Little Gaston

Chapter 24

Charles woke up slowly with a groan and for some reason his head pounding was pounding. Rubbing it, he opened his eyes and look confused to find him lying on a couch and not in the bed.

"Wha?" he gasped,, turning to the side and seeing Gilles sitting near him, a worried look on his face but he hadn't heard his brother and was just looking to the side, unaware that Charles had awakened.

Charles blinked, trying to remember why he was here, but all he got were snippets of a nightmare, a great beast, his brother alive and a little. Just a dream.

Turning his head in the direction Gilles was looking, he suddenly froze when he saw the lady of the castle, sitting on a carpet right in front of a fire, and a large and looming figure in comparison to the small woman sitting close to her, drinking from a sippy cup and unmistakingly his little brother.

Right behind the two, in a sofa sat the prince, slightly slouched and his head leaning on his hand, a frown on his face while he looked at the little and his wife, but the moment Gaston turned to the man a smile appeared.

So, Gaston was real. He must have dreamed up the beast though. But it seemed so vivid.

"It was a dream?" Charles muttered, making everyone look at him.

"You're awake," Gilles said, looking relieved.

"Good. Now you can explain why you were hurting Gaston," Adam growled, letting some of the beast get through in his voice without really transforming.

He had been holding back from the moment he had seen a shouting Gaston in Charles arms, the moment the big man had fainted, he had immediately grabbed Gaston and tried to calm down the little, contemplating what to do with the other man.

Gilles had begged in fear, and Belle had played the voice of reason once again, telling everyone to calm down and once Charles was awake, they could find out what exactly had happened.

So, he had carried Gaston to the parlour to stay with Belle, before he returned and lifted the heavy body of Charles over his shoulder, glad for his monstruous strength, because even though Gaston wasn't slight, his older brother still had quite a few pounds extra on him.

Gilles had told his part of the story, saying how they had found the little wandering about, but that he hadn't seen that it had been Gaston until now, and that he had no clue why the little had been shouting so much.

Adam's mood hadn't improved when he saw how fearful Gaston was of Gilles, whimpering when the man came close and pressing close to him or Belle and in the end, the man had gone to sit with his brother, scared that the prince would turn back into the creature from before.

His mood had been festering and now finally Charles was awake, and he hoped that the man had an adequate explanation about the events of the morning.

"I wasn't hurting him," Charles said.

"Then what the hell happened," Adam snapped, making Gaston whimper. The little pushed his dummy deeper in his mouth, not liking the tension, but Adam turned to him and patted his head, "shh, it's okay. Dada is going to keep you safe, little one. We're just giving this one the chance to explain himself."

"Ah, well," Charles started to say, feeling the obvious hostility and even though he was so much taller and stronger, there was something animalistic in that gaze that struck fear in him, "uhm, so me and Gilles, we were awake and the servants said we could get breakfast in the kitchens. We were just going there when we saw Gaston crawling away. We didn't want him to stumble down a stairs or something, so I went after him and we thought it best to go find a servant as well."