Hidden Heart (Beauty and the Beast AU)

Things Half-Hidden

Life settled into a strange rhythm. Each day, Susato cleaned. She explored the manor. She spoke with the various inmates. Evie and Patricia both took to helping her in the kitchen, and Gina often chatted with Susato while she cleaned. She checked in regularly on the Milvertons. She brought Bruce books. She talked with Duncan and looked at his paintings. And every night—or what she supposed was nighttime, it was impossible to tell—she served dinner, hoping to see more faces appear and dreading it all the same. After dinner, she went to the Beast and read to him while he ate and drank. And each time, she was struck by the keen loneliness and grief in his disconcertingly human eyes.

They finished their book and began another, and still Susato withheld her questions. The time was not right. She needed to feel the Beast would truly answer her, that he would see she was not acting merely out of personal interests. For she truly was overcome by an immense compassion for him.

And then he began to speak with her. They spent hours upon hours discussing the book she had finished reading to him. He ate slowly that night and sometimes even pivoted to peer at her directly while they spoke.

Susato was beginning to discover the Beast was educated. He was intelligent and caught onto a lot of details in the story they had read, and conveyed his thoughts with great articulation. He also had a strange and unsettling wit. It was hard for her to tell when he was making a jest, for he was disarmingly sarcastic. Although she was starting to detect the rhythm to this way of speech. He was opinionated too, that much was clear, but she thought that fault made him feel almost human. It was rather endearing, if she was honest.

Yet even as his personality emerged in small degrees, the sadness in his eyes did not relent. And the loneliness she detected in his gaze seemed to open wider. She wondered how long it had been since he had last spoken to anyone about books. Or anything at all. Gina had said that no one spoke to the Beast, which was reasonable, considering how he acted. How menacing he seemed, how terrifying he looked, how imposing he was. And how he commanded others keep their distance. Despite all that, it seemed Susato had just opened a door that had long craved to be opened, and feared itself to be slammed shut at any moment.

***

One night, everyone was eating dinner together when the Beast appeared. Surprised, Susato glanced about the table warily, worried everyone would disperse. They had indeed all begun to rise when the Beast suddenly spoke.

"Do you require more medicine?" he said.

Everyone paused, uncertainty chorusing palpably through the room.

"Mr. Milverton has recovered?" the Beast said.

Mason Milverton was, in fact, seated at the table, a blanket around his shoulders. His gaze darted from the Beast to his son to Susato and back again. He said nothing, his face drawn.

"Have you the need for further paints? Brushes, perhaps? There is a storage room on my side of the manor that may suit your purposes," the Beast said, looking at Duncan.

Duncan shrank in his chair and shook his head.

"...Would you show me where it is? I am sure there are plenty of useful items down there. Perhaps there's something I could use to decorate a little! Or maybe there is something Mrs. Vigil could use for her sewing?" Susato said.

"You may search for such items, if that is what you wish," the Beast said.

"...Sooz, wot is 'e doin' 'ere?" Gina whispered, her eyes wide.

"Shall I hunt for more meat? I am unaware of the state of the larder," the Beast said.

"Oh, we still have plenty!" Susato offered brightly.