Gifts

weepingwillow9

Silver is traditional, Arthur thinks, standing at the counter at the jewellers.

“Looking for something in particular, sir?” the girl asks, taking pity on Arthur’s puzzled expression. He starts a little, lost in the strange shapes of the reflections on the metal.

“I’m going to be a godfather, I need a gift.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A little boy,” Arthur says, thinking of Lance’s son and smiling for the first time since he set foot in the shop, “A perfect little boy.”

The girl smiles back and finds Arthur a box of gifts not on display. Silver train-shaped money boxes, teddy bear charms, silver spoons. Arthur frowns. None of it seems quite right.

“I was looking for something a bit less… ornamental. Something he’ll actually get to use.”

The girl starts to think, and Arthur’s eyes wonder. They catch on a plain bracelet in a nearby cabinet. It’s a simple design; a silver plate on a leather band. Arthur points to it.

“Do you engrave the plates?”

“On both sides, if you want,” the girl tells him. He nods.

“And do you sell different lengths of band?”

“Yes,” the girl says, frowning.

“I need to think about it,” Arthur tells her, and leaves the shop.

---

The Christening isn’t for a week. Neither Lance nor Elaine are particularly religious; the lack of heteronormativity took care of that. But they are both traditional, and they pretend to still be together to convince the local chapel to name their respective boyfriends and girlfriend as godparents of baby Galahad.

They troop into the chapel, Elaine rocks Galahad to keep him quiet through the Priest’s service, then she reluctantly hands him over for the blessing. It’s a little anticlimactic, the wiping of water over Galahad’s forehead, but when it’s over the Priest passes Galahad to Morgana, and names her, Gwaine, Arthur and Merlin as his godparents.

They have a little reception in the boys’ living room, with plenty of homemade cake. Lance opens the presents since Elaine has Galahad asleep in her arms. They both protest, because the point of the whole thing was to form a tangible link between Galahad and the people his parents love, not to ask for anything for the baby. But they can’t change any minds, so the presents are opened anyway.

Morgana’s gift is a plush and beautiful teddy that glitters in the right light, obviously bought from the toy equivalent of a designer brand. A symbol is embroidered into one paw, and Merlin immediately recognises it as something protective. He just raises an eyebrow at Morgana, who pretends to misunderstand him.

Gwaine has bought Galahad an obviously hand-carved wooden rattle. It’s beautiful, a thin post of wood with rings that slide up and down between the bulbs at either end. Galahad’s initials are carved onto the bulbs, and the whole thing is sanded to a soft smoothness.

Merlin couldn’t decide on just one thing, so Lance opens a whole pile of beautifully illustrated story books, for when he’s older, and a silver spoon engraved with symbols suspiciously similar to the one on Morgana’s teddy’s paw. It has a hole for a hook, and Merlin instructs Elaine to hang it above Galahad’s door. She promises that she will.

Arthur’s present is last, and when Lance opens the box he sucks in a breath. The silver plate is nearly as big as the strap it’s set into, the smallest in a line of longer lengths until adult size. On it is a quote: Sometimes, when you fall, you fly. When Lance twists the panel, Galahad’s initials are surrounded by those of his parents and godparents. The whole thing speaks of don’t give up, we love you. It almost makes Lance cry with how beautiful it is, but also the fact that his son, so tiny right now, will grow older, grow up. He’ll one day be faced with the pain the world can cause, and he’ll need them to get through it.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, and he buckles it onto Galahad’s tiny, sleeping wrist. It sits too large over the soft skin, out of place next to his dimpled hand but right, somehow, all the same.