A/N: Ok, ok, this is kind of short again, sorry! But it's done, and I wanted to put it up.
"So," Lefou said cheerfully the next morning, "How are things with the wife? It doesn't look like she poisoned you again..."
Gaston shot him a dirty look. "She still says that was an accident. I know she's lying, though - I can smell it."
"It's better to just tell people your wife can't cook," Lefou pointed out. "Because if the guys find out she tricked you into eating poisonous mushrooms, someone's gonna laugh at you, and then we'll have to wait while you pound him, and your shirt will probably get torn again and then we'll have to go to the tailor's and wait on line there, and then-"
Gaston shut him up by dumping a huge sack into his arms. "Carry this."
"Sure." But now that he couldn't see, Lefou walked into a tree almost immediately.
Gaston sighed and took the sack back. "Oh, and by the way," he remembered, "Belle wants to invite you to dinner with us tonight."
"Dinner at the crazy inventor's?" Lefou brightened up - he didn't get many invitations.
Gaston nodded. "She says as long as I'm bringing one of my dogs, I might as well bring the other."
Lefou frowned, trying to remember when Gaston had acquired another dog besides Rameau, but eventually gave up and just asked, "So you think she's warming up to you?"
"She will," Gaston promised ominously.
Missing all the danger signs as usual, Lefou pressed ahead with what he was saying. "If it's still going a little slow, maybe you could try talking to her," he suggested.
"Lefou, we've been through this." Gaston explained it one more time, more because he wanted to convince himself than because he really thought Lefou had forgotten. "Girls are just like horses - they have to run wild a bit to get it out of their system, and then you show them a firm hand and they fall right into line."
"Er... if you say so." Lefou shrugged and tried not to look at Gaston's black eye or the great chunks of hair he was missing. "But I'm not sure I see Belle falling into line no matter what you do."
Gaston stopped dead in his tracks. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, I'm sure you'll get the hang of her eventually, but right now-"
"You think I can't control my wife? I'll show you." Gaston threw his bundle on the ground and picked up Lefou instead. "Let's go back, and I'll show you right now that Belle will fall in line just like everybody else. Or else."
Lefou didn't ask or else what?, but he was wondering.
Belle was perched on the front stoop reading when Gaston returned - a mere few minutes after she'd finally shooed him out of the house. Her nose wrinkled. Lefou was with him, she could hear their chatter as they came round the bend...
"-No - I believe you," Lefou was insisting. "Gaston, really, there's no need to go and do anything rash to her-"
"Rash?" he thundered. "Listen..."
But Belle had heard enough. She jumped up and ran into the house, thinking, I knew that midnight haircut was a bad idea. She locked the front door and thought about trying to hide. Before she could, though, the back door burst open and Gaston stomped in. "Morning, wife!"
"Stay away from me!" she cried, frightened and not really thinking. When he came a little closer, panic took over completely and she picked up the nearest object - her book - and threw it at him.
He batted it calmly out of the air and it nailed his friend in the head. "You see that, Lefou?" he demanded. "That's what happens when you try to talk to them. That's why my way is better."
"Your way?" she gasped. Belle backed away and fled into the bedroom. I KNEW it would come to this, she told herself, feeling almost triumphant. Now we see who's really a monster! She leaned against the door, eyes closed, waiting for him to just plow through it...
But Gaston had other plans. He stood licking the blood from a nasty papercut and muttered, "I told you books were dangerous."
"You gonna break down the door?"
Gaston could hear his wife crying on the other side, but she was a crafty little thing and he would take no chances. You never charged blindly into a creature's lair without a plan...
He whispered instructions in Lefou's ear, then cracked his neck and arranged himself next to the door. Once he was in position, Lefou said as loudly as he could: "You're right, Gaston - she really is crazy! And she probably gets it from her father! After all, Maurice is-"
The door opened. "My father is not- Aaaah!"
Gaston pounced on her and tackled her to the ground.
"Get off, let go, let go of me!" she yelled as he lifted her easily with one hand and held her up in the air. "What are you doing?!"
"Putting you in the kitchen!" He dumped her on the ground there and stood over her. "Where you will stay until you've cooked me my dinner! Properly! I'm tired of indulging you, Belle, and you're going to start behaving! You're going to start behaving now! Do you hear me?"
She got to her feet and yelled, "Of course I hear you - you're shouting in my face!"
He picked up a chair and broke it into several pieces to get his temper out. When his head felt less like exploding, he pointed to the pot of water he had so generously drawn and carried for her today and just said: "Cook."
"You cook!"
"All right: I'll cook." He went and snatched up the book she'd thrown at him and said: "This looks tasty." Before she could stop him, he dropped it in the pot.
Belle leaped past him and snatched it out, but of course it was already ruined. She hugged it to her chest and sank down to the floor in tears.
After a good long cry, she pulled herself together and looked around. Gaston and Lefou had gone.
First, she tried to open her book again, but the soggy page tore. The ink was smudged beyond all hope anyway. Her book! Her favorite book! No!
She threw it across the room, howled with rage the way she'd seen the Beast do, and afterwards felt much better and much more dangerous.
"He wants me to cook?" she hissed aloud. "I'll show him cook..."
TBC.
Heh heh heh...
Next chapter, Belle and Gaston redecorate - in a manner of speaking. And then they make some changes in their relationship. And we'll see some Beast, too.