Chapter Text
“G’wen! Wake up!”
Gawain wakes to small hands on his face prying his eyelids open. He blinks at Galahad sleepily, sighing as he fights the lingering drowsiness.
“Good morning, laddie,” Gawain greets quietly, voice rough with sleep, and he reaches out to pat the top of the boy’s head affectionately. That’s not enough for Galahad, who enthusiastically snuggles into the crook of Gawain’s raised arm. Why the son of Lancelot, the most standoffish man he knows, is so affectionate is beyond him...
But that’s fine, he’s the oldest of four boys, he can handle wrangling a young and rambunctious hedgehog. Gawain takes advantage of Galahad’s proximity to begin grooming wild quills. He never manages to completely smooth down those little quills on the top of the boy’s head, but he can at least pick out loose spines.
“How did you sleep?” Gawain asks conversationally, making a small pile of detached spines on the corner of his pillow, “Any nightmares?”
“Yeah,” Galahad sighs, resting his head on Gawain’s chest. His quills are uncomfortably pointy, but it’s manageable, “But Da and you was here! So I wasn’t scared.”
The boy nods very solemnly, “I like it when G’wen sleeps here.”
Gawain’s heart swells with affection and he nuzzles the top of the child’s head, flexing his bicep, “No monster can get past me, aye?”
“Yeah! You’re too strong!” Galahad agrees with an enthusiastic nod, a little too loudly, before glancing back at his father. Lancelot is on his side, injured shoulder facing the ceiling as he snores quietly, completely unbothered.
Galahad leans in to whisper as though he’s sharing a secret, hands cupping his mouth, “Da, too.”
“Oh?” Gawain grins, glancing at Lancelot’s back curiously. The poultice they fastened on Lancelot’s shoulder is still there, despite the hedgehog’s bitter complaints, and there’s no sign of fresh blood. He lowers his voice to a whisper as he tries once more to smooth down the stubborn quills, “How do you know?”
“He only snores with G’wen!” Galahad sounds so annoyed, as though Gawain hasn’t seen the child gleefully climb on Lancelot’s chest to feel the rumbling. (Or maybe the boy has his father’s darker sense of humor and just likes to hear Lancelot wheeze. Gawain has unfortunately been on the receiving end of these uncomfortable wake ups, too.)
“Does he now?” How interesting… Does that mean Lancelot can only truly relax and fall into his deepest sleep when he knows Gawain is there to watch his back?
That
fills the echidna with a deep satisfaction that makes his own chest rumble with a smug purr, much to his charge’s alarm.
“Nooo!” Galahad squirms free, carelessly kicking Gawain in the arm and sternum in his haste to sit up. He grabs the echidna by his longest spines, giving a sharp tug, “Don’t fall asleep again!!”
“I’m
not
,” Gawain protests, pulling his head back as he rubs his sternum, mostly for effect, “Unlike Lancelot, I cannot sleep through your yelling and pulling!”
He gently tugs at his spines, flicking Galahad’s fingers in an effort to get the boy to let go, “Be careful lest you get a handful of red needles-“
Galahad scowls at him in a perfect reflection of his father, although far less intimidating, opening his mouth to retort before cutting himself off.
“Ooh,” Galahad lets go of one spine to focus on the other, touching the gold band Gawain forgot to remove last night. He makes a mental note to clean off those grubby little fingerprints later, “Pretty!”
“Thank you!” Gawain accepts the compliment with a big grin, propping his head up on his hand as he lets Galahad toy with the gold, “I think it makes me look rather handsome! What do you think?”
“Yeah,” Galahad traces some of the protections runes with his finger, repeating the signs on Gawain’s forehead for practice, “You need more. Four.”
“Four?” Gawain laughs, shaking his head fondly, “Why four? If you want one for each spine, I’d need at least six more!”
“So you and Da can have the same,” Galahad answers him, distracted, re-doing a sign he traced backwards.
“Hmm,” Gawain gives a contemplative hum, closing his eye when a wandering finger gets too close. Intrigued, he presses for more information, “And why do you want us to match?”
“So you won’t leave,” Galahad says quietly, hand dropping halfway as he half-heartedly finishes the last symbol, “Like...” he sniffles, blinking hard as his eyes well with tears, “Mama.”
Ah. Gawain’s heart clenches painfully in his chest and, instinctively, he pulls the child into a tight hug. Galahad loops his arms around the echidna’s neck, nestling in under his chin.
“There, there,” Gawain soothes as best he can, wondering if he should apologize, trying to wake Lancelot up with a kick. He pats Galahad’s back in an awkward rhythm, really not sure what to do when he feels tears begin to wet his fur. Laughter and anger, he can handle. But tears? Definitely not. “No cause for crying, lad, I’m not leaving.”
Gawain kicks Lancelot again, glowering at the hedgehog’s back and willing him to wake up, “I like it here. I like you. I like your Da. If I have everything I like here, why would I leave?”
The final kick hits Lancelot in a rib, jostling him with a snort. As difficult as he is to wake, once he’s awake, the hedgehog wastes no time- in the blink of an eye, Lancelot is sitting up, dagger in his hand as he scans the room for threats.
Where did he even get that? Gawain wonders distantly, but he’s got bigger priorities right now. He gestures at the crying child with his head, glaring instructions at Lancelot that he hopes the hedgehog will understand.
“Huh?” Lancelot lowers the dagger as he tilts his head to the side, looking at Gawain and then down at Galahad, “What’s wrong?”
“Daddy,” Galahad is almost incomprehensible as he sobs, shoulders shaking miserably as he reaches out for his father, “Mama! I want Mama-!“
Lancelot takes his boy into his arms, holding him tightly. In the same motion, he drags Gawain over, resting the echidna’s head on his thigh.
Lancelot doesn’t look particularly comfortable with the tears aspect either, but surprisingly enough, he isn’t doing a half-bad job. He doesn’t bother with empty reassurances or hollow comfort, just hugs Galahad with a tightness that possibly borders on painful. Like he’ll never, ever let go.
“Mama,” Galahad calls out a few more times, and Gawain doesn’t know what to do. Lancelot didn’t want to talk about the boy’s mother, didn’t want to get into details- one day, he just showed up with scratches on his face and the boy in one arm as he declared that this was his son, Galahad, who would be staying with him from now on.
He’ll get it out of Lancelot someday- either by choice or by force when it’s for Galahad’s best interest. After a moment of watching, not sure if he should just stay or go, Gawain reaches a hand out to lay on the boy’s head. He squishes down his quills and ears hesitantly, but the boy nuzzles against his hand instinctively, so he must be doing something right.
They stay like that until Galahad’s tears turn to miserable little hiccups, wiping his face on his father’s chest fur. Gawain sees every one of Lancelot’s spines stand on end as he grimaces, but fortunately, the hedgehog doesn’t say anything as Gawain pinches his tail in warning.
“Gawain made you cry?” Lancelot asks, but it sounds less like a question than a statement.
“What?!” Gawain demands indignantly, punching Lancelot in the knee for good measure as he lifts himself onto his elbows, “I would never!”
Galahad, cheeks still wet, laughs, “Yeah.”
“I did not!!” Gawain protests even more loudly, grabbing the dagger Lancelot still has in his hand and chucking it across the room. He knows the hedgehog knows how to handle weapons, but it’s still too close to Galahad for comfort. That boy is too energetic for his own good, and the last thing they need is more tears, “I didn’t do anything! I haven’t even moved!!”
“You just threw my dagger across the room,” Lancelot sighs deeply, looking incredibly dejected as he stares at it longingly.
Gawain bristles, voice raising in pitch as his exasperation grows, banging the bed with his fist, “Quiet or I’ll throw you across the room next!”
Galahad wipes his eyes with the back of his hand as he giggles, but his voice soft and hoarse, “I don’t want G’wen to go.”
“Go?” Lancelot blinks at Galahad, then at Gawain. The adrenaline fades quickly after his son calms down, and his eyes are half-lidded with sleep. The hedgehog cocks his head to the side, sounding confused, “Where would he possibly go that would be better than here?”
There are a thousand things Gawain could say in reply to such an arrogantly self-assured statement. Especially since they were both just teasing him! But he doesn’t, grudgingly taking Galahad back into his arms as the child reaches for him. He thinks about it carefully instead.
Gawain’s head rests on Lancelot’s lap as the hedgehog cards his hand through his spines, fingers gentle but sure as they rub at the spots on his skull that sends sparks down his back. Lancelot has dutifully kept the poultice in place just because Gawain and Galahad asked him to, even as he absently scratches at it every so often.
Galahad clings to Gawain like he’s the strongest man in the entire world, face squished against his chest as though his heartbeat alone drives away all the evils of the world.
And honestly, he can’t think of anywhere else he would rather be right now. Especially now that there aren’t quite so many tears.
Gawain presses a kiss to his son’s forehead, and then a kiss his lover’s palm, telling them both quietly, honestly, “How could I ever leave this?”