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What was the point of revising if deep down, you knew you weren't good enough.
That every single aspect of you, every single part of you silently, insecurely, clawing onto the prospect of being 'smart enough' for set 1, was masked by the outgoing and joyous persona presented to everyone around you.
Even if you felt stupid, even if you felt miserable, even if looking to the side of you at times, those walnut eyes with speckles of gold etched between them, filled with a silent and deep feeling of childish adoration, made you sick.
And that it felt like hell.
...
Was what Avery would think if he did feel and think like that!
It's quiet in the dark, solitary room that he confides in, the blaring light of a computer screen hitting his face with the harshness of pale light, contrasting the abyss that encompasses the night. The silent, hushed whispers of air twirl about in ink, gently swirling against his windows. Words upon words fill his sight.
It's disgruntling. Staring at things he should know, things he should have memorised ages ago, taunting him on a platter of pixels that have to etch their way onto his tongue. Like parasites, or worms, wriggling around his brain, devouring it yet not well known, separate from the memory and knowledge that should be sticking into his brain.
But he doesn't care, surely not, it'd be stupid to allow for such things, like memorising something as silly as energy stores, or the ohms, to define him as a person- a simple number on a sheet, the outcome of all of this, doesn't define his character, I mean-
Yet it's just not sticking.
It's leeching onto his brain and making it ache, but it just... won't stick. That's the thing he's always hated about science, how it would take ages for him to remember something for some odd reason, yet everything else came about so much more easily everywhere else.
Even in darkness, where his mind was less clouded, less entranced by the almost church-like manner of revision, as though he was within a mass, and AQA atoning it-
Nothing worked.
And it was starting to irritate him a lot.
"This is so stupid."
His dark green eyes, almost akin to the very darkness that lingers to the side of him, almost malevolent in it's emptiness, stare blankly and miserably towards the blaring screen in front of him, torturing his eyes with symbols upon symbols, meaningless words.
He sighs, a whisper of a laugh just at the edge of his throat.
"This is genuinely so stupid."
His screen still blares at him, time doesn't slow down, he knows that he still has to do this exam in a few hours, whether he likes it or not.
Staring at the equations before him, Avery's eyes turn downward for a few moments because of the headache he's getting staring at the screen before him, almost like he's been looking at it for 15 hours on end, and his eyes silently dart left, towards his phone.
Help. He could use some help. Or maybe a distraction..?
It's not like Derek would mind..?
Quietly, his fingers brush against glass as he turns on his phone, his wallpaper illuminating his dark room further with an array of light, illuminating his face even more with an intoxicating glow of white light. He opens up his saved numbers and presses upon the contact on the top of the list, pressing call, and silently waiting for a response.
Ring. It rings once.
Ring. It rings twice.
Ring- He picks up.
"Hi."
"Avery it's one in the morning, you should be asleep, why are you calling me at this hour..." Derek's drowsy voice murmurs down he phone as green eyes half-contain the sheepish laugh that threaten's to leave his mouth.
"I know... I know... I'm sorry- you act like you're not the one usually staying up late at night instead of sleeping-" he whisper's quietly into the phone.
"We have an exam tomorrow... or today... or whatever- you should be asleep idiot." Derek respond's back, voice still half-hoarse from waking up suddenly.
Avery's quiet for a moment.
He then murmurs; "Do I hang up-?"
"No."
Derek responds too quickly to even process what he's saying, and by the time he realises, it's too little too late. He can't feign nonchalance, and sigh's as he continues; "what's wrong..."
"Can you come over and help me revise?"
"At this hour-?"
"Please..?" his voice soften's into the phone, the subtle begging entering ears like a lullaby, drowning out the urge to fall asleep, completely replaced with the need to stay awake, "I need your help Derek... please?"
A flustered silence swirl's through the other end, it almost being laughable at how obvious blush creeps up Derek's shoulder's and face at an embarrassing and unprecedented pace.
He was easy. And Avery sure as hell knew that. He knew he wouldn't give up the chance to be a saviour, saving his poor damsel from the evil's of gcse physic's, with it's series and parallel circuits... how horror inducing, eve if it meant sacrificing all his cognitive abilities to AQA itself, to forever be corrupted and tainted with all the knowledge of the gcse universe.
"... I'll be there in ten minutes."
"My window's open-" he responds back while opening said window, "you still know how to climb up onto the second floor of my house, right..?"
"Mhm."
"'Kay, I'll see you in a bit, my knight in shining armour-" Avery teases, promptly being hung up on.
Too easy.
Derek was way too easy, and he enjoyed every single second and ounce he got out of it.
Back to his revision, his eyes drift onto the three-pin plug system.
Blue wire, neutral, the bottom left of a plug. Brown wire, live, bottom right and 230 volts. Yellow and green wire, earth wire, top of the plug and diverter of current if something goes wrong.
All boring junk, like the national grid, step-up transformer's turning current into 100,000 volts, then step-down transformer's reducing it to 230 volts. 50 hertz, the frequency.
Such thrilling knowledge just... sticking so much in Avery's mind...
It totally doesn't disappear after two seconds of staring at it. No, surely not.
The wind blow's inside of his room as he tries to convince his mind to just... remember.
It doesn't work.
And it's just so irritating, it's so stupid, he's so stupid, he's-
A loud thud hit's the floor and Avery's eyes jolt towards the sound, before relaxing quickly.
"Since when was it so hard to enter through your window."
"Since you started sneaking in like an idiot, thank you."
"... for sneaking in through your window like an idiot?"
"For coming," he responds, briefly kissing him, before continuing, "you look like a mess."
Amongst the little light, emerald irises can make out Derek's hair and clothes, half-messy and clearly rushed on, the hood he's wearing draping onto his head as feeble protection against the frigid night that threatens to consume him with it's coolness.
"I can't possibly look that horrible."
"You don't, I just like teasing you." he snickers in response, his eyes now fixed upon the other's, an interlocking of their gazes.
It's silent. A comfortable silence and sense of tranquillity fill's the air with it's presence, eyes glued onto one another with a dream-like adoration that can only be described in fairy-tale romances, like in worlds that don't exist. Before either one of them can truly comprehend their own actions, their hands hold onto each other as all the past moments of the night culminate into a messy kiss, deeply cutting all the tension before and clasping onto it through each second of the night.
Avery bites down hard enough to draw blood, all states of matter present in the moment, a mess of solid liquid and gas (the air around them) swirling in a cursed cocktail of enamour.
He (Derek) pulls away.
"Okay that's... enough of that." he murmurs softly as he dazedly speaks, "I came here to help you revise, so I'm going to help you do that. Come on-"
"Way to ruin it-?"
"I don't care about the scientific nor physic's side of making out, Avery, that's not in the AQA specification, and neither should you right now..."
"Nerd," he rolls his eyes for a moment, "okay, fine..."
Their irises now part away from each other and stare onto the screen, scrolling down onto one of the required practicals for the exam. Specific heat capacity, how to measure it.
Essentially, you heat up a solution by 1°C, and you measure how long it takes to change 1kg of that amount in joules per kilogram... at least, that's what he remembered..?
It's what his eyes skimmed anyways while looking through the paragraph before him.
"The key points you need to remember is essentially energy needed for a 1°C increase in a 1kg substance," Derek points out softly, lips subtly rubbing against each other to soothe the marks upon his bottom one, "you'd use a bunsen burner or water-bath, depending if the question asks for a more or less efficient method."
"That's so stupid though, why not assume they're, I mean the imaginary scientist or student that's probably in a question like this, is gonna want the better method, I mean it makes sense for them to want that, right? Instead... I have to plan ahead for questions that ask how to improve the method you wrote down..? Where's the logic in that."
"There's none, that's why exam's are stupid and very clearly need reforming, which is why I hate them as much as you do."
"Hmm."
"Want to try out some random practise questions instead?" he almost tentatively asks, unwillingness laced in his own voice as well, as his gaze now transfixes itself onto Avery's half-irritated posture.
"Sure."
Derek quietly takes the laptop and moves it closer towards him (as he stands in front of the desk Avery occupies), quickly typing up a query for past paper questions, before returning it to it's original place.
"Do we do them together or not?" green eyes murmur quietly, his voice somehow growing in tension. It's picked up on.
"You decide, I mean the laptop is all yours, not mine so-"
"Together then, I don't wanna be watched... that's kinda weird."
The first question presents itself before their eyes;
Question 1: What's the unit for a radioactive sample. [1 mark]
"Is that not sieverts..?"
"Close, that's for the dosage, so you're on the right track."
Avery partially slumps over in disappointment.
"Think with the letter 'b'."
"I can't for the life of me think of anything starting with 'b' that could be the answer..."
"It's becquerels, written as 'Bq' as it's unit."
"Cool. Next question."
Question 2: The half-life for a substance is 20 hours. How long will it take for the substance to divide by 16. [2 marks]
"That's easy, isn't it 320 hours..?"
Derek hesitates for a while, then speaks, "No, not quite, you need to convert 16 as a power of 2, then by whatever it's powered by, you multiply that by 20. You're close though."
"Yeah, like me failing two easy questions in a row is making me any closer to a passing grade," he murmurs back quietly, something between a scowl and hurt mixed upon his face... insecurity.
"Maybe radiation is you're weak spot, it doesn't mean you're stupid just because you need to revise it more."
"Well I am, so I don't know what you're point is..." Avery mutters under his breath, staring at the laptop with the same amount of contempt as he had before Derek's arrival.
"You got two questions wrong, that doesn't make you stupid in the slightest..? You're not stupid at all, in fact-?"
"Oh shut up-!" Avery almost barks, before calming down again, "I don't need to hear it from you of all people, can we go back to focusing on this now-"
"No." Brown eyes cut in sharply, staring at the other, "What's up... and be honest because I've started to notice you become more irritable over the past few moments and I don't want you remaining upset."
"Leave it-"
"No, Avery, I'm not going to."
"Stop saying my name so often like you're trying to ground me or something-"
"Clearly you recognise what I'm doing because it's working on you then," he quips back, before softening again, "please tell me what's up, I don't want you being upset."
There's quiet. The wind rustles. A constant routine at this rate.
Avery speaks.
"I just... feel so stupid. It's kind of pathetic, right? Like I'm meant to be smart, I mean I know I am smart 'cause why would I be in top set if I wasn't?
But I just feel so incredibly stupid around you and everyone around me when they even show an ounce of being better than me in anything, or even answer questions correct and correct me at times... my parent's expect me to be the best, even if they insist they don't, and it's like I'm so overwhelmed suddenly that I don't feel good enough anymore.
I could just be lazy and slack off with revision 'cause I never needed to revise. And now I don't know how to, and now I leave it last minute, and now I'm not goin' to do well 'cause I've left it so last minute.
I'm cooked, and I suck, and I'm dumb. It's pathetic." he blurts out, his chest feeling lighter than before.
"You're not dumb." he reiterates again.
"I am, especially compared to you. Don't even try to deny it."
"You can't compare yourself to me when you know I'm nothing more than a loser, Avery." he responds quietly.
"Well, I'm a loser too, so that cancels out, doesn't it? Therefore I can."
"Avery..."
"You don't even understand what it's like Derek," he breathes out, almost weak, "to feel like this. You've always been the best, you've always been who people look for when they need answers, you've always been the smart, brilliant one at school, you don't understand how it's like to not be that, and be me."
"..."
"But y'know what? I don't care, and I'll continue to tell people that I don't care, 'cause it's easier than realising I do care. Done. Stop trying to understand me and stop being concerned, just help me dude." he sighs, looking back at the chrome-book screen.
Silence.
The wind rustles.
"... but Avery. You're nothing less than brilliant."
"I'm not."
"But you are Avery, I get you, I really do understand you-"
"You don't!" he murmurs back in frustration, "If you did, you'd see me as I see myself-!"
"... Listen to me please."
He pauses.
"The way I perceive your doubts and worries will forever be a selfish projection of my own insecurities, Avery, that's why I can never truly perceive you as nothing less than brilliant and something that requires respect.
The very way in which you carry yourself, represent and fight for your morals with such an overwhelming sense of dignity, and embody the very values that define what it means to be good, completely overpower the futility of something as meaningless as this science test." his hand's grab hold onto Avery's as his eyes linger down onto them, clasping onto warm palms with reverence.
"And even then, at the end of the day - in the instance where this still overwhelms you with a massive sense of grief - there's still other tests you can 'lock in' for, and it still won't define you in the instance where you do 'fail' -which you won't, because you never do, and you're too hard on yourself.
You'll do fine, Avery, I know you will, because I know you're nothing close to an idiot. And I know that because I know you, and because you're the very thing that I cherish and I adore...
I adore you... for you."
Auburn eyes linger softly upon the palms that now clasp onto his own, ones that seemingly did not tremble a few moments ago, when riddled with insecurity, though seem to now, and gently caress the indents of his hands tenderly, soft like the blanket of warmth that laces the air with serenity.
The sounds of silent breathing echoes against the words professed into the night. They linger against each crevice and crack within the wall-
Silence.
Followed by a hic.
Then a snort with muffled laughter, and silent tears that drip upon hands carefully, bedazzling them with damp light.
"Wait- No... Avery I didn't mean-"
"You didn't do anything-"
"Was it-"
Avery snorts, "Something you said?" he pauses, wiping a tear with his sleeve, "what wasn't it you said-"
"Did I upset you..." Derek's voice responds quietly, almost weak in it's manner. Feeble, quiet against the blaring projections of equations, almost ironically like the penetrating power of an alpha particle, weak in it's vocal projection, yet strongly ionising against his heart.
"No Derek you obviously didn't..." he snickers with a half-muffled sob, "You're genuinely such a fucking loser, I'm crying because that was so disgustingly sweet- I might get a toothache by even being in the same vicinity as you..." he snickers again, a smile plastered on his face as he shoves the other playfully, "Jeez dude, get a job or something-"
"Avery... don't deflect-"
He sighs softly, cutting him off, "I love you too, by the way. That meant a lot. Ew, you're such a loser."
"Shut up." he teases quietly with a small smile plastered on his face, met with a soft one back.
Avery wipes his tears once more as the wind continues to drift against the window.
All he can do is think to himself about how he is smart and is good enough.