I promise, the story progresses after this chapter, but this is quite important anyway,

Thank you again, I'm repeating myself (quite apt, considering the title), but I really do mean it.

Chapter Seven

"Father?" Arthur peered around his father's dormitory door, feeling queasy even as he did so.

"Arthur." Uther wasn't happy to see his son, he always made that perfectly clear, ashamed of how he never followed his orders, at how he always chose the opposite of what Uther wanted him to. Even though he knew it wasn't to spite him, it made him feel uneasy in his presence. "Can I help?"

Arthur knew his father was only using common courtesy, he didn't honestly want to help his son, "Um, not so much help, but just listen. I want to clear some things up,"

His father nodded to the seat beside his bed and Arthur sat, like a servant waiting to speak with a king,

"When I was fourteen..."

"I don't want to speak of this," he cut him off almost instantly, uncontrollable anger filling his thoughts, losing him the capability to think reasonably, "you were fourteen! You knew nothing of what it means to feel something like that, but I am to believe you have changed?" it wasn't much of a question, but it certainly was firing Arthur up.

"Father! I know I was only fourteen," he jumped out of his seat, his voice raised above his father's low dulcet tones, "but my age is unimportant. I was in love!"

"You were rebelling!"

"No." he paused, closing his eyes and swallowing fresh tears, "I did what I wanted, because, at the time, it felt right, it always has, I don't regret it, and I'd do it seventeen times over." he thought of Merlin for a second, and a second too long,

"Is this about the boy?" his father spun around, spitting as he spoke, face reddened with unreleased fury,

"What boy?"

"The dark-haired, pale, skinny one who you're sharing a dorm with,"

"Merlin, his name is Merlin!" he shrieked, "Don't you dare refer to him as nothing more than an appearance, because, dad, he is so much more! And you wouldn't acknowledge it if the whole world wrote you a letter each and thrust them under you nose!" his heart was beating so fast it was simply a hum, a loudening hum that was filling his ears with blood, filling his eyes with swirling fire, he couldn't see anything, nor hear anything that put Merlin in the wrong.

"And don't you dare speak to your father in that way?!"

"Don't you get it father?!" Arthur breathed in deeply, trying to steady his temper, he was numb and blind, he needed to regain the ability to think straight, "you're my dad, you're supposed to support me, to help me, to agree with me. Not treat me as though I was never your son just because of who I love!"

"So you love him now, do you?"

"Merlin, I love Merlin," he sighed, his pleasure in how it sounded fought helplessly against his strong antagonism, "and that is never going to change,"

"We'll see, this is just a phase, Arthur, a petty phase. Soon enough you will grow out of it and realise the errors of you ways," he folded his arms and looked down upon his only son with disappointment, but Arthur no longer cared,

"Father, this phase has lasted three years, it is not suddenly going to change because you want it to. Not everything revolves around you!" he slammed a fist against the bed post, frustrated (although that is an understatement) at his father's obstinacy. "and if you weren't so tenacious, you'd see that he makes me happy, he doesn't even know it yet, but this is more than a brief rendezvous in the forest when I was fourteen, this is something I don't want ever to go away. Father, he makes me smile whenever I think about him, he is endlessly kind, endlessly selfless, and endlessly perfect. It is impossible not to love him, and I wish other people would see that,"

His father stared at him, sheer disgust distorting his harsh features,

"Nothing is real without him."

And with that, Arthur spun on his heels, calmly opening the door and leaving. His thoughts were clearer in his head. he hoped they were in his father's as well.

But Arthur didn't hear his father's last cutting remark, his desperation turning to hatred towards his heir. His skin thickening and his head bubbling with ire. He hated his son. He hated what his son had become. And he hated himself because of it.

"I hope he breaks your heart, my son."

Arthur's heart was beating outside his chest, he could hear it as if it were not his own. Perhaps his mind was trying to distance himself from what he was beginning to realise he had just done.

He had just fervently kissed goodbye to his last chance of a relationship with his father. Any kind of relationship, he doubted he would get a chance to speak with his father again. Cursed and bloody, the realisation took over, demanding his throat to open and his eyes to fill. Fill so full that the blue couldn't hold it any longer, until the tears poured out staining innocent cheeks with guilt and regret. He should have kept quiet. There were so many other ways he could have gone about this. One of which, the one he wished he'd followed through, was silence. Keeping quiet, never saying anything about it. Possibly not even to Merlin. But then begged the question. Would he have been able to cope, knowing, and knowing that Merlin didn't. Would that have been bearable?

Arthur was usually the optimist, always finding some way of assuring himself that his 'run-between-the-raindrops' quality would prevail. But now he knew it wouldn't. He wouldn't be able to tell Merlin how he felt, and he was left without a father. He would be forever alone, and the thought was enough to kill him. That is, unless Merlin had worked it out... But no, Merlin was far too selfless to consider the possibility that someone might love him. He would deny it until he convinced himself that no one ever would. Merlin would be just as lonely as him.