OOO

Day 2: Vigil

(n. a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, esp. to keep watch or pray)

Summary: Katara is dead set on pulling an all nighter to study for her orgo quiz in the morning, but Zuko has other ideas.

OOO

Zuko knew he shouldn't have told Katara about that twenty-four hour library. His instincts were screaming no, but he decided to be the bigger person and give Katara — a girl who wasn't exactly known for being calm or rational — the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, that went and backfired splendidly the minute Zuko wandered into the stacks and saw Katara sprawled out over a study table fast asleep, a highlighter still clutched valiantly in her hand. But, was Zuko really surprised? There was a part of him that knew this would happen sooner or later despite all of his warnings about not getting sleep and burning herself out and a whole other slew of well meant words that Katara probably ignored.

Zuko checked his phone and rolled his eyes. Yup. Three in the morning. Figures.

Noticing that the entire floor of the stacks was completely deserted sans himself and a comatose Katara, Zuko flung his bag over his shoulder and let it slam loudly on top of one of the study tables with a deafening slam that echoed throughout the empty room. Almost immediately, Katara's head shot up as she screamed in surprise and darted her head frantically around the room, looking for the source of the noise. She rubbed at one of her eyes — smudging her eyeliner in the process — and finally made eye contact with Zuko who was staring at her with a strange mixture of admonishment and amusement.

Katara blinked and managed to look slightly abashed. "...I was just taking a nap."

"Sure you were," Zuko deadpanned. "Katara, it's past three, you're obviously tired. Go to bed!" Of their friend group, Zuko was the one that rose early and went to bed late, slaving over problem sets and actually doing all of the assigned reading, much to his friends' amazement and horror. 3AM was his regular bedtime. But lately, Katara was starting to follow his lead, as was currently evidenced, and he wasn't totally sure that that was the best idea.

"But you don't understand," Katara groaned. She dejectedly picked up a corner of her textbook and let it fall uselessly back on the table. "I have an organic chemistry quiz tomorrow and I have to do well on it. Otherwise, who knows what's going to happen?"

Zuko walked over and searched Katara's wrists for one of the hairbands she always had on hand. He plucked it off her wrist and began to collect the thick curls that were sticking up at odd angles. "Katara, it's just a quiz," Zuko reasoned. "It can't be worth that much of your grade."

"It doesn't matter," she pouted. "I need to make sure I'm doing these problems correctly, and whenever I go through the practice sets, there's always a couple of problems that I can't get right. And I'm not stopping until I get them right."

Most days, the fierce determination and desire for hard work was one of Katara's most awe inspiring and endearing qualities, and Zuko really did appreciate them. But, it was times like this where Katara took it to the extreme and pushed herself too hard, especially when she did everything in her power to understand something that was confusing her.

Zuko piled Katara's hair on the top of her head and collected it into a bun that he fastened with a hair tie. Being Katara's boyfriend taught him that Katara was considerably more agreeable when her hair was out of her face. "You do realize there's such a thing as over studying, don't you?"

"Tell that to the people that are going to totally ruin the curve for everyone tomorrow," Katara grumbled. "Did you know that someone actually got an A+ on the last quiz? An A. Plus!"

"So you're just going to stay up all night and cram for this quiz that I'm almost positive is only ten percent of your grade?" Zuko asked incredulously.

Katara pointed her finger in Zuko's face. "Grades add up," she replied sagely. "Besides, I want to make sure I know everything now so I'm not killing myself for the final. If anything, I'm being smart about this."

Zuko frowned. "No, you're being silly, actually." Katara opened her mouth to protest but Zuko swiftly cut her off. "I am not leaving you in the stacks by yourself to cry over a chem textbook in preparation for a quiz that you are probably going to pass anyway. You need sleep."

Katara whined and leaned backwards into Zuko's chest. "But I'm not dooone!"

Zuko shook his head and tried to hold back his smile over her antics. Katara never whined unless she was really exhausted, really stressed, or both. He plucked the highlighter out of her hand, placed it in the middle of the two pages she was reading, and shut her textbook. "Will you at least get out of here then?" Zuko pleaded. "I never should have shown you this place."

"Oh no, it's totally depressing, I'm with you," she exclaimed. If she was bothered by Zuko packing up her bag for her, she wasn't bothering to say anything about it. "But this is the only place where the librarians won't kick me out."

He held out her bag for her, holding it temptingly with just two fingers. She stared up at him dubiously and stared back at the desk she was just sleeping on, deciding what the better option was. Zuko sighed. "Look, how about this? Since you insist on burning the midnight oil, I'll make you some coffee, pull out some snacks, and stay up with you. But can we please get out of here? I'm not letting you fall asleep here. It's creepy…"

Creepy was an understatement. No one came into these stacks much and he was sure most of these books were a hundred years old. Literally. Plus the lights in here were motion sensored and turned off whenever people stopped moving. When you were studying so hard that you were sitting stock still and the lights here happened to shut off on you, it was downright unsettling. At least if Katara was in her room, she could just pass out in her bed.

It seemed that Zuko wasn't the only one pondering that scenario, and Katara finally plucked up her jacket from behind her and took her bag. "Fine," she grumbled. "But I'm actually going to study! No letting you distract me."

Zuko smirked. "I would never."

"Yes you would. That's what happened when I had my bio final last semester."

The memory made Zuko laugh as the two of them headed up the stairs and back to the main floor of the library. "Okay, I didn't distract you. You took my presence as a distraction to get away from doing the homework you had no intentions of finishing."

Katara crossed her arms. "Yeah. Because strutting around my room shirtless is just fun and harmless."

A blush flushed across Zuko's cheeks. "I wasn't strutting!" he argued. "It was...Spring! There was — it was hot! Your room had no air conditioning."

"Mmhm," Katara leered. "Sure." She stretched her arms over her head and yawned as they made their way outside into the cold weather. "I usually don't mind a shirtless Zuko, but the only thing I want to be ogling right now is a nice cup of coffee."

"I got it, I got it," Zuko assented. "Freshly brewed caffeine. Enough to keep you wired the rest of the night. Coming right up."

He walked them back to his dorm — it was closer and Zuko was the one with this rare brand of coffee that his Uncle had given him from home that was apparently the reason for Zuko's unnatural ability to stay awake for days on end doing work. Katara had often glared at the bag whenever she was in his room — "That can't be healthy for you, I mean who knows what's in that?" — but this time around, the moment she stepped into his dorm, she immediately grabbed the bag off of his desk and started to read off the ingredients that were on the back. She immediately wrinkled her nose and fell back into Zuko's desk chair. "Ugh, I feel like I'm gonna give myself heart palpitations."

Zuko was already getting his Keurig ready to make the coffee while he dug around his drawers for a t-shirt for Katara to wear. "It's not going to kill you. But I figured go hard or go home."

Katara still looked dubious. "I feel like that shouldn't apply to caffeine."

Zuko dropped his t-shirt on top of her head and grabbed the bag back from her. "Are you going to reconsider your all nighter and come to bed?"

"Ha ha," Katara scowled. "Nice try. I am studying for this quiz, and if I have to drink your...radioactive coffee blend to do it, then fine."

"Stop exaggerating, it's not radioactive."

"I thought your Uncle was a tea drinker," Katara complained. "Sweet, funny Uncle Iroh bought you that?"

Zuko shrugged. "He was...concerned. Figured I'd appreciate something with a little more...substance," he finished lamely.

Katara sighed and finally started removing her scarf and jacket. "I hope you're right about this."

By the time Katara was sitting comfortably in Zuko's t-shirt on Zuko's bed, the dastardly blend was already brewed, piping hot, and ready to go. The only problem was that Zuko's room didn't have much in the way of cream and sugar since Zuko typically always took his coffee black. So the dark liquid was sitting menacingly in her mug and Katara looked like she was about to throw up, run away, or do a strange mixture of both.

She gulped audibly and looked at Zuko desperately. "Do I have to?"

Zuko merely shrugged and relaxed into his chair. "You don't have to do anything, Katara," he reasoned. "If you don't feel like staying up, just go to sleep. You can stay over and share my bed."

Katara lowered the mug and glared across the room. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"On purpose?" Zuko exclaimed. "I would never do that. I'm just trying to support you in whatever you feel like you need to do."

Something between a scream, a whine, and a groan left Katara's throat and she went back to staring suspiciously at her drink. "You know I won't drink this."

"Then go to bed."

"See? You are doing this on purpose!"

Zuko got up, walked over to Katara, and took the mug back. He brought it to his mouth, took a large sip, and handed it back to Katara. He smacked his lips a little bit like he was contemplating the taste, and grinned. "Tastes fine to me."

That admission didn't seem to be doing much to comfort Katara and she pushed the mug back into his hands. "...I think I'll be fine without it, but...thanks," she finally admitted.

"You and I both know that you're not gonna stay awake if you're gonna study without coffee. You were falling asleep while you were getting dressed, I saw you," Zuko smirked.

"But...I still have to look over all of my notes one more time!" Katara protested.

Zuko frowned. Well, it certainly looked like words weren't going to get through to Katara. Not that this was at all surprising. Katara could be dead wrong about something and still argue with you for an hour and give you twenty different reasons as to why she was actually right. But Zuko was serious about sending Katara to bed early. He knew his girlfriend well and he knew that she wouldn't be able to function the next day after an all nighter. That was more his forte. But he supposed there were other ways of convincing her…

He placed the coffee on his desk and reached over the bed so that his arms were braced on either side of Katara's knees. He leaned in, cradled her cheek, and kissed her — deeply, unashamedly, and certainly with no intentions of starting slowly. There wasn't any time for that at the moment. Katara made a noise in the back of her throat like she was about to protest, but that only lasted for a second because she immediately shut her eyes and kissed him back just as enthusiastically.

Zuko slowly crawled onto the bed and tugged on the fabric by Katara's hips, silently pulling her into his lap and curling his arms around her waist. For all of the protesting and insisting that she needed to study, Katara didn't seem to be acting like she wanted to do anything else but lace her fingers on the back of his neck and keep kissing him. A soft groan echoed from her throat and into his, and for a moment Zuko realized that he certainly wouldn't have minded staying up with Katara if this is what they were going to be doing.

Remembering that there was a point to all of this, Zuko pulled away and smiled against her lips. "Come to bed."

Katara's eyes were still closed, but she was licking her lips and shaking her head. "I...I have to re-read the last chapter — " She was cut off when Zuko leaned in for another kiss, her words of protest being swallowed by their kiss.

Zuko pulled away again and Katara bit her lip. "...Y-You already made me the coffee…"

Another kiss, and this time Katara readily leaned into it like she was expecting the interruption. "...ten percent of my grade…"

Zuko reached up and thread his fingers into Katara's hair, pulling out the bun he had made her earlier and let her hair tumble over his hands and arms. He angled her head a little to the left and carefully let his tongue creep against hers before pulling away again. Katara blinked at him, let her eyes dart back to her bookbag, and sighed in defeat. "I...am out of excuses."

"Good," Zuko grinned, before pulling Katara back towards him and finally pulling the two of them to lay back down on the bed. They could afford a little fun for ten more minutes before they turned, Zuko figured. That of all things couldn't hurt.