Work Text:
Arthur was fourteen when he developed the ability to hear the thoughts of others, if only in a very limited way. Probably. It was impossible to tell exactly when it started, really; the thoughts came with no tone or nuance to indicate from whom or where it originated, and he was after all a fourteen-year-old boy who needed no intrusive voices or even a reason to have the single word, "cock" pop into his head.
He only realised what was going on when he walked into the stables one day, after a bad archery practice that had left him wanting to take a horse and run for a bit, and came upon the red-headed stable boy buggering Sir Geraint in time to the inexplicable litany of "cock, cock, cock, cock, coooooock, cock, cock!" that had started running through his mind as he approached the stables. The connection was sealed when King Olaf visited with his spoilt young daughter and the word "cock!!!" came up every time a man so much as glanced in her direction.
Of course, Arthur discreetly questioned Gaius, asking about countless oblique, hypothetical situations, and sneaked peeks in the forbidden texts in the archives, in the process learning much more about magic than it was safe to know, but he could find no information on his condition anywhere. It was not a curse, and if it was some kind of strange, unknown magic inborn in him, it was utterly useless, even dangerous. He wished he had never developed this... affliction.
He would never, ever forgive himself for the time he let Morgana's unexpected "Cock!" make him stumble and drop his sword. Morgana always claimed she had disarmed and beaten him fair and square, but it was all lies. He dared anyone to not be horrified to distraction by Morgana looking at their crotch and licking her lips.
The one positive thing that had resulted from that pathetic debacle was his new determination to gain control over his unwanted ability. He didn't manage to suppress or in any way filter out the "cock"s, but he learnt to determine, roughly, who was thinking it and where they were, and more importantly, to give no sign whatsoever that he might have heard it. He would never allow himself to be distracted again.
So he gradually grew to, if not accept or like it, live with the useless gift. And then he learnt its true purpose when one day, while he was out fooling about in the market square with his knights-in-training and his useless manservant, an absolutely delicious peasant youth stepped up to confront him, and a single thought fell into his mind while the peasant dismissed him with his words... "COCK".
That, he considered, since the exact same thought had occurred to him at the same time in uncanny chorus, was a clear sign of DESTINY. Clearly, they were meant to be. So he ordered his men to take the youth back to the castle with them.