A/N: Written for the prompt: Belle x human!Cogsworth - AU, fluff, unrequited, smut, whatever you please, anon!' at the disney_kink LJ community.
The prince and princess had not been married a year when Cogsworth realised that he was in love with Belle. Looking back, he could see that his feelings for her had started to develop after the transformation had occurred. As a clock his only concerns had been trying to find a way to break the spell and ensuring that the household ran as smoothly as it could in the meantime. Really, he had spent very little time alone with Belle before the spell was broken. If she wasn't with the Master, she was either in the library or spending time with Mrs Potts and the other female servants.
After the spell was broken however, that was another matter entirely. As the castle came to life again, everyone was rushing to and fro, once more able to perform their jobs. The exception was Belle, who found that life in a bustling castle was very different to anything she had experienced before. When this was brought to his attention, Prince Adam decided that Cogsworth was the perfect person to teach Belle everything she needed to know. After all, he was considered an expert on royal protocol and, as Belle had once commented, he knew everything there was to know about the castle.
Belle was an excellent student and it wasn't long before others started to comment on how well she had taken to the role of princess. It was soon decided that she was ready to take on all the responsibilities of mistress of the castle as well. For as long as anyone could remember, the mistress of the castle always worked closely with the head of the household, and Belle and Cogsworth were no exception. Each morning they would meet to discuss menus and the servants' other work for the day. In a move that was unusual for someone in her position, but entirely expected from Belle, she would always ask after the servants. She would often seek out Cogsworth numerous times during the day, passing on small gifts or bonuses for birthdays, or to ask for his opinion or simply to talk to him.
No matter how busy he was, Cogsworth always made sure that he had time for Belle. Unlike the other servants, who all treated him as their boss, and the Master, who although kind, treated him as a servant, Belle treated him as an equal. In the fleeting moments where they were able to speak of something other than household matters, Cogsworth was able to forget his role in life and simply be himself, something that had been missing from his life for many years. They had many things in common and it was a pleasure to be able to discuss these things once again. He would never have presumed to say anything, but in those moments it was almost as though they were friends, something that he was deeply grateful for.
That the marriage between Prince Adam and his bride was a love match was widely discussed throughout a kingdom that was used to royal marriages occurring for political alliances rather than love. Although it was well known amongst the servants how in love the couple were, especially by those servants who had been closest to the couple when Belle had first arrived at the castle, Adam and Belle were nonetheless discrete in their affection, as was expected from a couple of their status. Still it was impossible for them to entirely hide their love and occasionally a servant would happen upon them kissing, although they were careful never to interrupt.
The first time that Cogsworth saw them was the moment that he realised he was in love with her, and it broke his heart. He had been looking for Prince Adam at the time, needing to ask him a question about an increase to the household budget, when he found them together in the Prince's study. Adam had seated Belle on his desk and was standing between her legs, her skirt gathered up so that her lower legs were exposed. He had unlaced the top of her dress to free her shoulder and was placing kisses there before Belle leaned down to capture his mouth with her own. He had never even considered it, but Cogsworth's heart plummeted as he watched the scene before him.
All the time he had spent with her, treasuring the friendship that they had, he had never realised that this was what he really wanted and the truth was like a brutal dagger. He wanted to be the one who could love her, who could hold her at night and kiss her. He wanted to be able to call her his wife. At night he would stroke himself and call out her name, wondering what it would be like to hear her cry out his name in ecstasy. But it was something that he could never have. For not only was Belle the wife of Prince Adam, but Cogsworth knew that Belle would never return his feelings.
Most people only saw Cogsworth as the head of Prince Adam's household, they never saw him as a man. For many years Cogsworth had seen himself in the same way, pushing aside his hopes and dreams to focus on what his Master needed. Still they were there, buried deep. As he grew older, his dream of having a wife and family had gradually died, but his feelings for Belle had painfully resurrected that dream. She was married however, to a handsome and kind prince, and Cogsworth, a short and stuffy major-domo, couldn't compete with that.
Yet Belle was kind and intelligent, and had fallen in love with a beast and Cogsworth wondered whether, given the right circumstances, Belle could have fallen in love with him. He started to wish that it had been another young woman who had come to the castle and captured the Master's heart. After the transformation the castle had been opened up once more and men and women from the nearby villages had been hired to work as servants. He imagined what it would have been like if Belle had of been one of those women. If Adam had already found his princess and Belle was just another servant. Would Cogsworth have found her then and been able to capture her heart? After all, it was expected that marriages would occur amongst the staff of the castle. He wouldn't have been able to give her all the riches and comforts that Prince Adam had provided for her, but he would have loved her and cared for her and surely that would have been enough.
These dreams only made his heartache worse, knowing that under the right circumstances their friendship could have become more. But knowing that dreams were all he had, he didn't stop himself from imagining a life with Belle, waking up next to her each morning, raising a family and loving her forever. And as he dreamed, he would watch each day as Prince Adam lived his dream of a life with Belle by his side.