Hi everyone! :) I hope you'll enjoy this three-shots, which is my attempt at what is possibly the most horrible cliché around there :D This first chapter is mainly to set the story, I promise the second one is much more interesting, with almost exclusive Arthur/Merlin interaction.

I live for reviews. Really. You'll have my eternal love (and a personnalised answer, naturally :D) if you take the time to tell me a few words of encouragement or critique.

If anyone who has read Of the Dangers Of Monologues is here: all the reviews I've received have asked for a third chapter, so I'm working on it...But I just had to get rid of this plot bunny before I could continue.

The day had been going on quite normally. Well, normal for Camelot, meaning the daughter of a random King had come to the Castle for a random reason, accompanied with the shifty man with the crafty smile that was integral part of the whole Princess panoply, and Morgana had gasped and issued a warning as she saw him – apparently, she had dreamt of him poisoning a goblet in Arthur's own chambers.

Merlin was a bit nonplussed and mainly hoped that this time he wouldn't have to actually drink the said poison. His quite flippant attitude, however, suddenly came to an end as he arrived in the Prince's chambers, only to see Arthur with the goblet Morgana had described already to his lips. His heart skipped a beat as he screamed at his master not to drink it, and then decided to quit pumping blood through his veins altogether as the Prince's eyes widened and then fluttered closed, causing his breath to quicken as he rushed to make sure Arthur didn't hurt his head as he fell.

He had barely had the time to check that the poison was not instantaneous and that his master was still breathing when the Princess rushed into the room with an expectant smile on her lips - a smile that quickly fell as she assessed the situation. Afterwards was still a bit blurry; he barely remembered painfully heaving Arthur on his bed, calling the guards to restrain the Princess, and then Gaius arriving, quickly smelling the goblet and issuing a diagnostic.

"This was no poison, Merlin."

Said boy issued a huge sigh of relief, realizing as fresh air filled his chest that he had barely breathed in the past few minutes. A sleeping draught, then, like in the Labyrinth – much better than poison. Actually, perhaps he could even use the fact that Arthur had fallen asleep hours before the sun was to set to have a little time to himself, he thought, already smiling in appreciation.

"This was a love potion."

The warlock's eyes widened and he shot a glance the way the Princess had been taken away, reflecting wryly that he didn't even remember the name of the girl Arthur was going to be in love with until they found a solution. At least there was little chance of him ending up in the stocks on Arthur's behalf, he supposed, not if the lady was in jail or shipped off to her homeland – but it would mean that the Prince would be even crankier than he usually was.

"I guess the Princess Myrlia succeeded to come in just as Arthur had drunk the potion and thus was the first person he saw? I think you'll have a nasty few days until I can reverse this, my boy – Arthur won't like not being able to see his new beloved."

No matter how the seemingly innocent queries of the Physician actually reflected his own thoughts, Merlin's brain was brutally brought to a halt by them. The first person he saw? What?

"You're not telling me this potion would make sure Arthur would fall in love with the first person he saw after drinking it, are you?"

"Why yes I am, Merlin." Gaius answered gravely, arching an eyebrow as the boy before him paled to an impossible degree. "What's wrong with you, boy? You look like you've seen a ghost! Sit down before you fall over."

As Merlin explained everything, from Morgana's warning to Arthur's body crashing to the floor, Gaius' lips twitched once or twice, but he managed not to smile as he felt his protégé's distress. Thoughtfully caressing his chin in order to cover his mouth in case he let a grin escape anyway, the old Physician tried to comfort the boy as much as he could.

"Oh well my boy, I'll start working on a cure right away. And even if I can't do anything, from what you've told me Arthur barely had the time to swallow once before you told him to stop, so the effects will probably naturally wane off in a few days' time anyway. Don't look so down, Merlin. What could possibly happen that would be so distressing?"

Famous last words indeed.

Needless to say, Merlin hadn't exactly been able to relax during his unexpected day-off; neither did he fall in a peaceful sleep once in bed. Instead he tossed and turned this night, sleep eluding him until he decided that he would just have to ignore his master until the potion had worn off. Arthur had replaced him easily enough with Cedric, he thought scornfully – surely it wouldn't be so difficult to find a replacement for a week or two? This thought in mind, he finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

"Absolutely not, Merlin."

"But why, Gaius? I could help you with your patients for a week; no one would be the wiser!"

"Those kinds of changes always get back to Uther in one form or another. Of course, he usually pays absolutely no notice to them, but we can't risk Arthur's name grabbing his attention."

"And why couldn't he know? Why would he even care?"

Gaius shot him an exasperated look, clearly at the end of his patience. Well tough, because Merlin wasn't at the end of his protests - by far.

"You've been Arthur's manservant for almost a year now, thrice as long as any other servant ever managed to do so, and except for that mess with Cedric two months ago you've continually stayed by his side. He has defied his father's orders to save your life. Do you really think Uther wouldn't even be curious to know about your temporary reassignment?"

Trying to ignore the pleasure those words evoked in him, Merlin thought he could see his mentor's point, but kept on objecting all the same:

"What if we told him the truth?"

Uh-oh. The eyebrow. What had he said now?

"You want to tell Uther his son has been enchanted?"

"Well, it's not like we did the potion anyway, so we couldn't get blamed!"

"That's right Merlin. However, the potion in question caused Arthur to have…feelings of a romantic nature, let's say…" Merlin winced. "Towards you."

The young warlock still didn't see where Gaius was going with this.

"And then what?"

"He'd want to break the enchantment immediately of course; and what is the easiest way to do so?"

Merlin almost answered "magic", but that didn't make much sense, and anyway his magic had always failed to erase Arthur's unnatural feelings in previous such cases. So what could one do to make sure Arthur didn't love him anymore? The answer was slow in coming, but it seemed quite obvious when Merlin actually thought about it.

"Killing me." He whispered. Gaius gave a grave nod.

"Indeed. Should you die now, Arthur's feelings would disappear."

"Would Uther really do it, even if other solutions were there that just asked for a little more time? I'm his 'trusted ally in the fight against magic' now, remember?"

"Oh, I'm sure he would give us a few days, perhaps even a week, to try and find a solution in my science books. But what if we can't find anything by then? Is that a gamble you're prepared to take, just in order not to see the Prince until he has gotten back to normal?"

The answer to this question was obvious, although Gaius' whole reasoning still sounded far-fetched to the sorcerer. Swallowing a little, Merlin quickly put on his neckerchief and bravely walked through the door, intent on getting to his master's quarters as fast as possible in order not to possibly have second thoughts.

Somehow, when Gaius had told him about the potion, he had pictured a totally ridiculous Arthur intent on serenading him at every occasion, or perhaps even an Arthur gone mad with lust, drawing him hard against his body and not letting him escape, ravishing his mouth and firmly pressing his hips against him...Ahem. He coughed a little in order to chase off his own thoughts, which had started to get disturbingly graphic.

Anyway, he had never even considered that the potion wasn't meant to reverse the Prince's personality or to induce lust, but was actually a love potion. He hadn't imagined that his master's smile, when directed at him, would be the same one he had addressed Sophia with a few months ago, a grin so roguishly tender. He hadn't been able to completely comprehend what it would mean to have the blond man's attention solely concentrated on him.

His miscomprehension of what exactly the potion meant to do was precisely why he froze as he entered the Prince's chambers and was met with a delighted – and yet somehow still contained in a very princely way – beam.

"Hi, Merlin."

This was new as well, Merlin thought. Surely this acknowledgement of his presence as something other than the arrival of the man's servant shouldn't have felt half as personal as it actually did. But the way the Prince had drawled his name was just…Merlin couldn't help but to shudder a little, and then dismissed his reaction as a result of the coolness of the room.

"Um, hello Sire. Gaius said you might…not be feeling well this morning. Do you want to reschedule our training session?"

A golden eyebrow lifted elegantly, and although it had nothing on Gaius', Merlin couldn't help but feel patronised.

"I feel perfectly fine, Merlin, thank you for your concern. Actually, why don't you help me get into my armour and then we can adjourn to the field?"

It was voiced as a question, but it was anything but a request. Merlin swallowed. His armour. Right. Well, he had done this a thousand times.