He wasn't born LeFou, for what mother would call her firstborn 'The Fool'? No, he was proudly named Lafay as a baby, a name his dear mother had adored since her childhood when she met a man named such. It was a good name, supposedly; he never gave it much of a deep thought, for it was just that: a name.
LeFou came much later.
He wasn't the brightest of kids growing up, and though his charm and silver-tongue worked wonders on the adults of the village, the other children were far less impressed. Shorter than the boys his age, and heavier too, he was more likely to be found being bullied by his peers rather than playing with them.
It never stopped him from trying to make friends, though, even if he wasn't as fond of sports nor of looking up women's skirts like them.
That earned him the nickname of fool, which the boys cruelly made a play of and created 'LeFou'. Oh, but how he hated that name when he was young.
Then he met him.
Gaston. Not yet the great and loved hero of the people, just yet another child of a neglectful mother and a father lost at war. Gaston saved him from the bullies one day, coming out of nowhere with a stick in hands and swearing to defeat the bad guys in the name of the weak and poor. Probably a speech he heard somewhere.
They lost, barely escaping the older boys with their bodies full of bruises and scrapes, but it was the first time the smaller boy had fought back at all so it still felt like a victory.
A small one, he thought as he winced from the bruises.
"I'm Gaston!" the boy exclaimed proudly when they deemed they were far enough to be safe, thumb pointing at his chest and his large smile missing a baby tooth he lost in the fight. "You're LeFou, ain't you? I heard 'em say your name. Weird name, but I like it! It fits you."
Before he could get offended the boy continued, oblivious to the other's reaction.
"They say it's foolish to be brave, don't they?" Gaston asked, his voice changing a bit as if he was making a speech. "So heroes must all be fools then! I will be a hero one day, I will, swear down. I even eat lots of eggs to get all big and strong! We can be heroes together, what do you think? Be famous."
He nodded, too awed by the other's speech and by how grand he seemed standing in front of him with the sun shining on his back— like a hero, his mind supplied— to correct that his name very much wasn't The Fool before Gaston deemed his answer to be enough and left, swearing that they would begin training the next day near the fountain. Though it was the first time someone had said it like it was good, with no sneer behind. Like it was a name to be proud of.
Looking back at his past, it was no wonder he developed a hero worship for the guy.
Training turned out to be playing with wooden knives and running away from angry shopkeepers from the mess they ended up making, apologizing yet not even once stopping from running far far away from there.
"Foolish boys!" the shopkeeper berated, shaking her head as she bended to clean up the apples the boys had accidentally dropped when they jumped on the stand.
Foolish.
He smiled, laughing together with Gaston as they had reached safety yet again. Perhaps he was a fool.
LeFou suddenly didn't sound as bad then.
His mother laughed as he got home, mud all over him and his clothes and a wide grin on his face as he told to her everything that had happened that day— leaving out a few strategic pieces, of course, although his mother could tell the tale wasn't as innocent as he played like. No blameless kid would come back home that filthy.
"It sounds like you got yourself a new best friend, my little fool," she said kindly as she rocked his newborn sister, delighted to hear that her son had so much fun and had found a friend, even at the cost of getting in trouble, "I wonder if you will forget about your dear mother now."
"Never!" he promised though he knew by her smile that she was only teasing as always. It was good to see her laugh, for it had been a while that she had been stuck at home sick.
LeFou, LeFou, LeFou.
They became Le Duo soon enough. Both the cause of laughter and terror around the village with their youthfulness and destruction as they played heroes and hunters and whatever they felt like. Barely anyone knew him by his name anymore; no, he was LeFou. A name that once was born out of cruelty was now spoken in laughter, a name his friends called him, even his mother did once or twice. He played into it, acting like a fool, carrying his heart out in the open with a smile on his face.
He did tell Gaston about it one day, though the boy only hushed it away swearing LeFou sounded way better anyway, refusing to call him anything else even as LeFou didn't even ask for he, too, preferred it.
The bullies still tried to pest them whenever they were able, but as Gaston grew bigger and stronger and both of them learned to actually fight back, they showed up less and less until one day they simply stopped.
Hell, some of the boys even approached them in a slightly friendly manner when both him and Gaston had stolen beer from home. They weren't children anymore, no, young lads they were, only a few years from being legally adults now, but still far too young to be allowed inside the tavern for the keeper knew their families.
Thom and Dick turned out to not be as bad as they first seemed, in the end, even more so when they started hanging out with Dick's younger brother, Stanley, and teaching him how to hunt; the quiet boy was a better influence on them than expected. They were both sons of the town's seamstress, while Thom planned on following his father's steps into becoming a guard.
Ended up friends with all of them, too, even if not as close as with Gaston.
Then again, he probably would never be as close with anyone else other than him.
As they grew into adults, Gaston discovered girls and started talking about one day having a wife; commenting on every girl he laid his eyes upon, but never satisfied with any. LeFou didn't, not that he was surprised. He always knew, really, that deep down that girls weren't for him. There was another factor to it, too: Gaston.
His hero worship had clearly turned into something else, LeFou admitted now, as he noticed that he was more likely to compliment Gaston's growing muscles than to even be aware of Monsieur Thomas' daughter existence, or even any of the handsome lads around the village. It was always Gaston.
It would always be Gaston.
LeFou didn't know if he wanted to be Gaston or be with him, though most of the time he leaned towards the latter.
When the war came the time for laughter and foolish jokes came to an end. It was just blood, despair and violence, and somewhere in the middle of it Gaston flourished. Even in the middle chaos Gaston looked like a God, like the hero he always wanted to be. Like he had found his place.
He was beautiful.
And just like that, it was gone. The war was over, they were heroes; saved the village just like they always said they would, they had the people's love. But things had changed. Gaston had changed.
His temper had shortened, his ego grown. LeFou learned to deal with both of those things, but he never learned how to deal with the empty space that the war left inside of Gaston. He tried though. With compliments, hunts, songs.
A few coins given to the village so they would join in.
In the darkness of his room on lonely nights he dreamed that he would fill it. That his love would be enough, that Gaston would learn to love him back. Foolish.
It was in those moments that he knew his name truly fitted him.
What a fool.
When Gaston started obsessing over Belle, LeFou truly wished it would be enough. He didn't like it— he couldn't see the two of them together, they didn't fit. Not like… not like he and Gaston did. But he hoped for the best and followed Gaston and his plans to woo Belle, ignoring his aching heart and the little voice in his brain saying something wasn't right.
He wondered now, looking at Gaston's unconscious and damaged body laying on the snow, if he had listened to the voice before if it would've changed something.
Maybe if he been selfish. Maybe if he had been more brave.
More selfish.
Nonetheless, it was foolish to wonder such, he couldn't change the past. He hadn't done anything until the very end, until he had been abandoned by his saviour, by the very man he loved. Gaston had turned into a monster consumed by the void inside his heart, all because of an obsession LeFou had helped him feed.
They lost, Gaston fell, the Beast was a prince.
Belle was free.
"You really are a fool, aren't you, LeFou?" Gaston once asked the first time they went hunting together and he sang the whole time to cheer the other up.
LeFou hugged Gaston's body tighter as he wept over him, his heart broken. "We're two, Gaston. We're both fools," he sobbed, "but we're no heroes."
No, in the end they were the villains.