I have no idea where this came from but I’m never going to turn it into a full fic so I’m releasing it into the void.
Dream is some sort of fae creature whose son died, so he sneaks into a mortal village and kidnaps a young boy around the same age his son was.
(Part of his heart hurts because he never took part in the traditional changeling child/fae kidnapping thing because he couldn’t bear to leave his son with some stranger, he loved him too much, and he knows deep down he shouldn’t do this to someone else but he’s desperate for something, anything, to dull the pain of his loss).
When single dad Hob wakes up and finds his son Robyn missing, he’s fully prepared to go scorched earth to find him. When it becomes clear he’s not in the village, he going charging alone into the woods, too impatient to put a party together to help him. (He’s terrified- he’s heard rumors of fae in these parts, but there was no child left behind. What could have taken his little boy?)
After a few days searching, he hears Robyn’s voice up ahead. He’s got a sword at his side, but for now he draws a bow and arrow, moving forward slowly. Eventually he comes to a clearing, peeking forward and preparing to shoot down whatever took his child. But then. He pauses.
Robyn is smiling, and laughing, and has an abundance of flowers adorning his hair. He is plucking some berries from a bush and popping them into his mouth under the guidance of the most beautiful creature Hob’s ever seen. As he listens, he realizes that Robyn is talking about him, telling stories of how his papa taught him to identify the things that are safe to eat in the forest, and how tall he feels when he sits on his father’s shoulders, and how his papa has a terrible singing voice but sings the loudest anyway and so Robyn loves it.
“I think papa will like you lots!” Robyn declares, and the creature smiles sadly.
“I… doubt that… but he sounds lovely.”
Hob is so confused by the whole situation that he doesn’t notice he’s taken a step forward until a branch snaps under his foot. Robyn looks over and immediately bursts into a wide smile, even as the creature lets out a panicked series of chirps and bolts in the other direction.
“Papa!!”
Robyn throws himself into his father’s arms, and Hob drops his weapons to hold him, beyond relieved to have his son safe in his arms, unharmed. He spends a few minutes just peppering his son’s face with kisses and telling him how worried he was before finally looking at the spot where the creature had disappeared into the woods. Robyn follows his gaze, smiling and tugging on Hob’s hand to guide him into the clearing as he calls out.
“It’s okay, Dream! Papa is super nice to everyone, you don’t have to hide!”
Hob’s sees two bright eyes in the shadows before the creature- Dream- hesitantly steps forward. He looks sad and scared and ashamed and Hob is smitten almost immediately.
Robyn explains that when he woke up he had been scared, but Dream had hugged him (almost as good as his papa’s hugs, he claims) and told him he would keep him safe and take care of him. Then Robyn had been sad because he already missed his dad, and when he told Dream about him he had immediately realized the error of what he had done and resolved to return Robyn. It had taken some time because Robyn had insisted he was too big to be carried (it’s one thing if he was sleeping, but he was a big boy he could walk home just fine, really!) so they had traveled together, Dream never feeding him anything that would bind Robyn to him, instead just pointing out food and water for him to gather himself.
Dream is still standing a bit aways from them both as Robyn tells the tale, looking at the little boy with aching fondness.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly to Hob, “I just... miss my son so much,” he smiles weakly at Robyn, “I believe you and Orpheus would have been great friends.”
And oh, Hob gets it all of a sudden. He had been fully prepared to do all sorts of questionable things to get his son back, he can’t imagine what he might be compelled to do if he actually lost him. And Dream was bringing him back, so he finds it very easy to forgive him.
He finds it even easier to invite Dream to finish the journey back with them, and then invite him to stay, and then invite him to build a home in the woods together, and share kisses and a bed and a life.
Robyn is very smug.
He told Dream his dad would like him.
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Alastor's Father
WARNING: period-typical racism, WW1, race-based murder
I see a lot of fics where Alastor's dad is a piece of shit and abusive, but I'd love to see one where Al's dad actually loves and cares for his family but was taken from them when Alastor was too young to remember much about him.
Maybe he died as a soldier in WW1 or made it back to the US only to be killed some other way. If he was black, then those odds go way up unfortunately.
We don't know much about Al's parents but if it's still canon that he's creole, then that means at least one of his parents has black ancestry. A lot of the fics I've seen give him a black mom/white dad, but I think it would be interesting if both his parents were mixed too.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is if Al's dad was killed when he was still little, then they wouldn't recognize each other in hell now would they?
Al's dad sure does love his family, but everyone else can fuck off. And ooh boi did he earn his place in hell trying to protect them, not that heaven cared about his motives.
The second he finds out Alastor the Radio Demon is his baby boy? Hell hath no fury like a protective parent. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the atrocities Alastor has caused, that's his baby and no one is going to hurt him while he's not double-dead.
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