Title: All Night Long (Or Until I Get Kicked Out)

Summary: Midorima puts his everything into studying to the point of staying up late in his college's library, but sometimes he puts too much of his everything.

A/N: Hi guys~! It's Day 2 of AoMido week and so far this is my favorite one to write. So I hope you guys enjoy it~

On an irrelevant note, did you guys know that there's actually a thing called writer's cramps? You probably do, but I just thought it's worth saying.

DAY 2: OLD HABITS

College is not like high school. The schedules are tighter, the workloads are heavier and the urge to pull out one's hair and down a gallon of coffee in one go is more powerful than ever.

But it's an easy feat for one Midorima Shintarou. He'd been pulling all-nighters ever since he was in middle school. Studying came as naturally to him as winning did to Akashi.

Which is why here he is on a Thursday night in his college's library poring over color coded notes for his test tomorrow. Fortunately for him their college understood the pressure of finals and had their library open 24/7 in order for the students to study to their heart's-or rather, brain's-content.

The clock says 8pm in glowing, red digits. Midorima feels his neck stiffening for being bent for too long and he stops for a moment to stretch out his sore limbs. He looks around and sees other students in the same position as him-bent over piles of notes and books, studying intensely for an upcoming test or presentation.

Midorima pushes up his glasses to his head and wipes his eyes. He closes them for a moment, willing away the tiredness that threatens to keep them close before pushing his glasses back down and losing himself once more in medical terms and body diagrams.

Midorima doesn't know how long he's been studying. His thermos of coffee grows colder with every minute and soon it is empty. The clock's digits change, the sun lowers completely down in the horizon and the next thing he knows it is 12am and completely dark outside. He takes another look around the library. Some of the other students have fallen asleep on top of their notes, while others have curled up on the soft carpet, put on their jackets as makeshift blankets and snoozed away. The only ones awake are Midorima, the assigned night librarian and a couple of other students near the computers.

Midorima closes his eyes again. His head is pounding and his left hand is stiff from writing so much. When he opens them again his notes start swimming together in a sea of blue, black and white. He gives a small groan as the pounding in his head increases tenfold. His head feels like a jar, constantly being filled with information about biochemistry, anatomy, psychiatry, etc., everything he needed to learn to be a doctor, until it's brimming with oodles and oodles of medical data. And now, that jar of data is pounding against his skull, trying to escape the tight confines of his head.

Midorima knows he's reached his limit for tonight. He didn't learn as much as he wanted to and for certain his performance in tomorrow's test will be less than perfect, but it doesn't matter to him for the moment. All he wants to do right now is sleep.

So, on a pile of notes and books and flashcards, he falls asleep.

Midorima wakes up minutes later to the sound of a car door slamming. He panics at first until he realizes he's just in a cab and that Aomine is right next to him.

On his early days as a medical student he usually went home to his apartment at around 2am. Now, almost a year later, Aomine is the one who picks him up. Sometimes they walk home, admiring the picture of Tokyo's bright lights during the night, and sometimes when Midorima is really tired Aomine will call a cab to take them home. Just like what they're doing right now. He doesn't really know when Aomine started to instill himself in his schedule, but Midorima discovered along the way that he doesn't really mind the change.

He leans his head against Aomine's shoulder and holds his hand as he closes his eyes. He feels Aomine's hand squeeze his while the other softly combs through his hair, relaxing him into sleep.

Midorima dozes for most of the trip, waking up when Aomine shakes his shoulder. They pay the driver, get out the cab and enter their apartment building. Halfway up the stairs to their floor Midorima starts swaying and he almost stumbles if it weren't for Aomine who immediately goes to his side.

"I got you," he says. One arm goes around his waist and the other on his shoulder. Aomine half-drags, half-carries him up the rest of the stairs, into their apartment and in their bedroom.

Midorima sinks to the sheets and gives a sigh at the softness against his back. There's someone rustling at the foot of the bed and he feels his shoes and socks being removed. Warm hands touch his neck and back as Aomine tries to pull off Midorima's jacket. He opens his eyes halfway to look at Aomine, feeling a rush of fondness wash over him.

Aomine looks down, smiles tenderly at him and plants a kiss on his eyelids. He climbs into bed alongside him and adjusts their position so that Midorima's back is against his chest, his arms around his waist and their legs interlock. Aomine breathes into his neck and somehow that calms the tense muscles he got from sitting in the same position for too long.

Aomine nuzzles at his nape and whispers," Go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

Midorima lets all the fatigue and the his jar of data escape him until all he could feel was the warmth of his boyfriend against him.

College is hard and as much as he hates to admit it Midorima doesn't see the appeal of all-nighters as he used to, but as long as he has Aomine who'll go get him in the middle of the night and who'll help him prepare for his test in the morning then, Midorima thinks, it is all worth it.