How could this happen? (afterparty)

[folkscallmewander]

[Wander has reeled back from this execution faster than Mulan's. This murder wasn't an accident, but it was still terrible all around, and it wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances. Knowing that Tadashi planned this out made it...a bit better, but it still made something awful eat at his stomach.

Speaking of which, everyone needed to eat something light today. Right after the trial, he heads to the kitchen and prepares twenty bowls of fruit salad and mixes together ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. While they're cooling off, he slides a note under everyone's rooms.]



There's fruit in the lounge, cookies coming soon. We should stick together, especially after this.

♥ Wander

Comments

[folkscallmewander]

Captain? [Military leader. Defender of the planet of France. Someone like.]

The hero?

[toogoodforhim]

Yeah. He was... [Kind of a mega asshole.]

Not...the hero he was cracked up to be, in the end.

[folkscallmewander]

[Oh. Like Brad.]

Like he was mostly in it to look good?

[toogoodforhim]

...Actually, yeah, exactly that.

I used to worship the ground he walked on.

[folkscallmewander]

[Wander stands up and rests a hand on Lefou's knee. Even if he had admired Brad from afar just because he was a Hero, it wasn't worship. Town hero that was Lefou's friend - this was even worse, as if Sylvia never really wanted to be Wander's friend, just look good by saving the galaxy. As he she would ride off with the first person that promised her more exciting adventure.

He recalls a giant metal gate slamming in front of his face, the pause as he pondered whether to knock, and turning away to wander the cosmos on his own.]

I'm sorry. [The brim of his hat hides his face, but his voice is quiet.]

[toogoodforhim]

[He looks down at the ginger-furred hand on his knee.]

Don't be- I wasn't the only one. Well, at first.

Anyway, he's gone now, I'm just... still dealing with that, I guess.

[And the fact that the Captain Gaston that he'd loved had been gone long before the man who fell off of the castle. If he'd ever existed at all.]

[folkscallmewander]

[Still, it's important that Lefou has someone who can be there while he recovers from, well, the betrayal. He slightly tightens his grip.]

You're a brave guy, you know that? You've already come this far, so who knows how much more you'll improve?

[He believes in the best you can be, Lefou.]

[toogoodforhim]

[Will you stop saying that, he wants to snap, but he doesn't have any snap in him at the moment.

So he laughs. Hollowly.]

If I was really brave, maybe I could have stopped him when I realized I was...

losing him.

[That's gay.]

[folkscallmewander]

[Wander stops his hand and looks away.]

...We all have regrets, Lefou.

We all got things in our past we wish we could change, but...we gotta keep out eyes on the horizon without lookin' back.

[Advice he had given to Sylvia early in their partnership. A lesson he taught himself a long time ago, and one that he can never let go of.]

[toogoodforhim]

I know, but-

[he makes a small, frustrated noise, staring at the cape draped over his knees, halfway wishing it was red leather instead.]

Half of me wonders what would have happened if I'd stopped him. If maybe the village wouldn't have lost their hero like that.

But then the other half wonders if he was still their hero at all, or just...mine.

[If he's the only one who in any way misses Gaston at all.]

[folkscallmewander]

...I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that.

[Lefou could do what Wander did and walk away to a new town and put those terrible decisions behind him. Move onto a new galaxy and improve himself. But Lefou only has his town as his home. That option shouldn't be offered.]

But I have hope that you're find your answer soon enough. We're all here for you. [Give him the belief that things will be alright, that would be enough.]

[toogoodforhim]

...It's alright, I didn't expect you to.

[He doesn't respond to the second part. The people here have treated him more like a person than...anyone in Villeneuve. But for all that he's thought about what he's going to do after they get out of here (if they get out of here, it seems more likely every day), everything else he considers is just...a stop on the way back home.

He wants to introduce Namine to Maurice and Belle. He wants to see Mrs. Potts and Chip again, to make sure that they're okay. He wants to...get to know Stanley, better. He wants to sit in the tavern and dance on the tables, he wants to feed his little black and white pony carrots and brush her fur, and he even misses how contrary she is and how she never wanted to keep up with Gaston's horse.

Well, I guess that giant black stallion is his horse now, too.]