Deafening Silence

Nature's Part to Play

A short time before Arthur's encounter with Gwaine, Merlin had successfully found the pain numbing potion from his and Gaius' chambers and was now on the way to his majesty's royal quarters.

Merlin had taken a generous sip from the potion once he'd found it among the many potions that Gaius stored readily made. Unfortunately for Merlin, Gaius was yet to be back from attending the woman in the lower citadel so he had to search for it himself. He wrote down a note to remind Gaius to make another after he found it and took off to Arthur's chambers, already feeling chirpier from the pain relief.

He had taken off before Arthur had left the training grounds and so he did not see his and Gwaine's meeting in the castle halls. On his way, Merlin's thoughts turned to the dark-haired knight, specifically their 'conversation' from earlier. Gwaine was no fool despite acting like one sometimes, he was a knight of Camelot for a reason. Part of Merlin believed that Gwaine knew him well and thought he would likely pick up on when he was acting suspiciously, such as earlier. If he didn't figure it out himself, Arthur would inevitably tell him after he was spooked earlier which Merlin was still a little embarrassed about.

Merlin didn't want to keep his deafness a secret from his friends but he had his reasons to do just that. His first was that he didn't want Arthur riding beyond the castle without him as the prat would go unprotected by Merlin's magic. Luckily for him, Arthur seemed to have no intentions of going on hunts anytime soon, so that was one less worry for Merlin.

His second reason was more to do with himself. The more people that he knew were watching him, the more likely someone was going to witness him using his little natural-born gift. He could obviously not let this happen. So, when Merlin found out that Arthur and Gwen knew, he decided to reduce his use of magic around the castle until he regained his hearing.

Now that Merlin was convinced that Arthur would tell Gwaine, he knew that he had to stick to his own newly-made rule. So, it was now no magic until he could hear again unless it was an emergency, which happened more often than Merlin liked in Camelot.

If Gwaine knew, Merlin had no doubt that Leon, Percival and Elyan would know soon after. Like the good friends Merlin knew they were, the three would of course agree to keep an eye on him too. He knew he wouldn't be able to look out for that many sets of eyes before performing any kind of spell, someone could have been peeping around the corner for all he knew. If Gaius was right, his hearing should come back in just a few days or maybe less considering some was already returning. Meaning if nothing crazy happened in Camelot, he thought he would be able to pull this off.

As Merlin neared Arthur's chambers with the plan set in his head, he gave thought to the other reason he initially wanted it kept quiet. He was just so damn used to keeping secrets, why shouldn't this be a secret too?

Because Merlin figured out that this one was different. It was something he couldn't control and it was there for all to keenly observe. He couldn't help being deaf. What he did have control over was his magic which he had become much better at thanks to Gaius' help. There was no control over his deafness, much like a few other things in Merlin's life.

He supposed that keeping secrets was, at this point in life, simply part of his nature. Merlin's face dropped slightly at this thought as he turned the corner for Arthur's chambers and let himself in. He wasn't quite sure exactly what the royal dollophead wanted him to do and so resorted to doing the jobs he'd yet to finish from that morning before Arthur had practically dragged him out for training.

It wouldn't be long before the King joined him, who bore what looked like relief on his face when he lay his eyes on his manservant. Merlin wasn't so sure.

"You did want me back here, right?" Merlin jokingly asked from the other end of the room; he had seen Arthur come in. Judging by the look on the latter's face, Merlin determined that he'd said that louder than he intended to. In fact, he wasn't sure how well his volume control had been ever since the incident. Arthur had not pointed out anything on the matter and neither had Gwen.