Chapter Text
Gaston grinned down at the small bundle sleeping peacefully in his arms. It was far too easy for him to get in and out of the baby’s room unnoticed, it was almost like they were asking for it!
This would show them. This would show that dastardly beast that he couldn’t just take whatever he wanted without consequence. This would show Belle what a terrible mistake she’d made. She should have been his wife, not that ghastly brute’s. It was nothing more than a vile creature making play it was still a man. This would show them all.
He got as far away from the castle as he could post haste, he planned to be long gone before they even realised the newborn Prince was missing. They’d never find him. They’d never know. It was all just so easy.
He’d just reached the busy docks when it occurred to Gaston that he had no idea what to do with the baby now that he had it. He’d been so focused on planning how to take the child that he hadn’t put much thought into what he would do after he’d successfully implemented his evil plan.
He frowned at the small creature, still peacefully asleep. He couldn’t keep it, no way. With a father like that anything could be wrong with it. Besides, Gaston fully intended to father his own children. Big, strong, strapping, young men with fine physiques and even finer looks. Just like him. They would be the greatest men in all the lands. No, he simply couldn’t be keeping some half-breed brat that he’d only taken as part of a revenge scheme.
With a shrug and a quick cursory glance around to make sure no one was watching, he dumped the child in a random crate that had been left aside and walked away.
The boy would wake up soon enough and start screeching no doubt. Someone would find him, take him to the nearest orphanage or take him in. It was no concern of Gaston’s and, quite frankly, none of his business. As long as he didn’t find his way back to the castle he was happy.
Hours passed as the baby slept peacefully in the empty crate, oblivious to his situation. The hour was late and the docks empty, when the baby did finally wake and begin his desperate cries for comfort. It was only by chance that someone happened to be walking past, using the cover of night to go about his business unnoticed and undisturbed.
Blackbeard, one of the most feared pirates in all the lands, had been hoping to gather supplies and escape the city undetected. His crew and his ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, were ready and waiting for him, but the small, anguished cries had stopped him in his tracks.
The pirate slowly approached the crate the sound was emanating from and was surprised to find a small baby, bundled up in a blanket. “Easy, little one.” He cooed softly as he picked the child up. The baby immediately fell silent, looking up at the strange man with thick black facial hair with wide, wet, hazel eyes. “Hey, it’s okay. Nothing to cry about.” Blackbeard continued his soft murmuring.
He could barely quell the rage rising within him as he looked over the sweet, helpless, little creature in his arms. He was far from a good man, he was a villainous pirate through and through, but abandoning a newborn baby. What kind of twisted sicko does that?
Blackbeard adjusted the child’s blanket swaddle slightly and noticed an embroidered pattern on one of the corners, what appeared to be a wolf, or a wolf-like creature at any rate, and the name Benjamin. Blackbeard frowned just a little. It appeared that the blanket was handmade. Who put all that effort into a blanket just to abandon the child on the docks?
“Edward?” He heard a soft voice behind him and sighed, there was only one person who’d ever had the nerve to call him by his given name and he certainly wouldn’t be happy about having an extra mouth to feed.
It didn’t matter. Blackbeard was captain and what he said went. He could not in good conscience leave a poor, defenceless baby out here on its own. It would die.
Poor little Benjamin didn’t ask to be brought into this world and it wasn’t right that he should be forced to leave it cold, hungry and alone because those who bore him didn’t have the integrity to do right by him.
“Get back to the ship, Izzy,” he said, turning to face his first mate with a roguish smile. “We’ve got to make room for a little one.”