There is a beast within him that he would do well not to forget. There is a beast within him, but with Belle's arrival it burrows deeper and deeper within his chest, deeper and deeper until he can pretend that there is no beast, there never was a beast, there's only Belle and her twinkling eyes and the way she laces her fingers together around her knees when she sits, only Belle and the way her face mirrors the emotions of the main character of the book she happens to be reading at the time, only Belle and the way she dances rather than walks down the hall, sings rather than speaks, only Belle and the curve of her lips. There is only Belle, and Belle helps Rumpelstiltskin forget things that are best left unforgotten.
Because when you are a beast who forgets he is a beast, the rare moments of weakness in which you remember your true beastliness can lead to none other than disaster, which, when compared to your previous stage of unbeastliness, are quite disastrous indeed.
And Rumpelstiltskin hates the way Belle looks at him when he's a beast.
He tries to convince himself it's her fault, he did explicitly state that she was to go nowhere near the west wing, she should've known he'd be furious when he found her - but he can't, not when she's giving him that look.
Oh yes. That look.
So he walks calmly from the room, even when he feels like running, and locks himself in the tower, and for the rest of the day he does his best to pretend that his actions were totally justified, that he should not be helping Belle clean up the mess he's created in the dining room, that it's all her fault, even when he knows that yes, he is a beast, and Belle will never love him.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?
.