction experience. But he continues to stare at her and it's almost getting uncomfortable.
She knows he wants her.
She saw the way his body reacted that time she caught him, dripping wet and naked, standing near his bath. He had been terrified then, but she had assumed it was more from surprise than anything else.
Now she wonders if there wasn't more there.
"Rumplestiltskin." She says his name with a soft emphasis and reaches out a hand to him.
"You want to?" he finally manages to say and she's sure he's not inviting her with that question. He doesn't understand. Clearly. He sounds like he might very well crawl under the bed and hide if she says the wrong thing.
"Yes."
"I…"
"Oh just take me to bed you ridiculous man." She clearly has to take matters into her own hands. And so she does, grasping him about the forearm and tugging him after her. She sometimes doesn't understand the sorcerer she has come to live with. When she met him, he was all suave confidence and innuendo. His rather large estate, indeed. But as she spends more time with him, as they get more involved and not less, he tends more toward shyness and insecurity. It's rather strange when she compares the crazy imp she met with the man she has come to know hiding beneath that dark surface.
He's still somewhat hesitant as they enter the room, but when she turns to him, his eyes have darkened slightly and he's watching her carefully, a little cautiously. When he steps forward and she meets him halfway he makes a little growling noise in the back of his throat and wraps his arms tight around her, pulls her close.
This time he takes control and Belle likes it. She doesn't want to be the one to try to control this encounter. She wants to lose control, she realizes, relinquish it to Rumplestiltskin.
He deepens the kiss, his lips soft on hers, his tongue finding places inside her mouth that make her feel weak at the knees. She's not even aware that they've been walking backward until her legs hit the bed.
Here Rumplestiltskin stops and his eyes meet hers and she can tell he's hesitating again, questioning. She reaches up, puts both hands on the sides of his face. He can't look away then, can't duck his head down so she only sees the curling mass of his hair. "I want to." Her voice is soft, but insistent.
He nods and so she sits down on the bed, dragging him down with her. When he's lying next to her, she realizes this is real. Real and wonderful and she pulls him close to her and kisses him again. She has to take control, at least a little, she supposes.
The process of disrobing is quick, almost too quick. She's fairly certain Rumpelstiltskin uses magic to get out of his leather trousers as before she can even get her hands down there to try to unlace the complicated laces, he's freed from them. The feel of his skin, rough and course next to hers is more wonderful than she ever expected. She wants to run herself along him like a cat, glorying in the feel of him so close and intimate.
But he doesn't give her a chance for that. He's trailing kisses along her neck and Belle absolutely cannot think of anything else in that moment, his tongue making her skin tingle, his teeth nipping lightly at her neck and then down her rib cage making her writhe and her back arch underneath him.
When he goes lower, her legs open without her even thinking about it and when he touches her, his finger coming up to lightly caress her in a place no one has touched before she lets out a little squeak.
Rumplestiltskin stills and so she glances down at him. He's looking at her with a look that can only be described as awe. And then his finger dips in again, touches her lightly, circles her and her head falls back. It's almost too much and she feels herself breaking apart, like she's no longer a part of the world. There are sparks behind her eyes and she feels a strange tight sensation in her abdomen before there's a release of the tension and she realizes that the moaning sound she's hearing is coming from her.
Before she can even register what has happened, the beauty of it all, he's over her and he's kissing her like he never has before. He settles between her legs and pauses there.
Her eyes open and she has a hard time focusing on him but she knows what he wants, what permission he is looking for. She nods once and sees the small smile that crosses his face before he lines himself up with her and presses forward.
"That's not how you do it!"
The voice that comes from close by is loud, obnoxious and Rumplestiltskin freezes.
And then groans.
"Stan!" Belle hisses through clenched teeth.
Rumplestiltskin is still half inside her and she wants to grab a blanket, cover them up. But Stan is too close and she feels something slimy brush the side of her face.
"You wanted to mate!" he shouts and Belle feels her already-flushed face heat even more.
"Grab a blanket," she whispers to Rumplestiltskin but he seems frozen. He cannot stop staring at Stan, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. "Rumple." She says his name louder and that seems to snap him out of whatever moment he was stuck in. He glances down at her and his eyebrows shoot up. They're covered with a blanket in a moment.
Not that that really makes it any better per se.
"You're not doing it right!" Stan shouts again, one waving tentacle coming out to smack Rumplestiltskin a little too hard in the back. Belle's arms release him instantly, falling to her side, covered in some of the sticky substance that seems to coat Stan's entire body.
She can feel Rumplestiltskin softening inside her.
"You talked to Stan?" he finally asks.
"That is what you're concerned about?" She can't help the way her voice rises in pitch. He's concerned about Stan. No, about her talking to Stan. And not about the fact that the octopus is crawling closer to them and that one of his damned tentacles keeps creeping frighteningly close to her. Like an annoying bug, she keeps swatting him away, but still that tentacle keeps coming out to touch her.
"I…" Rumplestiltskin starts to say, but this time Stan's tentacle actually hits the opening of her ear canal and Belle squeals.
"What are you doing?" She shoves at Rumplestiltskin and as he rolls over and away from her, she crawls across the bed. Anything to escape Stan at that moment.
"That's not how you do it!" Stan shouts.
"You've said that," Rumplestiltskin finally manages to say.
"Is this because your tentacle is too small?" Stan almost sounds concerned.
Rumplestiltskin lets out a few choice curse words that even has Belle's ears burning. And she's heard some colorful curses from him, in several languages, over her time at the Dark Castle. "It's not a bloody tentacle!"
She wants to bury her head underneath a pillow, maybe not come out for days.
"Her mantle is small too," Stan points out. Reasonable. He sounds eminently reasonable.
"My what?" She tries not to look down at her chest, wondering if an octopus would even notice or care and just what was he talking about, anyway?
One of Stan's tentacles comes up and hits Belle in the head. She falls sideways, Rumplestiltskin reaching out to catch her as she does. "Your mantle!" Stan shouts.
"I think he means your head," Rumplestiltskin whispers in her ear.
"Oh." Well, she supposes that was better than…"My head is not too small," she points out.
"His tentacle won't fit in it!"
Belle just stares at him.
She turns to look at Rumplestiltskin and he's staring too.
"Won't fit in what?" Belle says and for once she is truly annoyed with the creature.
One of Stan's tentacles comes up and he's trying to stick the tip in her ear. Again. "Too small," Stan proclaims.
"My ear?" This makes less and less sense all the time.
"Your siphon!" he shouts and tries to stick his damned tentacle in her ear again.
"That's my ear!" Belle says as she shoves the slimy appendage away from her head.
"But you're not doing it right!" Stan shouts. "His tentacle has to go in your siphon and it's too small!" Stan sounds almost desperate now, tentacles waving around in the air. Belle has to keep pushing them away from her and she'd be mad if this weren't the most bizarre thing she had ever experienced in her entire life.
"That's not how humans do it!" Rumplestiltskin bursts out with and Belle giggles. She can't help it. This whole situation is just ridiculous from start to finish. She's wrapped in a blanket, naked and half sated. Rumplestiltskin has long since given up on covering himself, instead parading around in the nude and frankly she does enjoy the view. Stan is still waving his tentacles about and shouting about the proper way to mate and this really is not how she imagined her first time going.
And she had imagined it.
Many times.
Probably more than she should have, come to think of it.
"Get out!" she finally shouts.
"Belle!" Stan shouts back.
"You heard the lady," Rumplestiltskin warns.
"But…" Stan starts.
Rumplestiltskin brings a hand up. She knows what comes next.
"Just don't eat him!" Stan shouts as the purple of Rumplestiltskin's magic takes him away…somewhere.
As soon as he's gone she turns and meets Rumplestiltskin's eyes. And they both burst out with laughter. "What was that about?" Belle manages to get out through her tears.
"Did you really bring this up with Stan?" he counters with.
"I didn't mean to, I swear." Well, she did. But she didn't know that it would end up with…well…this.
"It did quite ruin the mood, didn't it?" Rumplestiltskin asks and sits down rather heavily on the bed.
Belle comes to sit at his side and wraps the blanket even tighter around herself. "That it did."
"Hmph," Rumplestiltskin responds with.
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe we try again tomorrow?"
She sees the little smirk that forms on his face. "Perhaps." He moves then, drawing back what's left of the covers and pulling her close as he lays down, wrapping his arms around her middle and drawing her back up against him. The candles all snuff out at the same time and sometimes she thinks that magic really is quite a wonderful thing to have. "Perhaps later on tonight?"
She laughs at the hopeful tone in his voice and bites her lip. "I think that could be arranged," she says in answer and wraps her arm around his as she settles into the bed.
"Just make sure you don't eat me," he warns.
"I'm afraid to look that one up," she answers with.
"But you're going to anyway."
"You know me well," she answers.
"I do." Silence falls on them then and Belle sighs contentedly. It didn't go the way she had planned, but she supposes when one lives with an ornery sorcerer and a magical octopus, expecting the unexpected is just part of life.
A/N: All of Stan's weird mating things come from actual octopus mating rituals. Including the use of the tentacle, sticking it in the siphon, and yes...eating their mate.
