Summary: In which Gaius helps Arthur to realise that Merlin is, quite literally, much more than a servant. As in, he's actually regularly filling at least six different positions on any given day with the chores Arthur gives him, and the least the prince could do is to stop being a jerk on top of it.

This is set just after Season 1 Episode 11, in a world where Merlin actually does tell Arthur "I told you so". As you can expect, Arthur isn't particularly gracious about the reminder that Merlin was right and he was wrong.

It really only sprang up because I *could not* stand how Merlin was treated throughout the series. I hope you like it!

Gaius looked at the young prince standing before him. Arthur really believed that Merlin was being unreasonable and acting like "a girl's petticoat", but the truth of the matter was that Merlin was entirely justified in his irritation and Gaius couldn't continue to stand by when he could do something about it. Also, Merlin was probably at the moment genuinely considering all the ways he could recreate the donkey spell from the goblin incident and that would benefit exactly no one.

(Even if it would be funny.)

"May I speak frankly, Sire?" Gaius asked calmly.

"Why not?" he asked with some exasperation. In a louder voice that he knew would carry through the door into Merlin's closet of a room, he called out "It's never stopped Merlin before!"

Gaius chose not to inform him that Merlin was not actually nearby.

"Very well," the old physician replied, straightening up and leveling Arthur with a flat stare that surprised him. "Why are you really upset at Merlin?" he asked bluntly.

Somehow Arthur knew that the question was more than it sounded, but he really couldn't figure out how or why - and, to be honest, he was much too riled up to really care. "I'm sure you've heard by now that he's still grumbling about the unicorn, despite the fact that everything was resolved," the prince answered impatiently, waiting for the point at which Gaius talked Merlin into sense and the idiot servant saw how he was wrong.

"Ah yes," Gaius said conversationally. "You two had a disagreement, and you've had a rather poor reaction to him being proven right." Arthur started in surprise at the rather blunt assessment. "I can concede," Gaius continued with a rather patronising-looking nod, "that he probably shouldn't have gloated about it, but it does become rather tiring giving advice, only to be ignored, and then being the one required to clean it up."

The prince stared in surprise at the accusation and chastisement behind the words. It had been a long time since anyone had accused him of any wrongdoing, and longer still since Gaius had last expressed any sort of real disappointment in him. He was equally surprised by the occurrence and annoyed that Gaius was taking Merlin's side.

Now even more irritated than when he'd first come in, he defended himself, feeling much like he had when he was much younger and he and Morgana were arguing about something. The king was never to be bothered with their quarrels, as his advisor, or manservant, or the knight at the door - whichever adult was between them and him at the time, really - would tell them (and privately, Arthur always found that he always took Morgana's side, whether or not she was right). Gaius was usually the next best thing, and he was usually fairer about whatever he decided anyway. "It's not for Merlin to tell me what to do on a hunt, and why should I even have listened to him in the first place? Unicorns are magical and are therefore actually not allowed in Camelot. By the laws, I was supposed to have killed it anyway. Why should I have listened to him mumbling about leaving it alone? It's not his place," he said in exasperation, "and he needs to remember it."

The look on Gaius' face could only be described as thoroughly unimpressed. He folded his arms into the voluminous sleeves of his robes and answered rather pointedly: "Firstly, you should have listened to him because he's been right about these sorts of things in the past, and it caused disaster when you didn't listen to him. The unicorn, the knight Valiant, Bayard's chalice, Sofia of Tír Mòr, that servant Cedric, the false physician, the troll." The Eyebrow was raised, and Arthur wasn't quite sure it should be possible for it to get that high. "Each of them he tried to warn you about, and each time you dismissed his concerns, he had to come back to me so that we could figure out how to deal with them. Whether or not you liked how they were dealt with doesn't matter, because it is in fact all that was left to us after you ignored him. Merlin trusts and respects you enough to speak up to you when he has a concern, but I really do wonder whether you deserve it, as you don't even respect him enough to actually consider what it must take for a mere servant to tell the prince of Camelot that your honoured guest, the pretty girl you 'saved' in the woods, is actually using magic to try to kill you."

And Arthur didn't have a response to that. He'd never thought of it that way, nor had he realised just how often Merlin had tried to hint at some sort of danger in the past. Rather, he thought ruefully, he'd never wanted to truly consider how many times Merlin had been right about something and Arthur had gotten them into trouble that could have been avoided if he'd just listened. But he didn't have time to really dwell on the unpleasant revelation because Gaius wasn't finished.

"Secondly, Sire," and somehow, the prince found he didn't quite like hearing that title coming Gaius. He didn't say it in the sarcastic manner that Merlin usually did, and it was just as uncomfortable to hear Gaius say it in the same obsequious way that the rest of court did, as it was to hear Merlin do the same. But Arthur had been trained as a prince from birth, and very deliberately did not flinch at the oddity. "What, precisely, is Merlin's place? Is it as your personal manservant cleaning your chamberpot and washing your socks? As a general palace servant to be assigned to visiting nobles? Or perhaps as your personal stable-hand to muck out your horses? Maybe he is instead meant to be a pageboy carrying your letters and messages all throughout the citadel, or a squire to be cleaning your armour and polishing your weapons? Or would you prefer him to be a simple dogsbody to follow you around throughout the day for if you should have need of him?" The old physician's voice never rose above a conversational level, but the words battered against Arthur's ears anyway.

Blue eyes widened with every question as Gaius ticked off jobs until he was using both hands. Merlin's complaints about his chores were always in jest, so they were never taken seriously. Or so Arthur had thought. Hearing them listed out in this manner painted a different image. In Arthur's defense, when Merlin had first been assigned to him, Arthur had been trying to make Merlin look as incompetent as possible so that his father would fire him because he hadn't wanted the insolent peasant from the marketplace as a manservant when Uther had appointed him. But Merlin had always somehow managed to get the jobs done, and Arthur hadn't really thought of it after that, except that Merlin had become the person he trusted most to look after his horses and kennels properly, so of course he'd have Merlin do it. It didn't hurt that mucking the stalls was unpleasant and probably Merlin's most detested chore and so it was the perfect punishment for when Merlin skived off work to go laze about in the tavern. Although, hearing the list of duties he'd had him doing, it wasn't very likely he'd had much time at all to be skipping work anywhere. He always complained that Merlin always barely cleaned his boots, but kept his armour and weapons immaculate, so that the overall effect was still untidy when he had to be presented somewhere. But if he'd been filling all these different roles, it wasn't really any wonder that he prioritised the armour and weaponry for Arthur's protection over the boots that still served their purpose even if they were filthy.

"You can search this entire kingdom Arthur, but you'll be very hard-pressed to find a servant who can properly care for battlefield armour, or a squire who would keep your rooms, or an advisor who would lower himself to muck out your stables because you were in a temper, or a knight who could properly advise you on the plights of the common people, or a stablehand who would able to handle having you hack at him with a sword when he doesn't know how to use a shield, or a pageboy who could not only read and write your missives, but reliably pick up on all the cues in the response that would give you a true idea of how genuine the person was when he made it," Gaius said archly, though not unkindly. "And Merlin does all of it because, in the beginning, he hadn't known what a manservant was supposed to do, but now he still cares enough for you as a person to do what he can as well as he is able." To be pedantic, Merlin would be a considered mage, not a knight, but Gaius wouldn't drop that particular cannonball until Arthur had proven himself worthy of the knowledge.

There was a pit somewhere in Arthur's stomach, and it had grown so big while Gaius was talking, that Arthur wondered how it hadn't swallowed him and Gaius and everything in the room. He hadn't really noticed when he stopped calling for pages, or that he couldn't actually remember who his squire was. If he was honest with himself, in the complete privacy of his own mind, Merlin did in fact fill all of the roles Gaius had listed without Arthur realising it. Hearing it all together, it was ... admittedly much for one person, and he realised, with some guilt, that maybe Merlin was actually as lazy Arthur often said he was.

It probably showed on his face, because Gaius sighed, a bit of the righteous anger in him leaving with the breath. He sat wearily on the bench at his table and looked at the young prince standing before him. "Since you were a young boy, you've detested the distance that your station as a prince put between you and those around you. That is understandable, but you don't realise that you yourself work to maintain that distance whenever things are not in your favour, particularly where Merlin is concerned. If Tom the smith, and Ulric the baker had a disagreement, and Ulric was in the right, Tom could not - and would not - get Ulric sentenced to time in the stocks later that day over some completely unrelated, but minor fault with his bread." The last statement was rather pointed, raised eyebrow and all.

Heat rushed to Arthur's face and he knew that he must be bright red, but Gaius did him the courtesy of not commenting on it. Instead, he asked a question that Arthur had always very carefully never contemplated. "Quite a bit of this boils down to the question: why do you refuse to admit that Merlin is your friend?"

After a prolonged silence, during which Arthur hoped he wasn't meant to actually vocalise a response, Gaius prompted, "Well?"

How was he supposed to answer? That as prince, the only person he had ever considered a proper friend was a servant? And one whom he'd initially hated for daring to stand up to him at that? That the only person he could think to confide in at this point in his life was a peasant paid to keep his rooms, and who truthfully had no other choice because no one could actually refuse such an honour bestowed by the king himself? He did consider Merlin his friend, but the truth was that even he could admit that it was, well, sad that the prince's only friend was his assigned manservant.

Even beyond that, it was just not done. They were from vastly different stations in society. What would a country peasant have in common with a crowned prince? Merlin hadn't even known how to keep Arthur's rooms when he first started, and Arthur had despaired of his incompetence. It wasn't until he'd gone with him to defend Ealdor that he realised that Merlin had had absolutely no frame of reference for how to keep Arthur's multiple rooms when he'd spent his entire life sharing a single room in a hut with his mother. If he was being fair, Merlin had progressed in leaps and bounds in how capable he was at his duties since arriving to Camelot. He was however, still often just below the standards that Arthur was accustomed to from other native Camelot servants, many of whom had been raised learning their roles. But having heard how much responsibility he constantly placed on Merlin, his work was commendable for what he was able to actually accomplish out of it all.

What he actually said in answer to Gaius, in a manner that on anyone else would have been called sheepish, was "It's not proper, Gaius -"

"Because your usual interactions are the height of social propriety?" Gaius interrupted dubiously. Their current argument was a glaring example.

Reddening again, Arthur pressed on, voicing a fear that he was constantly trying to push down. "And despite appearances, Merlin knows when to stay quiet. He does not step out of line with the knights, but I know he still hasn't forgiven most of them for the things he heard before the witchfinder was caught." The prince's face was set, daring the physician to dismiss the lifelong fear he had hidden behind the words.

Gaius' lined face softened, and he motioned for Arthur to sit with him. Picking up Arthur's calloused palm in his own weathered ones, Gaius said earnestly: "You've had many experiences that give you good reason to doubt the motives of those who would get near to you." Gaius held his gaze as he said seriously, "but Merlin stays because he sees you as more than a prince. To him, you are a person who he calls friend."

And it was the truth. Beyond destiny and princes and warlocks and magic, beyond seeing Arthur as the King he's meant to serve, Merlin truly did consider Arthur a friend. The fact made it even more difficult for him to continue to hide so much of himself from Arthur. Gaius tried to comfort him with assurance that one day, he would be able to be as open as he yearned to. Instead of it being the empty platitude that it had been before, Gaius was determined that it would happen - come hell or high water, even if he had to tie Arthur down himself so that he wouldn't do something stupid when he found out, it would happen.

"To add to that, your own experience with Merlin clearly shows that he believes that respect is to be earned and not merely given. Is it really so difficult to believe that he feels the same way about forgiveness?" Arthur didn't have a response to that that wasn't some version of It does sound rather like Merlin, doesn't it?

Gaius leaned back a bit, a mischievous little smile on his face. "Merlin could and would leave Camelot if he chose to, you know."

It was Arthur's turn to raise an eyebrow in question. The king had gifted Merlin with his post. Even though he was Arthur's servant, Arthur himself couldn't actually sack him because he would effectively be going against the king. If Merlin tried to leave, the king could (and Gaius knew he would, even if Arthur didn't believe it) have him arrested for treason. Not to mention, Uther would not take the perceived ingratitude kindly.

"Did you know that of all the servants in the palace, there are only a few of them who can both read and write?" Gaius asked leadingly as he got up to make himself busy with preparing some tincture or other. "And of those few, only five can do more than read an inventory list. Even then, Merlin is the only one who has even a basic grasp of any of the foreign languages that some of my research books are written in." That the foremost of those languages was the magical one, Arthur didn't need to know.

Gaius chuckled as he watched the realization dawn on Arthur's face. A servant with Merlin's loyalty, who was literate, and had even the rudimentary training that Merlin did as a physician, would be a very noteworthy asset to any noble, much less a king. Additionally, it was not the same to become a physician's apprentice as it was to become, for example, a baker's apprentice, or a carpenter's apprentice. Skilled workers were important, but skills could be developed and nurtured. A physician would not waste time with an apprentice who couldn't learn, or think, or adapt quickly enough to keep up with the demand to save lives. It just wasn't worth it. Suddenly, Merlin's assertion that his reason for coming to Camelot had actually been to apprentice under Gaius held a lot more weight, and Arthur recognised that while he had noticed Merlin's bravery and loyalty, both he and his father (and possibly very many other people) had completely overlooked these other, arguably equally valuable assets about his person.

Gaius turned to the beginnings of his tincture, deciding that he'd meddled enough for one day. He would wait to see what Arthur did with this new information before he tried to step in again.

Of course I wanted Arthur to see the error of his ways, but I'm still trying to work out where exactly I can shove in somebody pointing out to Gaius that, of all the excuses he could have come up with, "the tavern" is singularly the worst place he could have claimed that the prince's manservant, who was also his own apprentice who helped save lives, regularly ran off to.

Just.

No.