That baby nightmare post has got me thinking on what type of parent Grace would be to a baby nightmare, that Morpheus just randomly shows up with one day.
The post in question, for reference!
This is such a great ask, thank you so much for it! Grace, as mentioned, is really interested in all of the nightmares. There’s something fascinating for her about them, and a baby nightmare? Especially interesting, whether that’s a nightmare of a baby in some capacity, or a nightmare that isn’t quite full grown yet.
She likes children, babies especially, so she’d probably treat them like she would a human baby: cooing over them a bit, giving them a finger to grip onto, and generally making a bit of a fuss over them. They’re part of Morpheus, after all, and she loves every part of him! She’d be willing to feel whatever level of terror or pain or general unpleasantness that a baby nightmare might be capable of if it meant holding them, because that’s what babies need, after all! Grace has several friends with children, and she’s very happy to be an unofficial auntie to them, so this isn’t too far off, the relationship is just a bit different.
There’s a part of Grace that wanted to have children, realized that wouldn’t be a possibility with Hob (they had a conversation early on in their relationship, well before the immortality reveal, one that they haven’t yet revisited), and pivoted her expectations of her life accordingly. It was always more of a “it would be nice” rather than a “necessary for happiness” sort of thing for her.
If the baby nightmare sticks around long enough, she’d knit them a lovely hat and booties set (with extras, for however many feet they happen to have at the time). Depending on how big they are, she’d carry them around in one of those baby swaddles or on her hip, just going about her day. No matter how much Morpheus tells her that baby nightmares can care for themselves, she’s insistent that she doesn’t mind looking after them for a bit. Once the nightmare grows up (or at least settles in to one form), she’d make sure to find them out in the Dreaming specifically, just every once in a while, to say hello and see how they’re getting on.
Have a little drabble, under the cut:
Hob wasn’t entirely certain what he was looking at. It was certainly baby shaped, and Grace was cradling it in her arms, much like she would a baby, but whatever was swaddled in the blanket kept blurring at the edges, as if it hadn’t quite settled into a form yet. The arm that extricated itself from the wrapping was, variously, furred and claw tipped, an impossible starry void-black, and a writhing tentacle. When Grace offered her finger to grip onto, it bypassed her and gripped a loose lock of her hair instead in a chalk white, but notably very human shaped, hand.
He cleared his throat, and Grace looked up at him, smiling despite the seemingly quite strong grip on her hair.
“Come say hello,” she said, shifting the bundle in her arms and pulling her own hair in the process. Gently, she pried the fingers loose. An indescribable noise of discontent issued from the blankets, incongruously printed with a cheery pattern of stars.
“Who am I saying hello to, exactly?” he asked, brow slightly furrowed as he peered into the blankets, expecting a face, or at least the shape of one, and finding only a void.
“Morpheus just dropped them off. They’re a—well, I suppose a nightmare, but they’re entirely new and they need just a little time to settle.”
“A nightmare,” Hob echoed. He had grown used to meeting the nightmares in the Dreaming, but had never seen one in quite this form.
Grace hummed softly in the affirmative, bouncing the baby and smiling again when a sound as unlike a giggle as was possible to be made came forth. She seemed to regard this as a positive sign. “He just wanted to show me, but I told him I could look after them for a bit, if he wanted, while he’s hearing a few petitions.”
“Do they have a name?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “I’ve been trying to think of one, but they haven’t grown into their function yet, and I don’t want to name them something that doesn’t fit. So I’ve just been calling them Baby in my head.”
“What were they meant to be?”
“The unknown.” Grace reached into the blankets, as if smoothing back their hair gently. Hob swore he saw teeth flash, needle sharp and uncomfortably large, in what might have been a smile. “Uncertainty. Doubt in your own self and what you know to be true.”
“And are they always going to look like…that?”
“I don’t think they know yet either. Morpheus is usually so specific with the form, but…he’s letting this one decide on their own. He said it would be better that way. Maybe they won’t ever decide, and they’ll change like this, or maybe they’ll find one they like best.”
“They certainly like you.” Hob had another momentary vision of what life might have been like, in another world: Grace holding a child, human, and all her own.
“Maybe they know I like them, too. Do you want to hold them?”
For a moment, every child Hob held in his arms was Robyn. It was only ever for the first second, and then he came back to himself, but he wasn’t certain the feeling would ever go away. He no longer minded it; any reminder was pleasant in its way, now. There could be happiness in grief.
Grace passed him the baby carefully, supporting them along the way, and Hob held them close, watching how she was almost reluctant to part with them.
“I’d say they look a bit like Morpheus, but—“
“They do, in their own way. A part of him, anyway. I think they’re lovely.”
“So do I,” Hob agreed, and was surprised to find that it was true.
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Mcflyjuly drabble, and again and again and again~
Day 4: Picnic
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"Just go talk to her."
"It's not that simple!" Doc hisses. "You know as well as I do the dangers -- "
"Yeah, but Doc --" Marty waves the 1955 photo (Doc dismisses it, scoffing) " -- we already know this is okay!"
"Marty, nothing in that photo is okay."
"C'mon, Doc. Just go talk to her."
Doc glares, softens, then begins hesitating his way across the square.
"Excuse me," he says at his destination, "I wonder if you would do me the honor of joining me for a picnic."
"Oh," Clara says, her twinkling eyes meeting his. "Emmett, I'd love to."
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