Notes: This was a fill for the livejournal Les Mis anon kinkmeme on the makinghugospin community. The request was for Beauty and the Beast AU with either Enjolras/Grantaire or Valjean/Javert. Being a fan of E/R (and not really a fan of Valjean/Javert), and because the Disney film for Beauty and the Beast was on last night, I ended up writing this.
It ended up not being exactly what I think the requester wanted, but I'm fairly proud of it. It's based on the original fairy tale, sort of, and is an AU that really isn't. It's also meant to be E/R, but I'm not sure if that ended up being obvious. Rating because the concept's a bit dark.
Enjolras and the Beast
The story is a little different.
There is a man who lives in a castle, but the enchantments are of his own making. A stranger comes to his door, not to fulfill a promise made by a loved one, but purely by chance. The stranger finds the master of the castle to be awesome and terrifying both at once.
"What shall I call you?" asks the stranger.
"I had a name once," says the man who lives in the castle, "But it matters not anymore. My name tied me to my humanity, and I am no longer such. You may call me anything you like."
"Then I will call you Beast," says the stranger, "Because of your eyes. And as such it would only be proper for you to call me Beauty."
And Beauty stays, not because of any promises or magic, but because he is compelled from the very beginning to this strange and lonely Beast.
There are little changes to the story here and there.
There are no marriage proposals, though they do dine together each night. Beast is willing to share his dinner, even if he is indifferent to having company. Beauty is never forbidden from visiting any places in the castle, but certain doors are simply locked, and Beast never offers a key. They row, often, because their ideologies are different. There are never apologies from either of them, but Beauty always shows up at dinner again eventually.
As time passes, they grow accustomed to each other.
One day, Beauty says at dinner, "I am leaving to-morrow."
Beast is impassive.
"Will you come with me?" asks Beauty.
Beast shakes his head.
"Then," says Beauty, "I shall return to you."
The story is made of another sort of enchantment.
The truth is that Beast is confined to the castle because its stones are made of magic. But this magic is not the sort possessed by fairies and vengeful enchantresses, but by Beast himself. In his castle built on self-isolation and over-exalted ideals, he de-personified himself into an abstract. There is no curse that will kill Beast on his twenty-first birthday if no one loves him by then, but Beauty knows Beast will eventually die there regardless, in that empty castle all alone, unwilling to admit he is a man just as much as he is a cause.
The truth is that Beauty named him Beast not because of a monstrous appearance or selfish uncivilized behavior. Beast is polite, impassively so, and he looks more like an angel than anyone Beauty has ever met. Beauty only named him Beast because of a certain look in his eyes, a surprising bright ferocity that changes him from being simply an angel.
The truth is that Beauty is dreadfully ugly.
Some things are still the same.
The truth is that Beauty plans to return to the castle and spend his life with his Beast.
When the story ends, Enjolras looks up and meets his eyes.