Quiet clings to the corner of the room, mists around the center.

Arthur's voice is muffled by it. "Enchanted, Merlin?"

Merlin nods, head cloudy and thick and pulsing with terror. He ignores it, "Yeah." Merlin tries to talk at a normal volume though it feels like he's screaming, like he's drawing too much attention to himself from the dark shadows that are Arthur and Elyan. "He was gifted this box, see…"

A shift of movement from Arthur—just drawing his legs under the cot as he leans forward—is a rockslide to Merlin's senses. Clattering against his ears, filling his eyes like he's been buried. Merlin staggers back a step, head shaking, trying to find the floor. "He was… this box…"

Arthur stands, arm extending, "Are you alright?"

It feels like a punch to the gut. Merlin flails back another step. "Yes," he says—whispers—voice scraping against his skull. He's being too loud, he's being too loud, he's being too loud. Moving too much. "And it fell open, you see…" Merlin forces himself to talk louder. "...when I was bringing it to him."

"So… Was something inside?" Arthur is sitting down again, slow and careful, the cot creaking—screaming. Merlin should have fixed that. Oiled it. He wonders if it's upsetting Arthur or Elyan. Or Gaius—Lords, Gaius has to hear people shift on it all through the night.

"Merlin?" Elyan asks. He's a softer darkness than Arthur. Smaller and more still, standing like a servant.

"Yes, um… the box…" Merlin's mind is screaming at him—a thousand things he's never thought about before. A thousand things he's doing wrong. Another thousand things telling him Arthur and Elyan are upset—showing him.

"It fell open?" Elyan prompts.

Arthur hunches his form, elbows on his knees. A thunderstorm of movement. "Merlin?"

"Yes." The 's' is too sharp, ringing and ringing and ringing, slicing through his skin. "Um…" That sound feels much better. Softer. The hesitation soothing. Merlin hums out another one. "Enchanted."

"What was in it?" Arthur asks again—oh no, Merlin never answered him.

"Nothing," Merlin says, speed making him stutter. "Empty, it was empty."

"Okay…?" says Arthur, face falling, pinching in slight confusion.

"I think you've had a long week," says Elyan slowly, voice wrapping around Merlin like shadows, like snakes coiling around his limbs. "Maybe you should just get some rest."

"No!" Merlin screams.

Loud, loud, loud, loud, loud.

"He's enchanted—we're enchanted," Merlin says softly, sinking down onto the steps leading to his room.

"We?" Arthur charges into that immediately. Charges through Merlin's senses.

"Yeah," Merlin says, hand clutching at his head, voice small. "I… it fell open."

"You're enchanted? You've been enchanted? What is it?" Shadows with swords batter out the familiarity of Arthur's voice.

Merlin's head takes the brunt of the battle. It shakes. "What?"

"You're saying this box was enchanted, right? That it did something to you when it fell open and something to Lord Osric later when he opened it?" The shadows have a battering ram.

"You're not nearly as th—thick as everyone says you are, p-prat." They crack Merlin's skull for the insult. He curls backward, laying awkwardly on the steps, closing his eyes against the misting, crackling darkness that is Arthur.

"Well where's this box? How do we break the enchantment?" The cot screams as it creaks. "What is the enchantment?"

Merlin shrugs and shakes his head a little. It's still too much movement.

"Should I fetch Gaius?" Elyan hisses. His feet are slithering across the room, growing closer and closer, Merlin can hear it. Can feel it.

"Stop," Merlin whispers.

"Merlin, what's the enchantment?"

Merlin's mind screams at him. Pathetic. Failure. He hadn't wanted to involve Arthur. Had intended to fix it on his own. All he did was make it worse. So much worse. Coward for not telling him. Failure for telling him. Coward. Failure. That's all Merlin is.

Arthur is waiting for a response, frozen tendrils of darkness waiting to spring forward.

"It…the enchantment…the box…" Merlin curls, hands pulling toward his head.

"Where's this box now?" Elyan coils around Merlin's throat, shadow scales scratching at his skin.

"Merlin?" Arthur says—softer than Elyan's hiss now, brighter. Still too dark.

Merlin shakes his head.

"Elyan, fetch Gaius. Then check Osric's room."

Feet slither away—rattle, actually.

"Merlin?"

"Sorry, um… I'm fine." Merlin forcibly uncurls, pushing up to sit instead of lay, arms wrapped around his torso. "The box is… in my room. I…took it." Thief, thief, thief, thief.

Arthur is so dark. Rising, filling the room. "Let's see it," he growls.

Thief. Thief. Coward. "Um…. it could enchant you too. We shouldn't… you shouldn't…" Merlin shakes his head. "Prat," he tacks on softly. The word roars through him. "Prat," Merlin says again. "You just need to let Osric out. It's not his fault. It's hard to…decipher things."

"But he did attack you?"

"I think so. Maybe." But that doesn't feel right. Doesn't fit right. Merlin's eyebrows pinch. "Err… No. It was my fault. I pushed him—I punched him. He—I… I don't know what happened anymore." Merlin's voice doesn't breach the volume of whisper. "My fault," he says. "Err… we've been enchanted." His eyes stay fixed on the floor at Arthur's feet, just shy of the darkness.

The shifting of shadows is all he sees. "This box is in your room?"

It's strange; Arthur's voice grating toward Merlin. The voice is too gritty for the blurred figure. As though he is crackling flame and not the smoke that rises from it.

Thief. Thief. Thief. "I'm sorry," Merlin says, and then he's falling off the stairs because the wraith that is Arthur is barreling toward him, large and fiery and full of wrath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Merlin skitters into the corner of the room.

Arthur soars past. Disappears behind Merlin's bedroom door.

Merlin is a coward for not stopping him.