"Crushed Rose Petals"
A sequel to Beauty and the Beast that hinges somewhat darker….
A Beauty and the Beast fanfic by penpaninu…..
-Author's disclaimer: I own nothing that pertains to Beauty and the Beast, it belongs to all those mouse lawyers at Disney and may they hold their sacred banner high! I just had a gruesome thought while listening to some of the soundtrack and this came out.
-Author's note…..I freaking love this movie, it is the epitome about everything good animation can and has done! A few things I KNOW some people will point out by the end…
Yes I know that Gaston has blue eyes. I made them dark in this tale to make a stark contrast between him and the Beast who had shining stars of blue.
I know it's established off-screen that the Beast's name is Adam to the effect of…. I still don't believe it even if the creators say it! He was always just Beast, Belle only calls him that, and my mother backed her up by jokingly calling him "PB, Prince Beast", so Beast he stays. Besides, how many Beasts do you know? I'd say it all the time if I knew someone by that name :P
It's never been established what names the trio of guys that hang around Gaston have, but I'll tack onto Lefou's line from "Gaston" and call them Tom, Dick and Harry. Yes, I know it's a turn of phrase :P I wanted to poke fun at the song anyway.
And here we begin! Or, end with the movie….
"Crushed Rose Petals" chapter one
"Dark Beginnings"
"I've told you a thousand times before, Belle, it's five dozen eggs, not four!"
Belle cringed against the verbal onslaught from her husband and immediately bowed her head in acquiescence. Her lank, brown hair half fell out of her ponytail and fell into her lowered, red-rimmed eyes.
"I'm sorry, Gaston….I must have miscounted. Please, don't be upset," she pleaded. Gaston's broad chest heaved; his rage apparent in his every breath. A dark fire lit his pupils and his gaze fell swiftly to something else. Next, would be her appearance. It almost always was.
"I am angry when MY wife looks as ragged as a beggar!" Gaston complained. He stalked closer, making Belle's spine straighten. She mustn't back up from him…. She had learned the hard way how he didn't like that… Belle forced herself to lift her chin and stare into his hard gaze. Gaston held her cheek in his enormous palm and let her face fall harshly. A gold band glinted from the fourth digit of his hand.
"Always tired, always haggard….you used to be so beautiful!" Gaston yelled. Belle bit her lip and twisted her hands into her dirty apron. An identical band, smaller but just as bright, flashed from her finger.
"I'm sorry," she offered again, her hands trembling. "I was just up all night with the baby…"
ULP, too late, she wished her words back desperately. Quick as anything, Gaston's gaze flashed from her to the basket in the corner of the kitchen. A red-faced bundle flailed little hands and snuffled. If he could keep quiet a moment longer, Gaston could have been coerced into leaving sooner….But no, she had to open her big mouth, and the baby would now cry and things would get a whole lot worse!
"The baby," Gaston breathed, his eyes flashing; whether from impatience of interest, Belle couldn't tell. She couldn't take the chance to find out. Quickly she sidestepped Gaston's broad form and busied herself fussing over the baby's dressings.
Shielded for now.
"Isn't Le'fou waiting for you?" Belle tried to smile and sound chipper, but her vision was starting to blur. Gaston was slowly blending from two, to three, and one was more than bad enough. She was just so tired! If she could only sleep, she could rest, if she could rest, then she could think, if she could think, she could possibly read…..but all of those things seemed not to be allowed her at all. Just a moment's rest, please! Belle prayed silently for him to leave. Just go…. Turn and walk away….
"Mhph. Well, I go to hunt. I'll be expecting the leg of lamb form yesterday's kill for midday meal," Gaston ordered. He collected his hatchet, gun powder and knives, attaching all to his broad belt in various sheathes. The backdoor crashed open and with a blast of icy air, came rotund Le'fou, fat and out of breath as ever.
"R-ready to go, Gaston?" he chirped, eyes alighting at the sight of his beloved hero. Gaston nodded, pulling on his cloak. He was tracking yesterday's debris from his boots onto the kitchen floor as he did so; another mess to clean before they got back.
"I am, Le'fou. Are Tom and Dick coming along today?"
Le'fou nodded rapidly, his double chins jiggling. "Y-yes! They're going to meet us at the second deer stand," Le'fou reported, picking up the carcass bag laid beside the fireplace. He trotted after Gaston, not bothering to give Belle even a once-over. "Harry will be joining us later."
Of course Gaston couldn't resist giving himself a look of his own, and checked his hair in the looking glass hanging beside the door. He had several in the house after all, and all were there for his frequent preening. Finally assessing himself as perfect, Gaston shouldered his rifle and stalked out the door. "Good! I hope to take a buck today, Le'fou…."
The door banged closed behind the unlikely pair along with another blast of icy air. The basket in the corner wriggled noticeably before a "WAH!" split the air. The baby had finally had enough and flailed in protest at the cold intrusion.
Belle had to wonder that he held out this long with Gaston yelling at her anyhow. Then again, his first sensations had to have been hearing Gaston's rages. He must be well and used to it already.
"Oh, Louie…." Belle soothed, bending to scoop her child out of the basket. Louie instantly calmed, soothing Belle as much as she soothed him.
In the turns her life had been forced to after….after the castle….after her time away from this village and….her time with….
Belle gazed into her child's dark eyes. If only they were as blue as chill snow in a winter's moonlight… as blue as….
"I wish to everything your father was HIM," Belle dared whisper the faintest living motion she had left within her heart. Her son burbled and sucked on his fist. He had her dark hair and Gaston's black eyes. Were they as blue as her love's….as blue as the Beast's.
"I never even knew his name….his birth name…' the memory impounded into her daily drudgery and the pain knifed through her chest, acutely physical and more than emotional. Belle hugged her child, tears blurring further the tiredness in her eyes. 'He was just the Beast…MY Beast…but my prince…'
The Beast had been angry once too, Belle remembered. She laughed bitterly, her gaze falling on the trappings of the morning meal, the pots and pans she had to scrub, the cold hearth that never warmed her soul as HE had once…. Deep inside, away from Gaston's supervision and scrutiny, she was as angry as the Beast once was, deep within her truest self. And it was an anger more holy than her husband showed in his daily tantrums.
Husband! Ha! Belle pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and swept the baby away to the front room. Anyone but him! But Gaston had…he had….
This morning he had collected his knives and hatched, to hunt with his friends. The same knives that he had used to…to…..
And here she had once upon a time, felt sorry for him! Never again, Belle thought, her daily despair sucking at her soul. The image of her Beast's smile when she was alone never kept the pain away. It just would not go, and was deeply part of her now. And one day, it would consume her utterly and completely. 'How could I have ever felt sorry for Gaston?'
Poor Gaston, beloved champion of the village. He hadn't always been the he-man of the village. He'd had to earn it. Belle wondered how he could have become this way…this posturing, unsatisfied…animal…..but growing up in the same town, Belle had watched from her home as Gaston had had to follow his father out to hunt in the woods each day, the heat of summer and cold snap of dead winter. That skinny boy had craved adoration, his father's and everyone else's, so he had worked on his body as if he were hunting away his failings and weaknesses. He ate, and exercised, and was angry until his muscles grew in proportion to his standards for himself. Only after his father had died, and the townspeople were crying his every deed, did his rage retreat.
'Not completely, however,' Belle thought, her gaze idling at its place on the floor. She may have been one of the only ones to have seen the small flashes of it, radiating briefly in his eyes in public, to his rages behind closed doors.
His rage was a very wild and real creature, and would never completely disappear. It would never give her a moment's peace.
Unlike the Beast's. He had stopped, softened in response somehow….fallen in love with her, showed tenderness …and she had slowly, inexorably, and very completely, fallen in love in return. It was storybook love made real, as painstaking as it sounded.
But now he was…he was….
End for now
Author's note: I know this was short! I have more written by hand, and will post it soon. I just wanted to get some of this out as soon as I could! I hope anyone and everyone enjoys, and please, review review! Tell me anything you think! Like it? Hate it? Drop a line, it only takes a second to hit the button!
What happened to the beast? Where is Maurice? Will Belle catch a break? To be continued…..