A month passed. To his own surprise, Merlin found that he didn't mind so much being ordered around by Arthur. It didn't really kill him. Sure, he had lost a serious amount of sleep over the past month, but the upside of having to do Arthur's homework was that he learned everything better, and the upside to having to follow him around and do whatever he was told, was that he didn't have to sit by himself in a classroom during the breaks. Of course, it still sucked, and Arthur was still a bastard, but it wouldn't do him any good to focus on the negative things.

So he kept following Arthur around at school, kept doing his homework, kept shutting up, rolling his eyes, and thinking 'prat' as hard as he could, while Arthur kept treating him like dirt.

What seemed strange to Merlin, was that Arthur seemed to be spending less and less time with his friends (Merlin had never really bothered to learn their names). He still sat with them at lunch, but they didn't talk and laugh as loudly in class anymore, and they didn't mock Merlin anymore, either. The only one who did that was Arthur, and when he did, his friends laughed, but quieter than they had done the first time, at his first day of school. In some way, even though they were all still bastards, and Merlin couldn't make himself understand how he could stand being in the same school as any of them, they seemed nicer.

On this particular November day, Merlin was late for school for the first time for as long as he could remember. He had stayed up longer than usual in order to finish the homework he and Arthur had for the next day, and had overslept. Since he was such a goody two-shoes that never was late and ever did anything wrong, Gaius hadn't even bothered to check if he was awake, and had gone straight to work. He didn't even insist on driving Merlin to school anymore.

Merlin had missed the bus, and had ended up walking to school. Though walking was an understatement; he was running.

As he stumbled along the hallway, his breathing heavy, he ran into a girl and nearly dropped his bag. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, bending down to help her pick up the books she had dropped. "Why aren't you in class?"

The girl smiled meekly as she replied: "The teacher let me leave earlier. We were just going to go through a test we've had, and I sort of aced it." She tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear. "What about you?"

"Missed the bus," Merlin said with a half-smile on his lips, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm Merlin, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Merlin," the girl said softly. "I'm Freya." She finished gathering her books, and the two of them stood back up, an awkward silence filling the air between them. "You should get to class, Merlin. I'll see you around sometime."

"Yeah, sure." Merlin smiled as he turned around and Freya waved at him.

He received a glare from Arthur when he showed up in Spanish class five minutes later. It wasn't until then that he realized he still had Arthur's Spanish books; he'd been up until five finishing their homework for Spanish. Surely, the teacher wasn't too happy about Arthur 'forgetting' his books.

"You're late, Mr. Emrys," the teacher commented dryly as Merlin entered.

He nodded shortly, casting a hesitating glance in Arthur's direction. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, trying to ignore the fact that the entire class was staring at him. "I was up pretty late to finish some homework, and I overslept and missed the bus. It won't happen again."

The teacher just nodded, and didn't discuss it further. Not until the end of the class, when he pulled Merlin aside and mumbled something about letting him off this one time, since he was such an exceptional student.

Not everyone was as understanding as the teacher, though. More precisely, Arthur Pendragon was not as understanding as the teacher.

"You better not be late for class ever again," the blonde growled quietly when Merlin emerged from the classroom. The blonde seemed to have picked up on his former habit of not looking at him. "You are hopeless, Emrys."

Merlin frowned. "I only overslept because I was up until five in the morning doing your homework," he said firmly, regretting it once the words left his lips. He expected Arthur to hit him – just hit him; not beat him up or try to kill him, as it seemed Darren had tried to do – like he usually did when Merlin did something "wrong". But the blow never came. Instead, Arthur, glared into the air, and started walking down the hallway, gesturing for Merlin to follow him.

All this for a shirt. Merlin shook his head in disbelief. But he was going to keep doing as he was told. If he didn't, who knew what Arthur would do to him? Merlin was sure that this guy was ten times stronger than Darren (he cursed himself for not being able to get that boy out of his head), and he wasn't about to be the one who found out exactly how long he could bend the rules of Arthur Pendragon before the blonde made sure he'd regret it for the rest of his miserable life. Gwen had said he liked to scare people. He certainly managed to scare the hell out of Merlin.

He ran into Freya in the cafeteria at lunch, though not as literally this time. They stood and talked for the entire lunch break, and Merlin found that he was quite comfortable in the presence of this girl. While they were talking, he completely forgot that he was probably supposed to do something for Arthur, and he could feel the blonde glare at him through the corner of his eye, but for once, he allowed himself to ignore it.

They made plans to go to the library and study for an upcoming test after school. Apparently, he and Freya had History together, even though he had never seen her there before. It wasn't really a surprise, though. She was quite an invisible type of person. In fact, Merlin wouldn't be surprised if Arthur thought he was standing there talking to himself. Freya was a remarkable person, but she was just... invisible.

"I'll see you after school, then," she called after him as he walked towards Arthur to go to class with him. Merlin smiled back, waving at her.

"After school," he repeated, already looking forward to it. It wasn't every day he made a new friend.

"It seems you have picked up a habit of chatting up girls when you should be working for me," Arthur said sternly as the two of them made their way down the hallway. "I just hope your new sweetheart isn't a teacher. Or married."

Merlin was unable to hold back a short laugh. "Sire, Freya and I are just friends. Even if I had the time to have a 'sweetheart', as you so neatly put it, she's not my type." He refrained from using the word 'girlfriend', as if felt somewhat wrong to take in his mouth, since he was gay and all.

"Right." Arthur didn't exactly leave any room for question, so Merlin just went with it. If Arthur wanted to believe that he was dating Freya, then he could believe it. Merlin didn't see how it could matter.

The rest of the day was as boring and torturous as ever, filled with taking notes and listening to Arthur's stupid comments about everything and anything. They were mostly about Merlin, though, and how useless he was. Most of the time, he just shook his head and ignored it.

After school, he walked out side by side with Arthur, when he saw Freya standing in the shade under one of the trees that stood around the school. Mumbling a goodbye to the blonde boy, he started to make his way over to the brunette, a smile on his face, when a strong had gripped his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" Arthur's voice said behind him, and Merlin sighed.

"I'm going to the library with Freya," he said softly as he turned around. "We're going to study for the History test."

That familiar odd smile found its way to Arthur's lips, and Merlin groaned at the words he knew were about to come: "And why would you do that when you could be taking notes for me?"

"I'll take notes for you while I'm studying with her," Merlin argued. "Now, if you would be so kind as to let go of my shoulder, I'm going." He didn't really know where this was coming from all of a sudden; why he suddenly had the courage to speak up, but he didn't really care.

"No, you're not," Arthur said with a scary smile on his face. "You're coming with me to boxing practice. Now, run over to your girlfriend and tell her that you can't make it to your date today."

Merlin raised an eyebrow. Arthur was a boxer? "You never wanted me to come with you before. Why now?"

"Because now, Emrys, I need someone to carry my things for me."

Merlin sighed, and glaring at Arthur, he walked over to Freya, telling her that he couldn't make it to the library.

"I get it," she said softly as he finished speaking. "I mean, if you want to be friends with Arthur Pendragon, you obviously can't be seen with a girl like me."

Merlin shook his head, taking her hand in his own in an attempt to comfort her. "It's not like that," he promised. "There is nothing in the world I would hate more than to be friends with Arthur Pendragon. The guy is rotten to the core. It's just complicated."

"Right."

"Look," he continued, squeezing Freya's hand gently, "I can't tell you right now, but come by my place later, and I'll explain it all to you. I just... I have to go."

"Emrys!" Arthur's voice called after him, and Merlin sighed.

"You'll come, right? I promise, this thing with Arthur... It's not what it seems."

Freya nodded slowly, a small smile finding its way to her lips. "Alright, I'll come. When?"

"I don't know when I'll be back," Merlin admitted as he started walking backwards towards Arthur. "Just tell my uncle you're a friend of me, and he'll let you stay and wait for me. I won't be too late." He barely had the chance to see another nod from Freya before he turned around and walked back to where Arthur still stood. With a smirk on his face, the blonde led the way aboard a bus, and soon, Merlin found himself in a gym in the middle of town, in the opposite direction from school of where he and Gaius lived.

It wasn't too bad, though. He only had to look after Arthur's things, change the towel when the one he had got drenched in sweat, and fill up the bottle of water every once in a while, and the rest of the time, he sat in a corner and did Arthur's homework. He still could not bring himself to believe why he was doing this, even when he reminded himself that Arthur could turn out to be Darren's evil twin if he refused.

Again, he was annoyed at the amount of times the name Darren popped up in his mind. Okay, so he had had a crush on him once. Okay, so Darren was hot. Okay, so it was because of his childhood crush on Darren that Merlin had realized he was gay. But he was over that, wasn't he?

It also annoyed him that he kept comparing Arthur to Darren. As if they were alike in some way, even though Merlin desperately tried to tell himself that they were not. Not at all. They were both fairly good-looking, they were both all muscles, they were both blonde, and they were both pure evil, but apart from that... Nothing about them was the same. No matter how many things they had in common, it was impossible to deny that they were not, in any way, the same.

He returned home around six, and was greeted by dinner and a hug from Freya, who had come there a couple of minutes earlier, according to Gaius.

"I'm sorry I was late," Merlin said as the three of them sat by the table and ate. "Arthur needed me to come to boxing practice with him."

"What for?" Gaius questioned, sounding amused. "Did he need someone to use as a punching bag?"

Merlin frowned. "Very funny, Gaius," he mumbled, chewing on a piece of chicken. "He needed me to fill his bottle of water and hand him a towel when he got sweaty."

"Sounds about the same to me." Gaius raised an eyebrow, and Merlin couldn't help but chuckle.

"Does anyone want to tell me what the two of you are talking about?" Freya asked, making Merlin turn his head towards her. "Why would you be doing anything of that sort for Arthur Pendragon?"

Merlin rubbed his neck, like he tended to do when he got nervous. "I'm kind of his servant," he mumbled, the smile fading from his face.

"Why?"

"I ruined his shirt and couldn't afford to pay three hundred pounds to replace it." Once again, he was unable to hold back a chuckle, and as he glanced at Freya, he saw a smile on her face, too. "I don't have much time left for anything else once I've finished doing everything he wants me to do."

"Sleep is one of those things," Gaius commented dryly, rolling his eyes theatrically. Turning to Freya, he continued: "He sleeps four hours every night on average."

"That's not true!" Merlin argued. "I get a whole six hours on weekends."

Freya laughed at this, even though she looked a little scared as well, and her laughter was infective, to say the least. Soon, the three of them were laughing, and they spent the whole night talking and laughing. Until it was getting late and Freya had to go home, Merlin even forgot that he had homework he needed to do. For Arthur.

"If I'm not down here tomorrow morning before you leave, please come up and wake me," he informed Gaius before he went up to his bedroom. "Arthur is going to have my head if I'm late for class again. With his books."

"Understood," Gaius nodded. "Just don't stay up all night. You need your four hours of sleep."

"I won't." Merlin smiled at his uncle. "Good night, Uncle Gaius." With that, he walked up the stairs to his room, heading for another sleepless night filled with homework.


Yay, another update! I'm so proud of myself.

Right. I don't have much to say apart from that. Oh, and this: Please review! Because Merlin and Arthur still love reviewers, even though Merlin is busy not noticing that Freya is in love with him.

I'll see you guys in the next chapter!