This is my first attempt at a fanfic so please comment! Any constructive criticism is welcome!

'...and then you can muck out the horses and tidy my room. Oh, and fetch me some more breakfast; I can't eat that.'

Merlin was just daydreaming about putting Arthur in the stocks and making everyone throw rotten vegetables at him, when he realised that the prince was reciting a list of chores that he had prepared. Merlin looked at the parchment in horror. It was trailing on the floor, and Arthur was wearing that self-satisfied smirk that told him he would be working into the night again.

'Well, go on then, I don't have all day,' drawled Arthur, sitting back in his chair and putting his feet on the table. 'Get on with it.'

Merlin gave him the dirtiest look he could muster, and stumbled out of the room carrying the list and a pile of armour. He felt abused; he must have saved Arthur's life dozens of times, but he still treated him like he only existed to do his bidding. Arthur got all the women, all the praise and did no work at all (unless you counted showing off his fighting skills by killing every beast in sight). Merlin sighed, and made his way back to his room to dump all the armour on the table.

'What are you doing, Merlin?'

He spun around, only to come face to face with an irritable Gaius.

'You just dumped all that on an important experiment I had been doing for the King. Now I'll have to start it all over again, and you can help me, seeing as you ruined it all in the first place.'

Merlin looked at the table, and saw that a beaker was tipped to its' side, and a purplish liquid was flooding the table.

'I'm sure I can use magic to fix that,' he soothed, but as soon as he said this Gaius turned a deep plum to rival his experiment. Merlin held his hands up in surrender, but it was too late.

'Haven't I taught you ANYTHING? Magic could get you KILLED yet you insist on using it for things that can be done by hand!'

Merlin thought it best to do as Gaius said without complaint when he was in this mood, so grabbed a cloth and set about clearing up the mess. While he worked on trying to follow all of Gaius' instructions without making any mistakes, he was dreading seeing Arthur and having to admit he hadn't done any of the chores that he had been set. The sun was setting when Gaius finally let Merlin go, and he rushed to Arthur's chambers immediately, hoping Arthur would be hunting...but no. He was sitting in almost exactly the same pose Merlin had left him in, looking impatient.

'Where have you been? I told you to be done with all the work before sunset, and I've heard that you haven't even mucked out the stables. That was first on the list. If it isn't finished by tomorrow you'll be in the stocks for a month.'

Arthur looked satisfied by the horrified expression on Merlin's face, and started scratching absently at the stone wall with a quill. Merlin scrubbed the floor, tidied the room and made the bed. After a while his arms started aching, and when he looked out of the window the sun had set. He looked over at Arthur. His head was lolling towards the table, and his mouth was slightly open. Every so often, a faint snore would puncture the silence. This is how he liked Arthur best; asleep and unable to taunt Merlin or give him more work. He could feel his eyes drooping, and mentally shook himself. It would be worse tomorrow if he hadn't got everything done. Merlin walked unsteadily back to Gaius' chambers, and found Gaius slumped against the table with his face pressed into a book. Merlin took a while dragging him towards his bed, then realised he wouldn't be able to lift him onto it. With a faint smile at the thought of what Gaius would say if he woke, Merlin muttered a spell and the physician glided effortlessly onto his blanket.

He lost track of the time as he polished Arthur's armour, while he magically mended his chainmail. His arms were so tired that they had gone numb, which he was grateful for. He knew he would be in pain if he could feel his body right now. With a sigh, he made his way down to the stables. He had left this task until last because he had been hoping it would somehow go away. He couldn't even use magic; the guards were watching him suspiciously, wondering why he was out this late. The horses glowered at him as he came in (could horses even glower? Wow, he must be sleepy), angry at him for disturbing their rest. As he was lifting his first pile of horse dung, he accidentally collapsed into the horse in front of him. It neighed loudly and reared onto its' hind legs, and Merlin felt a sharp blow on his chest. The force of it knocked him to the ground, and he stayed there, feeling too fragile to get up, and feeling himself sinking into an unavoidable sleep.

At first Merlin thought it was the pain that had woken him. Every part of him was throbbing, and his chest felt especially sore, but then he became aware of someone shouting. He opened his eyes, but immediately wished he hadn't. Arthur's face was looming threateningly above him, and Merlin didn't think he'd ever seen anything so terrifying. His nostrils were dilated, his eyes were wide and his face was as red as Gwen's dress. Whenever he spoke, big gobs of spit would land on Merlin's face, so he thought it best to move out of the way. He sat up groggily, wincing.

'At last, you're awake. You didn't even finish your work last night. You know what that means don't you?'

Merlin tried to make sense of Arthur's words through the fog in his brain, and then groaned as they finally started to mean something. Arthur didn't seem perturbed by the fact that he hadn't done all the work. Merlin was sure he just enjoyed seeing him suffer.

By the time the village had exhausted their supply of rotten vegetables, it was midday. The sun was shining brightly; mocking him as he made his way back to Gaius' chambers. Gaius looked terrible; his eyes were bloodshot and he was slumped low in his chair, but when Merlin came in he sat up with a look of concern in his eyes.

'You look terrible,' he said, by way of greeting.

'You, too,' yawned Merlin, sprawling into the nearest chair he could find. He could hear Arthur from outside the window. It sounded as if he had just realised that Merlin could have injured his horse by falling into it with a spade full of horse dung. Phrases like most useless manservant and can't even lift a spade without injuring someone kept drifting through the window. Merlin sighed.

'I'd better go down and see what all the fuss is about,' he muttered resignedly, already heaving himself out of his chair. He allowed himself to fantasize for a moment; he imagined he was strong and muscular and Arthur was the lanky one, and he could order Arthur to do all the work. With a smile on his face as an aftermath of this uplifting thought, Merlin made his way down to the stables. The smile soon disappeared.

'You injured my horse. If you haven't finished all the work by the afternoon, I'll tell my father.' Arthur pointed to a shallow scratch on the horses' leg. That horse injured me far more than I injured it, thought Merlin, but he wasn't stupid enough to voice this. Arthur pointed to another list, which was as long as the first one, and left the stables. Gwen was standing outside the stables with a disapproving expression on her face, but this was directed at-'

'Arthur? What do you think you're doing?'

Gwen was the only person who could speak to Arthur like that and get away with it. It was common knowledge (among the servants) that Arthur liked her, but it was also common knowledge that Gwen found Arthur arrogant and insensitive. Merlin couldn't blame her.

'I'm giving my servant work to do. Isn't that what servants are for?'

'Yes, but you're meant to give him an amount that's actually possible to do. Not a long list of useless chores.' Arthur puffed his chest out indignantly.

'They are not useless. Is it too much to ask that I have my room tidy, and my clothes clean, and my armour polished, and my stables mucked out, and my-'

'Yes it is too much if you ask one servant to do all that in one day. Morgana would never ask me to do all that. Morgana would-'

'Yes, we've heard quite enough about your precious Morgana,' muttered Arthur tetchily. Gwen blushed angrily and glared at Arthur. Merlin forced himself to keep working and ignore the argument, but his curiosity wouldn't let him block it out.

'How would you feel if you were a servant and someone asked you to do all that work?'

'Well, luckily I'm Crowned Prince and not a servant, and I never will be.' Gwen wrinkled her nose disgustedly, as if Arthur was a particularly smelly pile of horse dung, and walked away. Merlin couldn't suppress a groan. If anyone could make Arthur a good prince, she could, but so far she was failing miserably. Merlin could hear Arthur's footsteps getting further and further away as he ran after Gwen, calling 'Gwenevere!'

Thankfully, Merlin had managed to finish all the work by the afternoon and wasn't taken to Uther, but he couldn't feel his legs as he stumbled into Gaius' chambers. Gaius greeted him with a worried frown, and a plate of food. He still looked run-down, and they both sank into chairs, felling hard done by. Merlin didn't realise how hungry he was until he started eating the (disgusting) vegetable stew that Gaius had prepared; it was the first time he'd actually enjoyed it. Thanks to Arthur, he'd hardly eaten in the past few days. He thought back over his fantasy life, where Arthur was the servant and he was the prince, and suddenly had a brainwave.

'We can't carry on like this, Gaius. If I have to muck out Arthur's stables one more time, I'm running away.'

'Merlin, we've discussed this before-'

'But I've had an idea!' In spite of himself, Gaius looked interested. It was a mark of how terrible the last few days had been that he wasn't bellowing at him about magic being dangerous (as it was obvious what Merlin meant).

'I'll enchant the King to make him think I'm his son, and Arthur's my manservant!' Gaius looked aghast. He opened his mouth and blinked a few times, before croaking 'What?'

'Don't worry. I'll help you with your work, because I won't have anything to do! All Arthur does all day is sit around, ordering me about. I'm sure I can manage that!' Merlin couldn't suppress a smile at the thought of Arthur's horrified face as Merlin handed him a list of chores. He started leafing through his magic book, so caught up in his dream that he didn't realise Gaius was still gaping at him as if he was mad.

'You want to use magic on the King!'

'He won't remember,' said Merlin, impatient for Gaius to be as excited as him. 'Here! I've found it! I'll just wait until nightfall, so he'll be asleep.'

'Merlin, Listen! We haven't thought this out at all. We need to plan-'

'I can't stand another day like this, and this plan's our only way out.' Merlin marched out of the room, unable to wait any longer. It was time he turned his dreams into reality.

Merlin finally found Uther at nightfall. He had fallen asleep on his thrown, and the dim candlelight illuminated the deep creases on his forehead, but for once, he wasn't frowning. Asleep, he looked peaceful and serene; untroubled by disobedient servants or his need to uphold the laws of Camelot. Merlin felt almost guilty to disturb his rest, but nevertheless raised his hand to perform magic. As he muttered the spell he had learnt, Uther's eyes snapped open with a dazed, slightly hypnotised look. Merlin watched him nervously, but as soon as he had started to panic, they rolled back into his head and Uther slumped back into his throne. He breathed a sigh of relief, and tried to resist the urge to skip out of the council chambers. He still hadn't finished.

Arthur was also sleeping, but as soon as Merlin had muttered another incantation, he dreamily rose out of bed. Merlin directed him towards Gaius' chambers, not bothering to move any obstacles that might make him stub his royal toes. He then changed the sheets on Arthur's bed (he wouldn't be able to sleep with the smell of Arthur's sweat polluting the air) and sank into the soft layers of the royal mattress. He was asleep within seconds.