Archive of Our Own ^beta

Though both are very much alive, neither Daniel nor Grace can sleep easily after surviving Le Bail's games. There should be no reason for their worries. Both are currently living together, dating and happily unmarried, in one of the old Le Domas summer homes in the countryside. They are young and wealthy. Their bodily scars and wounds are now starting to heal. And yet, the guilt remains. Especially at night, when alone with their thoughts. Reading aloud before bed is a last ditch effort to distract themselves. But all those fantasy stories end up doing was reminding them of the monsters they both narrowly escaped being killed by. Or narrowly escaped becoming themselves. 

Before Daniel drifted off to sleep that night, his last thought was –

In the fairytale you mentioned last night, I would probably be the villain. In his worst nightmares, he always is.

~

In this dream, when he is first thrust into it, he stalks his way through a dark forest glade. The full moon spotlights his tall form, dressed in ripped wedding finery, and holding a very wide and jagged knife. Just like the Bowie knife Daniel had been gifted by his aunt for his eleventh birthday. The same brand of knife proudly used by Le Domases and other unaffiliated satanist sacrificers for generations. In this dream, he knew he was supposed to be using it to kill Grace. All of his worst nightmares were about killing Grace. 

And there she was, ten feet away in the night. Looking disheveled but still every bit the beautiful girl who deserved to have her own fairytale ending. One she once hoped she would get with his brother, but unfortunately would only work if she ran far, far away from all of them.

She turned towards him, freezing in shaking fear once she saw him gripping the wide knife. He immediately threw it aside, onto an empty patch of dirt and grass. Seconds after that, he felt something brittle form and congeal against his back. He didn't have to feel behind him to know that the shoulder strap of his family's antique hunting rifle had now taken the place of the Bowie knife behind him. 

"Daniel, please..." She held up her lithe arms, still clad in painstakingly stitched white lace. 

When he spoke, his voice was much more detached, almost as if he was possessed. "You wouldn't have fit in with our family anyway. You wouldn't have any reason to stay with them long enough to make otherworldly bargains for more from your life." His dark eyes slowly dragged across her form, and the way her loose blonde waves fell over the loose gown shoulders and her too-tight bodice. "You seem like you have everything you already need in life already on you." He gave her a slow wink. 

To his surprise, her pink lips turned up in a smirk. "I could say the same about you." She stomped one foot. "God, what am I doing, flirting in a life or death situation like this? Alex already knows how much you flirt with me. So even if it's just a joke, eventually he's going to snap and get pissed at you."

"What does it matter?" he sighed. "In that situation, either you or him wouldn't be around to see it after the next sunrise."

"And besides," she replied, "it's not like he's even defending me tonight, or even right now."

"You don't need him to defend you," he muttered. And it was the truth. And it should have ended with her being the sole survivor, him offed with the rest of his family. She would be the dragon slaying bride, the new heroine and cautionary tale for generations of onlookers to come. Daniel, like his brother, was no better than the huntsman lackey of an evil queen, or some wife-murdering Bluebeard.

Daniel thrust his head upward towards the starless sky. "I don't want to be in this story anymore," he shouted to any higher or lower power that could hear him. A loud clicking beneath him startled him back down. Unfortunately, it seemed that the story had other plans for him. The antique rifle had now slid to his front, and he was struggling with Dream-Grace for control of it. He saw fresh splotches of red wet blood and heard the roar of a sudden single gunshot, but just who –

~

Daniel sat up in bed with a start. He looked around, panting and wild eyed. Grace sat up next to him, carefully draping her arms around his torso and rubbing what she hoped were comforting circles into his back.

"Grace I was – I was evil, a satanist, a murderer – and all you did was stand there while I -"

"We are still alive," she murmured into his hair. "It's just a dream. You don't have to think of yourself as a villain or a monster even in your dreams." He got the sense that she was saying the mantra to herself as well.

In the fairytale you mentioned last night, I would probably be the villain. "I can't stop my brain from dwelling on it," he gritted out. 

"Maybe it'll go away eventually," Grace sighed. "For both of us."

She continued to nuzzle at him, murmuring soft comforting nonsense to them both, until he finally drifted off again.

~

In this newer dream, he and Grace were in another version of that same dreamed evening, back at the Le Domas manor on that fateful night. Grace dashed through the outer grounds of the backyard forest. She dashed through the shadows as black as night, hoping they would camouflage her bridal gown as white as snow and streaked as red as blood. She still managed to run into Daniel in the clearing, holding his uncle's old rifle. Even in his dreams, he couldn't escape being a pawn for Le Bail, his parents, his own brother. Just their brainless and bearded huntsman. 

Grace continued to shake and whimper in place, even as a stray squirrel rushed across the clearing. Daniel lifted the rifle –

Boom. The warning shot fired harmlessly into the dirt, and the squirrel scampered away. 

Grace let out a long exhale. "I knew you would never hurt me."

"I didn't," he confessed. After all this time, looking back on that night, he still meant it. 

"Grace," he gasped again, "I don't know why you ever bothered with me. To ask for my help during the game, or to stay with me afterwards. You deserve to be with a man who was never considered the family fuck-up. Or a murderer, a huntsman, a weak attempt at a villain." 

Grace leaned behind herself, stiffening behind the thick trunk of a tree. "But is it possible the villain would treat me far better than the prince would have?"

Somehow, the rifle melts away into nothingness in his arms. He rushes up to Grace, steadying her against the tree as their lips crash together. As they cradle each others' faces, a light dusting of snow begins to fall.

~

That night, neither realizes that while they are dreaming, their real sleeping bodies are similarly entwined. In this universe, together, they are safe.