#pic by Cederic Vandenberghe in Unsplash

[oxiosa]

Characters: Luciano (Brazil), Martín (Argentina). Relationships: BrArg. Additional Tags: The Beauty and the Beast AU. Beast!Luciano. Summary: Martín makes a deal with the Beast that lives in the forsaken castle deep in the forest.

by @oxiosa and @disaster-fruit​

Once upon a time, there was one Martín Hernández, a young handsome man who left his quiet country life and enlisted into the King’s army to join the War, dreaming of becoming a knight in shiny armour, a protector beloved by everyone. However, Martín’s dreams are shattered to pieces when he gets discharged young because of injury - it’s not too serious, but it makes him a liability which makes him no longer fit to perform his duty to the King and so he gets sent home.

Heartbroken and with hurt pride, Martín moves to a distant little village to start a new life far away from his old life and the War. The little village is quiet and homey, and the villagers are kind and welcoming, however not everything is as uneventful as it looks for there is a horrible Beast living in its dreadful castle inside the eery forest by the village.

The villagers tell Martín that the hideous Beast has been tormenting the village for years; every summer solstice, it demands from the village that they send to his castle a young girl as sacrifice. The sacrifice must stay with him for a whole year, until the next solstice when another girl must be sent to take her place. The girls return to the village safe and unharmed, and they all share the same story: they lived inside the palace, prisoners of a Beast which never showed its face and had only one demand for them: every night, they were to share dinner with it.

Martín hears of the village’s terrible situations and decides to slay the Beast to stop this madness. He might not be enough for the King, but he is strong, brave and eager to prove himself and show his worth by helping these people. He heads for the castle, which is hidden in the darkest corner of the forest and seems abandoned – it truly is a sigh out of nightmare. He heads inside and roams through the dark corridors with his sword in hand, searching for the Beast.

A booming faceless voice warns him to turn back, to leave the castle, but Martín refuses and taunts the Beast to face him and fight him. However, the Beast refuses to face Martín and prefers to camouflage and stays in the dark, avoiding direct confrontation altogether. Martín can hear it slithering around and talking to him from the shadows, constantly changing locations impossibly fast, and this is just not working, this thing is basically toying with him. As long as the Beast refuses to engage, there is literally nothing Martín can do. Martín cannot win against something that refuses to fight him and thus he is forced to take another course of action. He puts down his sword and announces he is willing to trade places with the captive girl. He says that if the Beast wants a prisoner, then it can have him. Spare the girl this year, have him instead.

The Beast hesitates in stunned silence, but after a beat it accepts the trade. It puts only two terms to the deal; he requires from Martín that every night they share dinner and it also warns Martín that while he may feel at home and roam as he pleases, he is not welcomed in the West Garden.

Martín accepts the deal bravely, but he also puts a condition back. He requests the Beast steps into the light so he may see it. The Beast hesitates, and for a moment Martín fears he might have ruined the deal. But the Beast complies and reveals its monstruous appearance; it is a chimera like creature, slim and stealthy like some nocturnal predator with glowing eyes that watch Martín from the dark. It lets Martín take all his monstrous splendour in for a few brief seconds, and then it steps back into shadows. It questions in an angry sour voice if Martín still is willingly to trade places with the sacrifice, and Martín nods his head swelling his chest proudly.

The Beast lets the girl go and Martín stays in her place. He gets his own chambers and the castle pretty much to himself. Days are long and lonely, for the Beast remains all day hidden in the West Garden, that one place that is out of limits. It only joins Martín during dinner time, which they share in silence and shadows in opposite ends of a long table with only one candle in front of Martín. This way, the Beast can see him but all Martín can make out of it are its big yellow eyes staring at him, eerily reflecting the candlelight.

Although the Beast is the only company he has, Martín refuses to talk or be civil during their meals and instead either ignores it or shoots angry defiant glares in its direction. The Beast tries starting conversation, but it’s all in vain; Martín might have accepted to stay in the castle in the Beast’s terms, but he hates it and there is little the Beast can do to change that.

It is a lonely miserable stay for Martín, until one night he is visited in his chambers before bedtime by a beautiful mysterious Voice. The Voice claims to be a cursed soul tied to the castle, a prisoner very much like Martín himself. The Voice is cheeky and charming and very fun, and as time goes Martín eventually falls for it. The Voice keeps him company at night by chatting in the dark for hours when he can’t sleep and during the day it fills his room with the most beautiful flowers when Martín is away.

The Voice tells Martín about how the castle used to be beautiful and how the Voice used to be a handsome Prince who ruled these lands before the Beast arrived and better days were gone. His curse can be broken, but it never says how whenever Martín begs he tells him so he may help.

Days go by, and Martín slowly grows more and more miserable during the day. He has the beautiful Voice to keep him happy in the night, but days drag on endlessly when the sun comes out and he is left alone – no Voice, no Beast even to keep him company. He roams across the castle until he has explored every nook and cranny, until there is nothing else to explore except for the forbidden West Garden. Martín resists the urge of unravelling that mystery for some time, but he eventually decides to defy the Beast’s order and he ventures into the West Wing.

He finds that the West Garden is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. The garden is wonderful and lush, filled with so many plants and bushes and trees and flowers. It is heavenly, Eden-like, and a very stark contrast with the rest of the dark gloomy palace. So much beauty concentrated in one place for such an awful hideous Beast.

Most beautiful of all is one single rose which has almost run out of petals, held by the gentle hand of the handsome statue of a young prince with curly hair, big eyes and perfect lips. The Prince, the Voice’s true form, Martín realises with a swelling heart. As Martín stares at the beautiful sigh of that marble face, he feels a dark looming presence behind him and swiftly turns around to find the Beast towering behind him. It no longer hides and doesn’t seem mad at Martín for trespassing. Instead, a sour expression darkens his monstrous face as it stares at the handsome statue holding the withering rose. There is sad bone-deep longing in his eyes as he stares at the angelic face of the Prince, and with horror it dawns on Martín that the Beast is the Prince, and that the Beast he so hated is the Voice he fell in love with.

The Beast admits so when Martín angrily confronts him about it. It explains his name is Luciano and that once upon a time he was the Prince of this castle. He had been a superficial man in the past, one who had only cared to indulge in fun and pleasure, who had paid the price of his shallowness one dreadful night he took a beautiful woman to his bed only to send her away in the morning. The beautiful woman begged he loved her and he had laughed in her face – humiliated by Luciano’s cruelness, she revealed to be a witch and in revenge cursed him to look like a hideous beast.

Only if Luciano could learn to love another and earn their love in return before the last petal of the withering rose fell would the curse be broken. If not, he would fully turn into a beast for eternity, loosing what little humanity was left of him. Luciano admits he demanded sacrifices searching for the one who’d break his curse, and he also admits to have tricked Martín visiting his chambers every night under the disguise of his mysterious Voice hoping to make his way through Martín’s stone hard indifference.

This discovery is a huge betrayal that breaks Martín’s heart. Luciano has imprisoned Martín in a castle and has dared to come to his chambers at night in the safety of the shadows and lie to Martín’s face over and over again, to make Martín open up and bare his soul - to make him trust him and love him. But it all was a lie. The sweet gentle Voice Martín had fallen in love with is not real. Luciano created a whole different identity just to lie to him and trick him into falling in love. The Voice’s careful wooing had been nothing but the Beast’s scheme to break his curse. Luciano never cared for Martín, he means nothing to him, he was just a tool to break his curse.

It’s so low. Martín is prideful and Luciano has made a fool out of him. Martín is angry and hurt and humiliated and completely heartbroken. And if it would be hard for Martín to fall in love with a beast before, now it’s impossible. He sees Luciano not as both his captor beast and the angelic voice he loves, but as the captor beast and the one who betrayed him. He loved the Voice that was kind to him and fun and charming, not this horrible beast that - first and foremost - has tricked him.

All of this Martín spits in Luciano’s face. He tells him he is not worth of love, not Martín’s, not anyone’s, and he unsheathes his sword, driven by hurt and anger, set in piercing the Beast’s stone-cold heart in half.

Martín fights Luciano with the whole intention of ending this once and for all. This battle is a little more direct this time around – Luciano doesn’t hide, but it still refuses to fight back. He bears down Martín’s angry attacks, lets him get it out of his chest until he tires himself out. Then Luciano very easily disarms him and tells him to go. Martin refuses to leave; that would mean that another girl from the village would be sent in his place. But Luciano promises he won’t take any more sacrifices. He does so with sad heartbroken eyes that cannot meet Martín’s furious glassy glare.

Without dignifying Luciano with another word, Martín abandons the castle; he returns to the village and is surprised to be welcomed like a champion. He is back before his year was up, and the Beast is not demanding for more sacrifices, he must have slayed it! Bravo, the village is free! Martín tries to explain the Beast is still very much alive but the villagers won’t listen.

Martín heads home, tired and heartbroken and ready to put this in the past, but he instantly gets visited by Luciano’s former sacrifices. A bunch of girls knock at his door and demand to speak with him; they are worried and want to know the truth. Did Martín really slay the Beast? Is it ok? Why hasn’t it asked for another sacrifice once it let Martín go? Martín realises with surprise that these girls are worried for Luciano’s well-being, and the reason for that is that they have fond memories of the year they all spent at the palace. Everyone in the village thinks the Beast is a monster and no one believes them when they speak about how it was kind and gentle. But they say Martín has lived in the castle, he must know better, right? He must know the Beast is fun and charming, that it doesn’t deserve to be killed like some wild rabid animal.

It is bewildering for Martín to hear. These girls speak wonders of Luciano - not the Voice that had visited Martín every night, but the *Beast*. These gives Martín some perspective. Maybe the Voice wasn’t an act, but Luciano’s true colors, a way to get past Martín’s stubborn prejudice. He is not sure what to do with this new information, it’s very confusing. He’s still angry, but he’s also still in love, but he’s furious and hurt. All these feelings, as different as they are, still live in his heart.

Luciano keeps his promise and doesn’t ask for more sacrifices; there is no point in doing so, for he has fallen in love with Martín, the one who hates him the most, and now that his love is unrequired there is no breaking his curse. He spends all day locked in his castle, deep in his heavenly garden nursing his broken heart as his magical rose withers away. He has so very little time, he realises as he watches the last of the petals fall. He has no time left. As some sort of dying wish, he leaves his castle for the first time in years and heads to the village for he wishes to see Martín one last time.

Luciano uses his camouflage powers and slips into the village in the dead of the night to see his true love one last time, but he gets spotted and causes massive panic. The Beast is alive, and it has come down from its castle and into the village! This has never happened before, nobody is safe anymore! So the villagers decide it is time they end the Beast’s reign of terror themselves and gather in an angry mob with pitchforks and torches.

Luciano retreats to his castle, but the mob follows. This ends tonight.

Martín is drawn out of his house by all the angry yelling and bright torches, and he only gets a glimpse of Luciano’s monstruous form jumping from one rooftop to another in the dark night, barely illuminated by the angry mob. He’d recognise his shape and his swift agile moves anywhere and thus he follows the mob. Martín remains still very confused about his feelings, but one thing is certain: he doesn’t want Luciano to die. He takes his sword and horse and rushes to the castle in a race against the mob, hoping to get to Luciano before the villagers do.

Martín gets to the castle first and rushes through the empty palace towards the one place where he knows he will find Luciano: the West Garden, his hiding place. Just as he expects, he finds Luciano’s familiar monstrous form in front of the statue, of the withering rose which is on the very edge of death at this point, a single flimsy petal left. Luciano has his back to Martín, who approaches him slowly and calls his name. Luciano raises, and when he turns around Martín is faced with the eyes of wild mindless beast baring fangs with blood-thirsty eyes.

The curse has taken over him and the Beast jumps at Martín, but Martín manages to pull out his sword just in time and stabs it right across the chest, the sword going in effortlessly due to the pounce’s momentum. The pain is enough to snap Luciano out of the temporary lapse that had taken over him, and he looks down at Martín’s terrified sorrowful face and then at the sword buried to the hilt into his heart. Luciano holds Martín’s gaze numbly for a moment, and then falls to the side. Martín kneels to his side and begs him to please hang in there, even though there is no saving him. Luciano cups Martín’s face and tries to smooth his frantic fretting. He smiles at Martín, for all he wanted was to see him one last time and would you look at that, he got his wish granted. His last words are his heartfelt confession, asking for Martín’s forgiveness while also telling him that he never meant to deceive him, that he really truly loved him.

Martín cries at their fate and confesses his love amidst tears. Luciano manages one weak smile at his words before his eyelids close his eyes and a sudden light engulfs his form to transform his monstruous shape back into a handsome prince.

The curse has been broken, barely in time.

It is quite a shock for both: one moment ago Luciano was dying looking like a monster and now he looks like himself again and he’s very much alive. Luciano is more than a little disoriented, and Martín doesn’t help by grabbing his face and kissing him between tears while mumbling how much he loves him and hates him and how angry and happy he is, and that he’s so glad Luciano is alive that he could kill him with his bare hands.

The curse is lifted and there’s no beast to slay when the villagers arrive. Just the young prince that had disappeared all those years ago.

Now that Luciano is human, he has a lot of stuff to sort out. The villages around spent too much time without their Prince, he’s disoriented and confused and having to get used to his old skin after years as a monster. Everything is too much and he really wants Martín by his side so that he doesn’t feel so alone and confused. Martín hesitates, but he can’t say no; he was already too in love from the beginning, and as Luciano turns more and more into his real self as he settles back into his life, the less Martín can really be angry at him. The longer they spend together, the more Martín can recognise both the Voice and the Beast meshed in the Prince; Luciano is neither but a mix of both. Martín needs time to heal but the love he has for Luciano trumps over everything; he eventually forgives him and they eventually live happily ever after.