Disclaimer: Nobody disclaims a franchise like Gaston!
A/N: We're baaaack! Sorry...? ;D
This was the result of us watching Beauty and the Beast one day, and realizing something. And, once again, the conspiracy theories began flowing.
Gaston: The Untold Story
By: dancesthroughlife and SunshineandDaisys
"Skank!"
The crowd gasped as the king threw out his pointer finger, aiming it at the soon-to-be-former queen who was trying to hide behind her large, fur cape.
"How could you?"
"Lionel, it's not like I choose to... well, okay, I did choose to do it but I still love you!"
King Lionel crossed his arms and stared down at the woman before him. The crowd around them was comprised of many servants, as well as guests of the court. They'd been having a celebration for the birth of their son, Adam, when the prince of Genovia came storming up to the gift table and demanded to see Queen Rosalie. The Queen tried to hide in the broom closet, but Lumiere was already inside with one of the Duke's daughters.
The prince, some foppish young guy whose name Lionel could never remember, spotted her and yelled, "Aha! Stop, in the name of love, woman!"
"No, no you shouldn't be here!"
"Ha! The whole country is here! And besides, how could I miss my son's birthday celebration?"
The entire room fell into a hush. Queen Rosalie slapped her forehead with a gloved hand. "This son isn't yours, you fool!"
Gasps and exclamations overtook the silence of the court, and King Lionel had dropped his goblet of wine onto the flammable ballroom tile. The guards had immediately escorted the young prince out, who'd kicked and screamed like a little girl throughout, and now the two royals were facing each other in an awkward silence.
"So Gaston is not my son, eh Rosalie?"
The queen sniffed. "No. Didn't you notice that swell cleft in his chin?"
"I did. I thought he got it from you."
The Duchess of Devonshire leaned over and whispered to her husband, "Oh, snap."
Queen Rosalie glared at the King. "That is entirely uncalled for!"
"You know what else is uncalled for?" The Duchess was still whispering. Loudly. "The fact that the bastard child is over there stuffing his face full of eggs!"
Half of the room turned to stare at the four year old Gaston, sitting in his gold-gilded booster seat at the banquet table, stuffing his face with... eggs. He was completely unaware that the mixed expressions of disgust and pity turned toward him were not a good thing. He beamed, a mouthful of disgusting white and yellow chunks, waving his fork at everyone. "Hewwo!"
"I can't be upstaged by that English brat Henry! I can't let you get away with this! You know what I have to do..." the King growled.
The Duchess began to get really excited, and began slapping her husband's arm. "You know what comes next, don't you! Don't you? Wait for it...wait for it..."
Rosalie crossed her arms, "You wouldn't"
"Oh, yeah, he would," the Duchess giggled.
"But I would."
"But...but...how can you do this? To me? And our sons?" the Queen began to grovel.
The King scoffed, "MY son will continue to live here. HE will be king. As for your...sin, well, I'll deal with him later. You, I deal with now. Guards! Seize her!"
"NO!" Rosalie screamed as big burly Scotts men in clanky metal grabbed her, and began dragging her away.
At this instant, Lumiere and his Lady Friend burst out of the closet.
"What's going on?" Lumiere wondered.
It was then that Babette, the maid, walked by. She turned on Lumiere when she saw who he was with, "You man-whore!" she screeched as she slapped him across the face. "I knew it!"
That night, the King took Gaston out into the woods.
"Run away, child."
Gaston gazed up at his father, or so he thought, and asked, "But why?"
"Your mother has been very bad."
"But why?"
"Because she's a dirty whore."
"But why?"
"Because she learned it from Grandma."
"But why?"
"Because it's a family tradition."
"But why?"
"Because...I don't know! Just...run away!"
Gaston was about to cry. "Will I ever see you again, Daddy?"
King Lionel sighed, "No, and you must never tell anyone that I am your...father."
"But why?"
"Because it's a secret."
"But wh.."
Gaston was quickly cut off by the King, "Shh...just go!"
And with that, King Lionel gave Gaston a little shove, and then returned to his humble abode.
The King began to settle into a depression that would plague him for the rest of his life, as Gaston began to wander the woods. Alone.
The following morning, the crowd began to gather around the guillotine, in anticipation for the execution.
The Duchess, who had taken a front seat, began to bounce up and down, clapping her hands together. And as the former Queen was led up the steps, the Duchess turned to her husband, and whispered, "Isn't this exciting?" turning back, just in time to see the blade come down.
She could no longer hold it in, and so the Duchess began having maniacal fits of giggles.
"That was THE BEST!" she exclaimed, and began to dance around. The King, who had witnessed all of her antics, began to become very angered.
"You're next!" he exclaimed, as he pointed toward the exuberant young woman.
"But wha..."
The next morning, the sunlight came over the horizon as birds chirped their morning salutations, deer scampered off into the cover of the trees and a few rabbits nibbled their breakfast. Also, Gaston was drooling on what appeared to be a well-kept lawn in the middle of the forest. Somehow, in the dark of the night, our ex-prince had fallen asleep in someone's front yard.
Suddenly, Gaston was hit in the head by a stray deer hoof.
"DID EVIL FIND ME!" he exclaimed, as he jumped to his feet.
"Oh, my!" a delicate exclamation came from behind him. He whirled to see a young woman with skin white as snow and lips red as the rose looking quite aghast. "How on earth... are you alright?" Gaston took one look at the young woman before he began to scream in terror. He turned and attempted to flee, but ran straight into something solid, falling to the ground in a state of shock.
The solid object happened to be the young woman's prince, Prince Jedidiah, returning from his long journey to another kingdom. His wife's usual joy at his homecoming seemed to be eclipsed by something. He glanced down at the young boy before him. "Snow, did the boys have friends over today?"
The woman called Snow opened her mouth to explain her similar confusion when, suddenly, she noticed something. Something that unsettled her very much. The boy in the yard... "Wait a second, something seems strange here. You two...you both have...a swell cleft in your chin..."
The prince took a second look at the dumbfounded boy, and gasped. Pointing with a shaking finger, he exclaimed, "No one has illegitimate offspring like Prince Jedidiah!"
Snow crossed the yard in ten quick strides and slapped him across the face. "How could you?"
Jedidiah stumbled backwards, "No! Snow! You don't understand! It was before I met you! Before we sang together around the well!"
Gaston looked between the two with wide eyes, head whipping back and forth as the argument escalated.
Snow crossed her arms across her chest. "I don't care! How could you do this to our other seven children! Why did you bring him here? Did the baby maiden drop him off?"
"No, I just found him here!"
Snow whipped around and stormed back to the cottage. "Suuure! How can I believe anything you say now?"
Jed began to follow after her, "Snow, wait! I promise I'm telling you the truth! Baby, don't leave me! Think of the kids! Skitzo and Anorexic wouldn't live through our separation! Just think of what would happen to Depressed!"
The door slammed in Jedidiah's face. After a moment of stunned silence, he called, "Snow - stop being an ICICLE!"
In response, an apple flew out of the kitchen window and connected solidly with his head as the shutters also slammed shut. The prince let out a string of unsavory words as he began stomping around the house, apparently seeking another entrance.
Gaston watched as the man rounded a corner and disappeared from his sight. He didn't know how long he sat there, staring at the cottage in disbelief, not knowing what to do. Eventually, a small round boy lumbered towards him - not walked, lumbered.
"Heeeeellllllloooooo!"
Gaston blinked, as he stared at the strange boy before him.
"My name is Lackey, but everyone calls me LeFou. I promise eternal servitude in exchange for that black tie."
Gaston had forgotten about his state of princely dress, absentmindedly reaching up to touch the ribbon. He blinked again before climbing to his feet. To say he was slightly confused would be an understatement of beastly proportions; these people were insane. He slowly began to back away, Lackey following on his heels.
"Noo, I'm sorry, I just want to be friends!"
At this, Gaston paused. He would probably need friends in the future, mostly because he had been exiled and left in the woods to die.
"Well, alright," began Gaston as he untied the black ribbon. "It probably wouldn't fit very much longer anyway. This is the fifth one I've had since I turned four. Father could not understand why I had such a thick neck. He said it was because of the eggs."
As Gaston handed the ribbon to the plump child, Lackey smiled, showing a set of mismatched teeth. "Thanks, friend."
Twenty-One Years Later (give or take a fortnight)
Gaston sat in front of the roaring fire, large black boots resting on the bear rug before him. He was gazing off into the rafters of his favorite pub absently, clearly lost in thought.
It had been a particularly rough week back in the cottage. His stepmother, Snow White, had been giving his father the silent treatment over his recent hunting excursions. Gaston didn't see what the big deal was about killing two bears, six deer, and a whole burrow of rabbits. They had smelled delicious as they turned on the spit that night. Besides, it wasn't like there weren't enough mouths to feed.
Constipated, for example, was eating more and more these days.
Gaston's brothers were all nearly the same age as he was - 25 - but they all looked considerably older. He sometimes wondered, when he was dangerously bored enough to do so, what his stepmother had been feeding them before he got there. Apparently they had all be adopted at their birth, and then named aptly by his father, the fallen Prince Jedidiah. They were: Skitzo, Depressed, Anorexic, Racist, Constipated, Adee H Dee, and of course, Lackey (aka, LeFou).
LeFou had made good on his promise of eternal servitude. Gaston smirked at the deer head over the mantle, remembering some of the things LeFou had felt himself indebted to do. Such as cleaning dead things from the bottom of his boots to stealing old man Jenkin's gypsy-bought back salve, which Gaston then used to replace Snow White's toothpaste on April Fool's.
Prince Jedidiah had raised his only biological son to enjoy hunting as much as he did. Gaston's favorite thing in the world was a recently slayed woodland creature, and second to that was a big-barreled rifle, and third was Belle.
No one contemplates like Gaston.
As Gaston continued to ponder on the subject of Belle, her father stormed in, snow flurries blowing in behind him. Someone would have to mop that up later. Probably LeFou.
"Help! Help! He has her locked in the tower!"
Gaston glanced up at the old man. "Who has her locked in a tower?"
Maurice began to quiver in fear. "A beast! A horrible, monstrous beast! Please you've got to help me!" Gaston's eyebrows raised a hair; did he just say...naaah.
"Alright, we'll help you out, old man," Gaston smirked.
"Oh, you will?"
"We'll help you out alright!"
And with that, Gaston had his followers toss Maurice out into the snow. One of the men noticed the melting snow on the floor with disgust as he bolted the door shut. "Where is LeFou when you need him..." he muttered, wandering off to find a mop.
"Crazy ol' Maurice! He's always good for a laugh..."
Gaston, still chuckling, began to ponder again, "Crazy old Maurice, you say? Craaaaazy old Maurice..." It was then that Gaston fell back into his memories.
It was a night ten years ago. A night much like this one. Gaston had had enough of his new family, and in a moment of desperation, wanted to sneak back into his old castle. As he entered through the iron gates, he noticed something at the door. Gaston began to creep through the bushes to get a better look.
It was a enchantress. He saw his younger brother fall to his knee's before the woman, clearly repenting for something. Gaston strained to hear the conversation.
"I'll let you stay! You can stay as long as you want! Have anything you want!" the young prince exclaimed.
"It is too late!"
"I'll even throw in a complementary bar of soap!"
The enchantress became even angrier, "Are you implying that I stink!"
"No! I..."
"I'm adding five more years to your curse!"
"But, but...wait. My wha..."
"You will have until your twenty-first year to find love. When the last petal falls..."
"What petal? What flower?"
"THIS ROSE!" she thrust the flower in his face, her billowing sleeves smacking his face in the process, "Stop interrupting!" The enchantress paused, as if to gather her thoughts. She then began moving her hands through the air in a strange pattern. "Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Put 'em together, and what have you got? BEEEAAAST!"
Gaston's eyes widened from the bushes. His fingers were trembling...WITH RAGE! All that hair! And Gaston had none! Well...compared to this anyway.
"Must he take everything away from me?" Gaston cried, as he ran back to the village, vowing his revenge.
It was then, standing in the pub, with LeFou mopping up melted snow in the background, that Gaston realized his brother, this beast, was truly taking everything from him. First the kingdom, then the hair, and now his girl. This trend had to be stopped.
"LeFou!" he yelled.
"Yeesss, Maaasta?" he paused in his cleaning efforts.
Gaston gave him a strange look, "Are you sure your name wasn't Creepy? Or Stalker?"
LeFou looked at his friend, confused.
"Never mind," Gaston sighed. "I have a job for you! I need you to be in charge of gathering supplies for rescuing Belle!"
"But I thought you said Maurice is crazy!"
"No, I didn't!"
"But, you said 'Crazy old Maurice!'"
"Well...I changed my mind!"
"Okay! Anything you say Gaston." And with that LeFou turned, stroked his black tie, and began the early formations of a mob.
Gaston paid no attention to him as he began to strut out of the pub. An hour later, Gaston arrived at his "special spot", which was an old barn about a mile behind the family's cottage. Gaston had discovered the barn one day when he had snuck out of the house. Too much happiness for his liking. His stepmother was sitting in a miniature chair, as his "brothers" paraded around her, bouncing around like hooligans. Singing about a prince coming some day. Then his stepmother glanced at ol' Jed, sighed wistfully, and began to weep. After that night, Gaston often escaped to the barn.
Walking into the quaint old building that smelled of horse manure, he pulled out a faded picture of his mother.
"Oh, mummy, whatever am I to do? Your other son, the less attractive one, has stolen the only girl worthy of me," he wailed. "Nobody cries like Gaston!"
Eventually Gaston arrived to the conclusion that he would have to slay his younger, uglier - but hairier - brother, and force Belle into holy matrimony at his earliest convenience. It was the only way to avenge his mother's death. He grabbed five rifles and a cross bow, and began to march back to town. He really hoped LeFou had taken care of his army.
Gaston arrived to the main square of town just in time to see twenty men pushing in the largest tractor he'd ever seen.
"What in the name of fine fur throw rugs is that?" Gaston sputtered, nearly dropping his stash of likely-illegal firearms on the ground.
"It's a tank!" LeFou shouted from the top of the craft. "Isn't it wonderful, Gaston? It can blow holes in the castle from a mile away! After two days of our attack, we'll be sure to have weakened their medieval defenses enough to storm the grounds!"
Gaston blinked. "What?"
"Silly Gaston - it's the harmonious union of military strategy and high-tech engineering and-"
Gaston fired a shot into the air. "NOOOOO! WE MOB! WE PITCHFORK! WE BUURRRNNNNNN!" This resulted in a resounding cry of approval from all the men hoisting the tank, as well as a small sob from LeFou. The tiny man knew his true love would never understand him.
The mob soon busied itself with lighting large wooden objects on fire and sharpening their gardening tools, and before long, was crossing over the river and through the woods. As they came upon a tiny house nestled in a meadow, they realized they'd gone the wrong way.
"Grandmother?" a man asked incredulously.
A sweet elderly woman toddled out of her house with a platter of cookies twice the size of her head. "Now what are all you kiddies doing out here at this time of night? Anyone want a cookie?"
The previously scowling men broke into goofy smiles, sat down their torches, and formed a single-file line for some cookies.
"We're actually going to slay the beast in the castle, Granny." The apparent grandson explained, going back for thirds. "We must've taken the wrong way at the fork in the road."
"Oh, well that's nice sweetheart. Be careful!"
"We will!"
With that, the mob returned to their pitchforks and put the expressions of bloodlust back on their faces, marching to the castle again. The spires loomed quickly into view over the treetops, the light of the blood red moon guiding them to the foreboding drawbridge. Soon the mob had cut down a tree and rammed it into the ornate doors, breaking them apart and allowing them access to loot and otherwise pillage the castle.
Gaston didn't even bother pretending that he didn't know where to go. He flew up the staircase, and took a sharp right. LeFou only had a moment to watch his step brother/secret obsession sprint away before a large object narrowly missed his cranium.
"What in the name of tailored jackets and toupee tape is going on here!"
One member of the mob ran screaming by just then, a coat rack flying after him with deadly intent. "The furniture! It's attacking! Ahhhhhh!"
"BWHAHAHAHA!" The piano leapt from the upper floor and reduced two men to pancakes. A few keys leapt from the shattered instrument and impaled another man through the brain. LeFou winced. They should've brought the tank.
Gaston ran through the labyrinth of hallways, kicking in doors and knocking down paintings of the man he once called father. He could hear the sounds of the battle below, and occasionally a side table would scamper past him. He fancied it must have been the murderous gleam of the hunter in his eyes that kept them from harassing him. Truthfully, it was that he looked less threatening with his lack of pitchforks, but there was no way he was acknowledging that.
He found his half brother easily enough; the hideous brute had the audacity to be staying in his old nursery! He looked so pathetic, standing there, obviously still pining for Belle. If he hadn't hated him so much for ruining his life, the small part of him that sympathized with his stepmother might've felt pity for the beast. But he figured...nah.
Gaston extended his cross bow slowly, hoping to add drama, but the fool merely looked away. He let the arrow fly and watched with satisfaction as the beast finally responded with a terrible roar. This, of course, was heinously loud and he didn't want the furniture to realize something was amiss upstairs, so he shoved his half-brother through the large glass window. He paused for a moment as he watched him roll onto the rooftop in agony, remembering the nights his mother would read Grimm's fairy tales to him from the light of this window. His favorite had always been The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage.
Having enough of his reveries for a while, Gaston leapt through the window into the sudden torrential downpour, laughing maniacally. The two princes grappled on the rooftop for a few perilous moments before Belle showed up. Ah, Belle. That distracting little minx. Gaston found himself hanging from his neck, which was being held by his brother's hairy vice-grip. He was a total man about it, accepting his doom in steely silence. Or so he told himself. In any fashion, the beast was the weaker of the two, sparing him for reasons he probably didn't even know. However, it probably involved trying to impress Captain Distraction back on the balcony.
Darn her. She needed to be married and housebroken. Gaston clenched his fist and slammed it onto the roof tiles, glaring as he watched the bewhiskered atrocity scale a turret to reach his intended. He had to stop him from reaching her! The hunter began to climb.
"Oh, Beast..."
"You came back!"
Sickening!
Gaston gripped the edge of the roof and swung himself up, arcing over his brother's form, he literally stabbed him in the back. The creature, which now smelled like wet dog, roared in anguish. With a triumphant laugh, the disowned prince assumed he had plunged the knife into his brother's spinal cord, and therefore had nothing to impede him from slinging his woman over one shoulder like a prized deer and strutting home.
Fate, however, had other ideas.
Gravity combined with the rain-slick edge of the rooftop prevented him from securing a safe landing. The thrashing, convulsing monster before him didn't help. Hearing only the pathetically drawn out noises coming from his half-brother, Gaston's face must've expressed his fear, for as he fell Belle looked at him with tears in her eyes. And that was when he knew she truly loved him best. This was the last sight he saw as he plummeted to the rocky crevice below.
Belle quickly dropped to the Beast's side, proclaiming her love. "Oh," she looked quietly into the random storm clouds. "I do hope he knows I wasn't looking at him."
Meanwhile, down in the parlor of the castle, LeFou and three of the surviving mob members stood solemnly at a large bay window overlooking the crevice Gaston had fallen into. Tears fell from all four men, but none more so than LeFou.
"Oh..." he sniffled, "No one dies like Gaston."
The broken broomstick he had in a chokehold fell limp as he said this, as if it too could not go on without the burly hunter.
Two days later...
Snow refused to wear black for her eighth son's funeral. She had, however, insisted quite vehemently that all of his stuffed hunting prizes and animal rugs be buried with him. Jedidiah had been touched by her thoughtfulness.
LeFou had drug back what he could of Gaston, and offered to put him in the casket so as to spare everyone else for seeing him like that. "It would be a hit to his pride." he had explained. "You know how he was about those teeth... and that hair... and those eyes... Oh God!"
Gaston's brothers had all been sad, in their own way, to see his casket lowered into the ground.
"Oh!" wailed Depressed. "This is tragedy! This is pure and utter tragedy! I haven't cried this hard since the Bambi incident! I never really got over that..."
"Yeah, yeah - we know." Racist scowled. "How you ever cared for the brown-furred mongrel, I'll never understand."
"I like deer." Skitzo commented quietly. "I like deer for dinner."
Anorexic looked ill. "How can you possibly talk about food as you watch a dead body get covered in dirt? It's enough to make me throw-up!" At that he smiled creepily.
"I could go for some cheese..." Constipated wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
Adee H Dee had been at the ceremony, briefly, but a butterfly had come through after the eulogy and nobody had seen him since. He was bound to show up at the cottage sooner or later.
After the burial was complete, Jedidiah pried LeFou from the gravestone and the rest of the family followed him back to the cottage. It wouldn't do to stay so depressed when Prince Adam had risen from the dead and announced his eminent marriage to the local girl, Belle. Jed had always thought Gaston fancied her. The little tramp, hopping from one brother to the next.
Oh, if they only knew the whole story.
HCDOJFH[WEOTYHGPWIJ4T[W3OMTR
Review?
Oh, yes, and by the way...if you haven't read An Ageless Romance, yet another story we co-wrote, you should. It's on SunshineandDaisys profile.
Then go look up The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage on Google. For realz.