Notes: Written for StarlitPurple for Fandom Stocking 2013.
They have fur in them, which he thinks should make them feel more natural to him. Now that his body isn't covered in fur, he almost longs for the feel of it.
It's funny; it's been his lifelong aspiration to be turned back into a human man, but he never considered that it would be so full of obstacles.
"They're too tight," he tells Belle as she laces up some boots for him.
Belle looks up at him, then back down at the shoes. "You might need a bigger size," she says thoughtfully, and undoes the boots to check.
He flexes his toes, curves his foot how he's used to having it; like he walked when he was a Beast.
"Try these," she says instead, pulling on a different pair from the shoe maker's cart. She stuffs his poor feet into them and looks up at him apprehensively. "Well?"
Adam tries to give a pleasant smile. "They're fine."
"Adam," Belle says, standing and brushing off her dress, "You have to walk around in them, to see how they feel." Belle does a little twirl around in her own new shoes, and he envies her grace and her ease at walking in these foot prisons.
What madman invented shoes, anyway?
He pushes himself up onto his feet and is quite proud of himself when he only wobbles a little. He takes a step forward, and then another, and then he's tumbling towards Belle as his feet go this way and that in the slick leather soles as the shoes meet the marble tiled floor.
Belle catches him and helps steady him, giving his hand a pat. "It will take work," she say gently.
"If Your Grace would like, I can make any shoes you can think of," the shoe makers says, "Special order, no extra cost."
Adam looks over at the shoe maker, his eyebrow raising. "Could you make shoes that don't have a sole?"
The shoe maker returns in a fortnight, with a collection of stylish shoes that have no sole.
"No one will ever be able to tell," the shoe makers promises, holding up one of the shoes and sticking his hand through it, "They'll look and sound just like real shoes, but no slick sole to trip you up."
"This is cheating," Belle says from beside him, watching Adam prance around in his new shoes with her arms crossed.
Adam walks back and forth across the room in the faux-shoes, flexes his toes, and pays the shoe maker double.