Chip is twenty and hopelessly in love with Belle. He laments the fact they can never be together, but one autumn morning, it becomes apparent that her and Adam's relationship is nowhere as perfect as it seems...
I give you fair warning: sex is alluded to pretty much throughout. Also, the oneshot is written in quite an arty way and features an OOC Belle.
Wishes
Oneshot:
Chip stood in the castle grounds, axe in hand, feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself.
He brought the blade down hard on the log. It was sharpened regularly and cut straight through, without a single hitch. The movement had been practised time and time again. There was a bead of perspiration breaking on his forehead. He had been at the familiar chore for several hours now.
Was chore the right word to use? Chore implied that whoever carried out the task took no enjoyment out of it- that they were unwilling. This certainly wasn't the case for him. He'd volunteered to do the job, claiming it to be a way of "making himself useful". And it was true. It gave him something to do. It made him feel needed. It provided a distraction, while somehow managing to be entirely counter productive simultaneously.
The grounds were large, surrounding the castle with a maze of well-trimmed hedges and water fountains. They were attended almost daily, so as to ensure the perfect conditions were maintained. Recently fallen leaves littered the ground, forming a canvas of orange, red and yellow. Autumn was Chip's least favourite time of year. Perhaps he may have once taken pleasure in jumping into piles of rotting foliage, but now, it only served to annoy. It wasn't beautiful, like the winter. It wasn't warm and welcoming, like summer and spring. On days when the sun beat down furiously from above, he loved nothing more than to stroll down to the lake and enjoy a doze. In contrast, a bitter chill rushed across his neck, protected by a white collar. Nonetheless, his sleeves were rolled up. The work had always been difficult.
Another swing of the axe.
Why? Chip thought disgruntledly, for the hundredth time.
It was a question the servant already knew the answer to. He'd being pondering it since the very first day he requested Cogsworth's permission to assume the job of wood cutting. All the other members of the staff had taken it as an admirable statement of maturity. Chip had been born in the castle, and up to the end of his adolescence, he'd assisted his mother, Mrs Potts, with the housekeeping. As a resut, he'd been kept sheltered from the majority of the difficult manual labour carried out by the rest of the staff. They all viewed him as the son of the castle. Even the master spared him an adoring glance (on occasion). This was acceptable in the eyes of a child, but soon came to be viewed as patronising. A nuisance. Therefore, the day after his seventeenth birthday, he'd come to the conclusion he needed to start some proper work.
This was the general, but only half true, presumption.
Chip remembered his seventeeth birthday as bittersweet. An odd memory. Clear and painful. The palpable happiness that everyone had felt spread through the rooms and corridors of the castle. They'd always liked spoiling him at the passing of another year. Once, he'd received presents and later, they would play games. Such practises weren't quite so appropriate by then, so instead, it was more of a formal, adult gathering. Wine. Champagne from the finest vineyards in France. Nonetheless, he still received presents, along with many embarrassing, indulgent hugs of affection from his mother.
Everyone had converged in the dining room. Cogsworth. Lumiere. Babette. Angelique. Prince Adam. Belle.
He supposed that a part of him, buried away and supressed, had always known she was beautiful. One would find it exceedingly difficult not to notice. It was an acknowledgement. A passing thought. The male adolescent mind was fickle, and admired any woman that walked on two legs.
But it was that birthday that helped Chip to realise. Whereas the room had been illuminated by the sun, rushing in through the glass windows, it changed when Belle entered. She was wearing the same golden dress of her and Adam's first dance. It captured the sunlight in such a way that he wasn't sure where one ended and the other began. The room, the laughter, suddenly fell away, insignificant, until it was just him and her. Her, with brunette hair braided past her cheek, that flushed when eyes fell upon her. Blissfully unaware of the spell in soft, gentle features.
Oh Belle.
She'd been looking around the room for something. Someone perhaps? Him? The thought filled Chip with a warmth that enthralled him a way nothing had ever done before. But no. The horizon, beyond the castle, had stolen her attention. Attention he craved as a dog craved that of its master. His most primal, feral instincts. Reawakened and roaring with a ferocious intensity. He wanted nobody else to ever look at her again.
Somewhere inbetween these longing thoughts, he'd made his way over to her side. Those pure, brown eyes, full of emotion and kindness and consideration and all the passion Adam had surely savoured, graced his own. Fruits from a forbidden tree. Her lips opened, greeting him warmly. At least, he assumed she did. All noise had descended to an incoherent buzz. There was nothing but his sight to guide him.
Oh Belle.
Soon, they'd found their way to a seat. A table had been set out with a miniature banquet prepared by Chef Bouche and typically stunning decoration from Lumiere and Angelique. The conversation was light-hearted and celebratory. They all spoke of happy memories of his childhood, when he was that tiny scrap of a thing running about the corridors. A cute, inquisitive little teacup, enchanting them all as much as the curse itself.
But there was only one thing enchanting Chip at that moment. She was laughing along with the jokes. Taking her glass of champagne and gulping it down those chaste, red lips. Red like roses. He was concentrating on them when they opened to speak. He didn't care whatever subject they'd settled upon. All that mattered was her words.
'He'll always be that little teacup to me.'
Suddenly, the rest of the room rushed back into existence. The sun rays refound their shine. Belle and her angelic glow, her lips, her cheeks, her shoulders which were only just exposed, became dull and encased in darkness. Further away then he could ever reach. Further than they had ever been before. The prettiest flowers were always the furthest from the path.
She was Prince Adam's. He most likely fucked her every night. He was the only man who would ever feel her writhe beneath him, and moan to his touch, and respond to his kiss. He was the only one who would have those roses of lips. Chip wanted her than more than anything. Desired her. And what was he to Belle?
A child.
A cute, inquisitive little teacup.
The axe came down with an anger that stemmed from deep within. The log splintered and one half spun off, coming to land a couple of metres away. Chip was breathing heavily. Panting. Rasping. The memory was too vivid. Too clear.
You're obsessed.
Placing the axe to one side, he took a moment to rest. His fingers rubbed against blue eyes, removing a small layer of sleep. It was still early morning. He'd got up before the crack of dawn, as had become his routine; "to get his work done early", he always surmised.
The true motive behind this wood cutting, this unnecessary work, was her. The girl that he wanted desperately to view him as a man.
Belle.
The name had remained imprinted in his mind for weeks, months, years. She stalked him as a hunter would its prey, somehow finding a way to invade those moments, those reveries, when one would least expect. She hid under his bed sheets and stole away into his most blissful dreams, haunting and teasing until he awoke, sweating and out of breath. She kissed his senses and made love to his deepest, darkest fantasies.
She had beguiled the entirety of the castle from the moment she arrived. Ever since that night, Chip felt everything begin to change, regardless whether it was in the flicker of a candelabra or the slow ticking of a mantelpiece clock. To grow up was an odd occurence for the, at the time, young boy. He remembered the days and nights when perhaps he should've been too young to do so. They lasted far longer than seemed plausible. Cold. Dusty. Dreary. Empty like a gaping chasm that grew wider with the passing of each drawn out moment.
In the years that followed, that young boy matured into a man, with muscles and broad shoulders and defined cheekbones (at least, he'd prefer to think so). He could think of several moments where a maid of the same age as him, the maids that before Belle had enticed his roaming eyes, would linger in the same room as him a little longer than necessary. Perhaps their hands would brush "accidentally" on the way through a corridor, eliticing a blush of embarassment for both involved. Perhaps his morning labours had aroused the desired effect in every way he'd initially intended- just not with the right woman. It wasn't like he knew how to talk to them right anyway.
Chip knew it was pointless to linger on such thoughts, for it only caused frustration. Nonetheless, it was with a tired reluctance that he picked up his axe and retrieved the stray log, which as if just to annoy further rewarded him with a splinter.
He stopped mid-swing, taken by surprise, when the noise rang out. It was loud and resonant, piercing the chilly autumn air. His eyes darted over to where he was certain it had originated from; a bush off to his right side. It obscurred whatever had made the noise behind layers of twigs and typically coloured autumn shrubbery.
'Hello?' he called out. 'Is anyone there?'
Silence, and then moments later, yet another shift. The sound of an animal scraping or digging for food? The castle grounds were rife with wildlife all year round, but it struck Chip the sound had been far too assured to be that of something so small. A careless footstep on a branch would be a more likely explanation.
His musing was proven when, accompanied by a resigned sigh, an all too familiar face emerged from the bush.
Immediately, his breath was caught, hitched, strangled in his throat. A rush of emotion, somewhere inbetween nausea and a nervous tingling elation at seeing a face so soft, so beautiful. He'd once assumed the cliches of love could only be found in poems and novels- the yearning of a master whose heartbeat would quicken whenever he saw his l'amour was only figuratiive language, and the passion unbrindled and unconstrained that burnt like the proverbial fire merely a metaphor. Now, Chip knew that such words and sentences, so widely considered crass and unsubtle, were written for a reason. Truth. It echoed in all of them. She was the simile that stroked his imagination and the adjective for the feelings kept pent, locked, hidden away for the shame and confusion they evoked.
Chip's eyes searched lower, taking in every detail that would surely find its way into the palm of his hand later. Her dress was one he'd seen her in before but the novelty had all but worn off- the skirt was of a pink tinge and no doubt made from a silk deserving of a princess. It somehow accentuated her figure, her womanly curves, while disguising them simultaneously in a flurry of ruffles that transformed a darker shade, scarlet, as they approached her chest and her neckline. The bones along her shoulders were visible. The cheeks were lightly flushed as always, adding to the long and seemingly endless list of features which endeared and seduced Belle to him. The lips that were pursed. The chocolate brown eyes fixed on the ground so as to purposefully avoid his gaze.
It was somewhat of a relief for Chip. He froze up if she so much as glanced at him.
'Belle,' he stammered, unsure and taken back. 'I- I didn't know...'
'It's alright Chip,' she replied, her sonorous soprano voice casting a rich melody that serenaded the morning air like birdsong and surely entranced all that would listen. 'You need not protest.'
Already, an uncertain silence settled over the conversation. Each were unwilling to meet the eyes of the other. The sweat Chip felt on his arms and forehead he knew to be from the woodcutting, yet everything had suddenly become hot and humid, the previous chill in the air evaporating away at Belle's footstep.
He tried to think of something to say next. Ask her what she was doing out say early? Insist an apology for demanding the mistress' identity so rudely, even though he'd been unaware at the time? The list of fitting and appropriate comments were endless but they refused to manifest themselves inside his throat, as smothered as the air he was breathing in.
Chip was spared the embarassment for Belle came to her senses first. 'Chip...' she hesitated. 'You haven't seen Adam at all, have you?'
His brows furrowed in confusion. One of the royal inhabitants of the castle being out this early was surprising enough. 'Um- no. No I haven't.'
A flash of emotion, burning, coarsing across her brown eyes, and then they fluttered close. He couldn't quite tell what emotion his words had caused her, neither did he care. The fact he had brought about an any emotion inside her amounted to enough. He was too bewildered at the situation that she seemed to be looking for her husband as well; too entranced that Belle had appeared before him, alone. What motive could the king of the province, the master of the castle, the master of her, be forcing him to snoop around the grounds in the manner that his wife appeared to be implicating?
He looked her up and down once before, then placed the axe on the ground by his side and took a tentative step forward, akin to that of the young buck emerging from his mother's den. 'May I... be of assistance?'
Belle's eyes remained clamped shut. Chip could practically hear the cogs inside of her brain turning and grinding away. He knew her to be far more intelligent than most, and here, right before his eyes, she was vexed and that mind which no doubt contemplated and considered constantly, musing over books she'd read and analysed, was going at full tilt. It occurred to him how much he dwarfed her petite frame by- a good foot or so.
Then, the eyes opened to reveal an expression he had no idea how to interpret. There seemed to be a glimmer of anger beheld within those hypnotic depths, forged together with a peculiar thoughtfullness and-
It couldn't be. Chip knew it wasn't true.
Belle turned and faced him, her intent stare raking, assessing the woodcutter in the same manner than he'd undeniably done to her. 'Yes. I think you could well be.'
All of a sudden, she was walking closer, and the edges of Chip's vision bean to contort and melt at the seams until she was the only thing physical and solid in the world, excluding him and the feral pounding of his heart. He could see her face closer now. Every speck, every detail, every freckle of her face and the cheeks tinged crimson and the strange smile that curled her lips.
'You're handsome, Chip.'
All of a sudden, he was reminded of a dream. It wasn't similar to whatever was taking place before his dazed and confused eyes, surreal though it may have been. No words were spoken in this world. The world of his mind; envisioned somewhere between midnight and dawn, and unlike some said it certainly wasn't reminiscent of reality. The line between that and fantasy had never been clearer. Very little happened, except for one blissful detail. Belle, her body incandescent in the manner reserved only for dreams, had been naked. Her clothes lay to one side, though what they'd been had hidden away in the depths of irretrievable memory. Neither could he recall the particulars of her body, for it all merged into one golden gleam- an opaque haze, but for the skin of ivory and the brunette hair.
He wondered if somewhere half way through this conversation he had fuly asleep, satisfied enough to imagine Belle, his love, his obsession, right here, staring deeply at his shoulders and his chin. Perhaps the thought had occured to her as well, for suddenly, the assured, almost angered confidence appeared to have faded away on the wind. Suddenly, the Belle he knew had returned, though he wasn't sure whether he was more apprehensive (or joyous?) at the anger's replacement. Desperation.
'Do you think I'm beautiful, Chip?' she whispered, voice cracking.
'Yes, mistress.'
She breathed in deeply and he wondered if she believed him or not. Ironic, for he'd never been more certain of anything in his life.
'Then kiss me.'
And he did. He kissed her gently and fiercely and softly and passionately and with all the longing and contradictions he'd felt for insufferable weeks and months and years. He couldn't quite tell if her lips had flavour or not, or if her hair smelled of perfume or fragrance or something. He wasn't thinking at all. He wished he could say that Belle was the kiss, the first kiss, of those dreams, except that he need not dream any longer because Belle was there, and she wasn't kissing in any way he could've dreamed. She kissed with a knowledge. She kissed him like she'd no doubt kissed every man before. Or was Adam her only man? Did she kiss him like this? Did she kiss him like she was terrified he was going to evaporate before her eyes?
He soon melted into her embrace, as did she. A euphoria began to spread through his veins, and he felt as if she was kissing every nerve in his body and not just his lips. He pulled her closer with the intention of touching her in all the places that he'd moaned for and lusted for and she let him and he adored it. He adored Belle. He wanted Belle to adore him and so he let her touch him too. The scarlet frills of her dress and the fabric of her skirt around her waist that seemed destined for his fingers; he loved everything. He grabbed the back of the dress and somewhere inbetween he felt it tear beneath his hand until there was nothing but smooth skin.
They sank to the ground which was slightly damp. The moisture soaked his knees. They tore at each other's clothes and it fell to one side and he was reminded of his night fantasy. Then, at the peak of their union, he saw stars erupt around them. A billion constellations burned brighter than the sun. His ego and his being fell away and he forgot about Chip and the castle and who she was and who he was.
Oh Belle.
I wrote it and I don't have a fucking clue what just happened either.