Sleepless
Theta couldn't sleep, which was ridiculous because he could always sleep. He wasn't the type of person who would be up all night because of something that was on his mind. But right now both suns had set and pure darkness was over Gallifrey and Theta was lying awake. He had tried lying on his back, his side, even his stomach, he tried with the cover and without but it was no help. Comfort wasn't the problem, worry was.
Results day was two and a half weeks away and it terrified Theta. He had always acted like he didn't care about exams, like he thought they weren't important, like it didn't matter how he did. And he'd ended up believing it in a way and he hardly revised. He couldn't explain it but during exam season he had been so relaxed that he hadn't felt like the exams were right on top of him. He hadn't done the work and Rassilon knew he had heard enough about it since then.
"If you end up failing, Theta, it is your own fault," his father had told him, when he had admitted he was scared he wouldn't get the grades he needed. Theta had just stared at him for a moment, that had not been the reassuring response he had been hoping for and what made it worse was that his father was right. His father continued, "You knew far enough in advance when the exams were. You had plenty of time to study, you had plenty of time to prepare, you're the one who chose not t bother. You're the one who thought seeing that precious boyfriend of yours was more important."
"It wasn't like that," Theta argued, "I did study, I just didn't study enough. The time went a lot quicker than I expected it to, I didn't realise how close they were when I wasn't revising."
"That's a poor excuse, that is and you know it," his father retorted and the truth was Theta did know it. "You should've created a study plan and stuck to it. Even Koschei was sensible enough to do that."
"What's that supposed to mean? 'Even Koschei'?" Theta asked defensively.
"Everyone knows he's not the smartest kid around or the nicest but he was more sensible than you were," his father replied. Theta wanted to answer to say that he wasn't sure if he was offended for himself or Koschei because of that comment, but his father continued before he had the chance, "But that in itself proves where your priorities lie."
"You know what, Dad, just stop it," Theta said, desperation seeping into his voice, "I get it, all right, I stuffed up, I'm an idiot, can you shut up about it now?"
"You get it?" his father replied, "I hope that's true and maybe you'll learn from this but knowing you, you won't."
"Dad, I'm not stupid. I made a really stupid mistake and because of it my whole future is at stake," Theta shouted in an attempted to get his Dad to actually listen.
"Don't raise your-"
Theta didn't give him a chance to interrupt, "My whole future is at stake. My whole life, all right, I get that. And you can lecture me all you want, it won't change anything. I'll still have stuffed up. I'll still have the chance of getting what I really want out of my future because of it. I'll still have to live with that forever."
"Yeah? Well remember that, and remember that you've got no one to blame but yourself."
Theta cleared the memory and brought himself back to the present. Back to the darkness of his bedroom. He hated being this worried, he actually felt sick with it. He wasn't sure he could cope with two more weeks of it. What made it worse was knowing Koschei was getting his at the end of this week, because he had been with a different exam board. He knew he's see Koschei acing and have to wait another two weeks to see whether his results were as bad as he thought or, Rassilon forbid, even worse. Because in his mind he had managed to convince himself that there was no way he had got the grades he needed. Even the exam he had done enough revision for had gone badly, he had completely blanked during it. He wished he could just know, right now, what he's grades were, just so he could stop worrying.
Theta sighed, he could tell he wasn't going to get any sleep, so he rolled over and picked him book up from under his bed. Reading was better than lying there freaking out.
A/N: Theta in this is totally me last night. 'cept my Mum's a lot nicer than Theta's Dad and has never told me it's my own fault despite the fact that I'm completely in Theta's position. And by the end Koschei totally became Laura545 (who's Scottish and gets her results on the 4th, while my poor English self has to wait until the 18th.). So yeah, basically, I wrote this to try and stop freaking out.