A/N I'M BACK EVERYONE! AND THIS TIME I'LL ACTUALLY TRY TO UPDATE AND STUFF!
This is a spin-off from one of my drabbles, which was originally inspired by TruffleHead's prompt.
In case anyone is confused about characters and stuff, Morgana is still pretending to be good, Uther is still *relatively* sane and Gwaine is a knight and gatecrashing the timeline because he's just that awesome. I blame the Doctor.
It had occurred to Merlin a while ago that he had been receiving some strange looks when muttering spells under his breath. Arthur in particular had been especially generous with the concerned glances recently, but then he seemed to think that his manservant was a lunatic anyway, so it didn't make much difference. Merlin had never tried to do anything about it before, as he didn't know of any easy solutions, and there was no way he was going to try a hard one. Recently, however, while reading some of Gaius' old books, he'd come across a note in the corner of a page which looked convincingly helpful.
One day, when Merlin had by some miracle managed to finish his list of chores, he decided to take another look at the book to see if the note might actually be vaguely useful. He completed a series of faintly impressive acrobatics in order to get the book down from the topmost shelf, then sat on his bed and opened it, releasing a cloud of dust into the room. Coughing violently, he leafed through it and got to work.
After an hour of staring at a nearby mug without incidence, Merlin was on the verge of giving up. He had come to the unfortunate conclusion that he wasn't really that intent on knocking a mug over. It simply didn't matter to him: it was an inanimate object, for crying out loud. Maybe, if he felt real motivation to inflict pain on it, he might be able to get a bit further. Perhaps Arthur would be a more effective option...
Merlin shook his head, deciding that this was definitely a sign that he was getting tired. He decided to give it one last go. Concentrating hard and frowning with the effort, he death-stared the mug from underneath a furrowed brow.
Suddenly, the mug toppled over.
Merlin leapt up and punched the air, stood the mug back up and tried again, replacing the book on his knee. It worked.
The door banged open. Merlin scrambled to shut the book, but ended up dropping it on his toe instead, where it fell open to display a dragon in armour.
"Muwrwimn!" Gwaine greeted his friend with a mouth full of apple. "The princess wants a - oh look, magic. Let's see then."
Merlin stared at him with wide eyes, displaying an expression which would have been compared to a rabbit in headlights - had headlights been invented.
"I can explain -" he began, mind reeling. He had suspected that Gwaine had suspected him for some time now. Only people of Arthur's intelligence were capable of being in constant close proximity to a warlock and not noticing the occasional murmured spell and flashing eyes. But a suspicion of a suspicion was very different to the knowledge of a fact, especially when it was his life in the balance.
"Now this I want to hear," Gwaine grinned, settling down on the end of the bed.
"...Okay, no I can't," Merlin realised after giving it some thought. He pulled his best puppy-dog-eyes-please-don't-tell-anyone face and received an apple core to the nose for his efforts, so he gave up and moved on. "What did Arthur want?"
"He sent me to get you. Apparently we're going hunting."
"Oh, fantastic," Merlin muttered, following his friend out of the door.