Notes: Hat tip to Robin4. I was re-reading the first couple chapters of her fantastic story Original Powers last night and in the first chapter there's a comment about Belle thinking about what made the Dark Castle home, including experiments gone wrong. This little piece popped into my head. So kudos, Robin4! And if you haven't read her fantastic stories, go do it now! You won't regret it for an instant!


The Mess

She'd never seen magic up close until she'd stepped foot into his castle. Even when he'd swooped in like some sort of phantom, past the guards and the soldiers and the locked doors alike, her back had been turned when he transported himself into her father's chair. Nor had she actually seen him win the war, but, supposedly, as long as your end of the deal was upheld, Rumplestiltskin never went back on his.

Now magic was commonplace: a corridor that moved of its own will or a footstool that didn't want to be used. She could have sworn, once he'd given her an actual room, that the wardrobe had moved once of its own accord.

One of her most hated projects that she'd taken on not long after she'd come to live with him was cleaning his work space. Not the spinning wheel, no, that was easy enough because he'd simply told her to stay away from it. It was the vials and flasks that made her skin crawl. They were always coated with goop of all colour and consistency. Some of it was thick, impossible to scrub off unless it soaked for hours beforehand, and the contents of one bowl looked suspiciously like blood. She'd opened a box to peek inside and screams had erupted from it. She'd snapped it shut too quickly to see if anything was actually inside or it had just been another source of entertainment for him.

Today he was working on something though. Belle found him bent over, shoulders hunched in such a way that it looked like he'd been there long enough that even he had begun to feel it, and looking intently at the smoking contents of a flask through a magnifying glass.

Rumplestiltskin didn't seem to notice her at first, so she hovered at the top of the steps, watching, mop in one hand and bucket of water in the other.

He hummed to himself as he shifted on his stool, groping to his left for a spool of spun gold without bothering to take a moment to look for it. He pulled a piece, snipped it, and dropped it carefully into the flask. The smoke stopped entirely, revealing a blue liquid clearer than any ocean.

"What have I told you about spying on me, dearie?" he asked suddenly, still not bothering to turn to her.

Belle felt her cheeks heat. "I wasn't spying," she argued. "I was watching. I've never seen someone work a potion before."

"Well, if you've got so much time on your hands, I'm sure we can - Oh." He'd spun at the end and she held up the mop and bucket with an innocent smile. "Find some other room to clean."

"I've cleaned them all. You've been held up in here for five days."

He looked startled at that. "Really?"

"Really." She stepped forward, setting her cleaning materials to the side and looking curiously at what he'd been working on. "Could you show me?"

He flashed her a impish grin. "Looking to add a bit of dark magic to your studies, dearie?"

Belle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "No. I shouldn't think I'd be very good at it, but if it's had your usually short attention for this long, it must be very fascinating. May I see it?"

She was close to him now and he went rigid as he had a habit of doing. He looked up at her from his perch, weighing his options. If he'd meant to return with another snarky jab, it died in his throat and he shrugged instead, the movement stiff. "It's nothing fascinating, I'd say, just time consuming. Cures are some of the most difficult potions to mix. Magic has many rules to it, dearie, and breaking them, even bending them, can be costly."

"That's a cure? Can it save someone's life?"

"It will."

Belle's eyes widened and she smiled at him. "And you say you're a monster," she teased.

"Oh, I was paid very handsomely for this, dearie, don't think I wasn't. This though -" he leaned so far to one side that she thought he might tip to stool over as he grabbed for another bubbling concoction and his grin returned - "is fun."

She laughed at his expression, but the smell that wafted from the mixture and the tarry blackness of it instantly stole her amusement. Belle pinched her nose. "What is it?"

Rumplestiltskin looked like a child receiving a gift. His amber eyes were bright with excitement and his hands moved as he spoke, listing off the ingredients that had been put into it, half of which his princess-maid had never heard of before. She listened, trying not to gag at the smell, and trying to look as interested in this as she had in the cure.

"But what does it do?" she asked at last, halting his increasingly bouncy speech.

"Haven't the faintest."

"What?" Belle nearly shouted. "You're just mixing in things and hoping something comes of it?"

"Well… yes."

She couldn't tell if he were playing her or not with that terrible attempt at an innocent expression. "How have you not blown up the castle yet?"

"Would you like to see what it does?"

She should say no, for her own sake and his, but her blue gaze shifted back to the bubbling goop and she found herself nodding instead of shaking her head as she'd strictly told herself to. He giggled at her and popped off his seat to grab several unmarked flasks from his shelf. Uncorking them he added a pinch of one, a shake of another and half the contents of the last. The solution bubbled with more ferocity than before, popping and smoldering and stinking up the whole room. They watched it for a moment, fixated, and Belle thought she saw a small hand reach up from it for just a moment before it exploded, the black muck splattering against her skin. She cringed and started to try to scrub it off. When she turned her attention back to Rumplestiltskin, his expression had melted into one of worry.

Belle didn't have a chance to ask before he saw something he didn't like and he was up from his seat in an instant. He grabbed her by the wrist, the rare contact initiated by him taking her by surprise, and hauled off running towards the steps. They were halfway down them when an explosion rocked the tower and the black, tarry goop rained down on them from above as well as through the railings of the stairs.

They stood there for a moment, silence their companion as they didn't dare touch anything. They were covered from head to toe in the stuff that smelt no better out of the pot it had been boiling in.

"Well," he drawled after a long moment, reaching up to try to scrub some of it off his face, "you were here to clean."

Her look of pure fury made even the Dark One take a step back.

Belle took a steadying breath, resisting the urge to throttle him. Instead she motioned for him to remain where he was, dangerous implications of what would happen if he was not there when she returned clinging as steadily as the muck. She walked out the door and he watched her, doing everything he could to scrub it from his skin once she was out of sight. It wouldn't budge, even when he tried to magic it away. This could take a while.

She returned some few minutes later, finding him inspecting his dragonhide vest with a disappointed look. He blinked at her, a mop under either of her arms and a bucket of sloshing water in either hand. She'd grabbed an apron, the only clean part of her, and in either pocket were brushes for scrubbing. Belle didn't say a word as she marched right up to him, handed him one of the buckets and one of the mops, and then continued back up the stairs.

"You don't expect me to-" He snapped his mouth shut again at the look and ducked his head, torn between simply leaving her to her work or giving in. He had to admit - though only to himself, because she would never hear it from him - that her unwavering courage in the face of one of the most powerful beings in the realms had won at least some respect in his books. It wasn't that he was afraid of tongue lashing he would receive if he simply faded from sight. Most certainly not.

Slowly Rumplestiltskin climbed the steps back up to his work area, bucket and mop in hand and sighed. Well, Belle wasn't the first deal he'd made that he hadn't known quite what he was getting himself into.