A/N: Wrote this for a dear friend who's in the throes of Gaston-loving passion right now. I think I talk to her too much for my head is filled with Luke Evans dancing around in tight red pants and this fic came dancing out late, late lateee at night (which appears to be exactly when inspiration chooses to strike, wtf. Like why inspiration, whyyyy?)

Anyway, here you go, my lovely. Prezzie for you!

He falls.

From the gothic spires from the top of the castle he falls.

Through a swirling fog and light rain, he tastes the bitterness of defeat and falls and plummets as he waits for the final impact of death.

It didn't come.

He awoke to find himself aching.

Throbbing.

In so much pain and twisted in a mangled position that his mind struggled to piece and understand even as a dark cloud of foreboding swept insidiously through his body and settled itself over his heart.

Memories of Belle, of her father, of LeFou and of him - It... They assail him.

He looks up with pained-filled bleary eyes to see a woman shrouded in pure, golden light. A breathtakingly stunning woman with flowing robes and hair so pale it shimmered nearly white.

"Beast," she says, and waves her hands and strings of gold shoot out from her fingers and cocoons his broken form.

A warmth surrounds him, and he feels broken bones mending and his heart fills with an instant gratitude for this woman.

He opens his mouth, to say something, maybe even a 'thank you', but finds that his lips are locked and they cannot pull past his teeth. He tries to push himself up, to use his legs, legs that used to have enough power to rival a stallion's and finds that they would not straighten. He rose in a half-crouch and his back sloped over in a hump, and he finds himself reduced to half his height from before.

He looks up in horror, eyes desperate on hers, disbelief and betrayal and terror, blinding terror, as he realises what she has done.

"Beast," she says again, before floating backwards inexorably, her form getting fainter, more wispy in the sun.

"Wait!" he croaks. "Wait!" he shouts. He raises a gloved hand, desperate to stop her. "You cannot leave me like this! You cannot!"

She fades away, her body mere mist now.

"No!" he screams. "Let me die! I'd rather die!"

He sees her shake her head, a cold smile on her lips and he screams in desperation, the agonised, plaintive shriek of a dying animal. "You can't leave me like this! Let me die!"

She stares at him pitilessly. "Break the spell," she says, and the words floats to him on the breath of the wind as she fades away into nothingness.

He sees her dancing in the distance. A cloud of black hair and eyes so blue they reminded him of the ocean that Père had taken him to once upon a time in another lifetime... and he wondered how he could ever have thought Belle the most beautiful girl he had ever seen before. And she was; a girl. A young girl, the bloom of youth still fresh on the milk of her skin, the rose of her lips.

He steps forward, that old grin half-formed on his mouth, and throws back shoulders in a manner that habit had carved into him... and found that he could not.

His back would not straighten, his shoulders remained hunched, his mouth remained fixed in a cruel sneer; the last expression he had worn on his once handsome face as he fell from those dark spires of misery in the land of another place and another time.

The image of the sorceress dances before his eyes. Like a dream, but mired in reality.

"No one will love you now, Beast."

His heart twisted, and rage consumed him, and he choked on hatred so strong it threatened to overwhelm him.

Beast.

He was no beast. He was Gaston. The man of men. The prince of princes.

He was no Beast.

He survives on scraps. On the slivers of humanity that elude most of mankind. But he refuses to go begging for more. He is Gaston, he has his pride, and he will not beg.

The muscle melts off from his frame, his once lush black hair falls lank about his face, and he hides his disfigured form under a cloak of threadbare darkness. More of what made him him slinks off with it.

Time passes, and he watches as the girl blooms further, as her hair grows longer, and maturity lends a sensuality to her features. He watches as she dances for the crowd and watches as the tattered hat she has laid on the cobblestones before her fill with coins.

He withered and withers but he comes back to the same spot everyday, and he watches her from behind the grimy walls of an alleyway, because she to him is life. And beauty, and a reminder of things once was.

She is lovely, this woman, skin like silk and hair as black as a raven's wing. She spins around in a swish of skirts and scarves and he looks on, held by her spell. Coins rain on into the hat, and she spins one last time, a final whirl and ends on her hands and her knees, all lines of flowing grace.

He wonders then, why she does this. Why she dances, why she entertains for a living, for such beauty does not belong on the streets.

Such beauty belongs with a husband, with children, in a house, filled with love and warmth and safety. All that he once offered Belle, all that was never enough for Belle.

He looks up as the clink of gold meets the cobbled stones of the ground. There once was a time where he never lacked for gold, and his pockets were heavy with coin.

Once.

The coin rolls and rolls as if being guided by an invisible hand. It wobbles and rolls across the stone yard and somehow clinks to a stop and collapses on its side in front of him. He freezes, afraid now where he never was, frozen to the ground as he watches her as she follows it. Watches her as she comes closer and closer and he withdraws, where he wouldn't have before.

She's there, in front of him and she sees him. She bends to pick up the coin. He sees it dance across delicate fingers and he wonders if fingers like that will ever dance across his flesh again.

She sees him, and she raises a hand to him. He shies away where he would not before, afraid. Afraid of her touch on disfigured flesh. Afraid of distaste on the perfection of her face. She raises a hand, hesitates, and offers him the coin.

"Here," she says, and her voice plays over his withered flesh like music on strings. "Take it."

Something cracks in his heart, and he's almost afraid to raise his eyes to hers. Afraid now, where he was never afraid before.

He courageously does so anyway, because he is... Gaston... and he will never stand down from his fears.

He braces himself for censure. For distaste. For fear. For disgust. Emotions he once threw away freely at lesser beings. Men less worthy than a specimen like himself.

But... nothing.

Dark lashes frame eyes even bluer than Père's ocean. And he sees compassion. He sees light. He sees a purity of heart and nothing more. No darkness, no censure, no distaste, no fear. None of anything that he would have once used on himself now.

Her lips part, "You've beautiful eyes," she says, and Gaston falls in love.

He hears someone call her name from far away. A lock of her hair brushes his lips as she swivels around in reply.

Her name is called again and she rises and leaves, taking with her the scent of roses, and the memories of the ocean.

He holds her name close to his heart. Tastes the sound of it on his lips.

Melissande.