Caffeine Headaches [Vash]

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Lukas rubbed his hands over his face, sighing into his palms before letting his forehead drop onto the table. He couldn't focus on his homework at all. He hadn't been able to pay much attention in class either despite the six cups of coffee he'd consumed before the clock had even hit noon. And despite his efforts it seemed the break he had before his last lecture would be going to waste as well.

Everything because of some idiot who had decided that 4am was a good time to start practicing shooting.

He was usually a heavy sleeper, but even he hadn't been able to sleep through the constant bam bam bam of a handgun. He'd tried to ignore it, rolled over and burrowed deeper into the covers, but it had been futile effort. And when the sound just continued as minutes ticked by, his frustrated annoyance had just increased when he'd opened the window and seen no one to direct his angry yelling at. It sure sounded like the racket was coming right beside his window.

Lukas rubbed his eyes again and stared down at the blurry numbers on his notebook. He had hardly made any process in the last twenty minutes, and he had a feeling that even the parts he'd managed to complete were wrong. So annoying. He'd have to redo those again later tonight.

Glancing at the clock, Lukas let out another sigh and pushed his notes aside. He still had around forty minutes before his next class. It'd probably make more sense to spend that time napping and be somewhat alert in History than power through his homework and then pass out in the middle of the class. He pulled out his phone and set the alarm for thirty minutes from now, tucked it back into his pocket, and leaned his tired head on his arms. He just wished for the day to be over already.

[VASH ZWINGLI]

Vash had, as per usual, had a nearly restless sleep the night before. He had been a light sleeper to begin with, however this was bordering on ridiculous. Vash had, all together possibly been able to accumulate about 6 hours of sleep over the past two weeks, and it was definitely starting to slow him down.

Though, in one way it was advantageous for him as he started training earlier in the day and ended much later as well, since he knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep no matter how tired he was. Productivity was good, however being even more short-tempered and a decline in the ability to concentrate was not. This terrible cycle of not sleeping producing a deteriorating good mood and thus making him unable to sleep the next night was how Vash had found himself waking up at three o’clock in the morning, walking to the campus grounds and practicing his aiming in the forest. The thought had not occurred to him once that it would be loud enough for the students (who should be up training as opposed to sleeping) to hear.

Granted, his mind was in a bit of a daze at that hour and so quite a few things hadn’t exactly occurred to him at that hour. The only thing that he was aware of was his need to shake the nightmares from the night before by loud noises and clearing his mind to think about various hunting techniques through going out before sunrise.

The loud noise that was a direct consequence of playing with guns was enough to shake the exhaustion away, at least long enough for him to drink a few pots of coffee. However, even after all of that, he still wasn’t aware enough to realize that he had probably woken up a few students—and this inability to think of the obvious very quickly carried over into his work that day.

It was impossible to concentrate, nothing was working—none of the approaches he took made sense when it came to trying to maximize the capacity of energy that the device could contain in order to actually function properly. Vash was, well he was not exactly and electrical engineer, and when it came down to it, that was always his weak spot when it came to designing machinery that required complicated circuitry. Even if he did have a talent for it, at the rate he was going he would ruin everything that he had been working on up until now. Besides, he had to teach later that afternoon.

So, it was time for a break—and Vash had made a side trip at the teacher’s lounge to refill his coffee mug before he headed to the library for some peace of mind—and well, to pull out a few books on electrical engineering.

The library was—unfortunately, rather full and the books that Vash had managed to find which would be somewhat useful were ones that they didn’t permit to be taken out (teacher or not.) And so it looked like he was going to be spending his afternoon in public, unfortunately. Finding a seat was going to be a nightmare, much less one where it was quiet and away from all of this awful noise of people who SHOULD be quiet but instead were using the library as some sort of social hub.

A few minutes of searching the library passed by until he just about ready to give up and resort to ear plugs—until he found one of the tables in the back corner only occupied by a petite boy who had managed to doze off. Yeah, that was something Vash wished he could do right about now.

However, this was where he started to feel conflicted—did he wake the boy and ask to sit? Or did he just sit down hoping that the boy would not wake while he was occupying the table as well. On one hand, waking the boy up from his slumber would be rude, but the boy shouldn’t be sleeping in the library anyway, but on the other hand, someone else might be occupying these seats and the boy may also want his privacy. Granted, if he had wanted to be completely alone, he should have taken one of the smaller chairs off to the side.

This confliction almost tempted Vash to leave, however the noise was giving him a headache and he needed to do something productive today—so he resolved to gently tap on the boy’s shoulder.

“Excuse me, but are these seats occupied?” He asked quietly.

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Maybe sleeping hadn't been such a great idea after all. The library was kind of full, and even though the noise didn't quite reach the far corner of the room, the emotions of the people did. Lukas was able to tune out of the worst of the flow, take the edge out of the feelings so they were just a dull throb in his head rather than a piercing headache, but it still made his sleep a little restless. And even that restless sleep was soon cut short.

“Excuse me, but are these seats occupied?”

It wasn't the words that roused him as much as the tentative touch of fingertips to his shoulder. Blinking his eyes open, Lukas shifted away from the touch and looked up, attempting to glare despite his vision still being hazy from sleep.

It took him around five seconds to recognize the short, blonde, man as the teacher he'd briefly met outside the school grounds not too long ago. It took him another fifteen to remember his name. Vash. That was it, right? He taught some kind of weapon strategy... thing. Lukas hadn't been all that interested and really couldn't recall what it was exactly. The German student had seemed a lot more into it than he had.

It took him a few moments more before Vash's initial question finally sunk in and he turned his eyes away from the Swiss to glance at the table. Did it look like there was someone else sitting here?

”....No. Go ahead.” He shrugged and settled back down in his seat, resting his chin on his hand and staring up at the clock on the wall. Still thirty minutes until his class started. He didn't think there was a point in trying to sleep again; he'd hardly get any proper rest now that he wasn't alone. But he didn't really feel like making nice and starting a conversation either. So he just sighed and reached for his abandoned homework. Maybe he would be able to finish some of it despite his sleepy state.

[VASH ZWINGLI]

The student that lifted his head, he almost cursed at himself for not having identified him properly earlier. This was the rather silent seeming boy that he had met outside the other day when the students had bombarded him. The only one that he really got a positive vibe from was Ludwig, then again, he was German and he seemed hard working and interested in what Vash researched and taught, so of course he was a good student. This Lukas boy—however, he wasn’t quite so sure about, he seemed to be the type to stay focused and work hard, however seeing him having passed out like this seemed to have proven that theory wrong.

Well, he definitely wasn’t interested in what Vash taught and that was enough to stump him a little, quite a few students seemed to hold a bit of distain towards his class and he just didn’t understand why, the subject matter was interesting, right? The assignments were interesting and fair?? The tests were fair??? No matter, this student had seemed like a lost cause to him and definitely not the type to be found running around in the mud—or doing any large scale physical work. Therefore, Vash found it a little hard to respect the child right off the bat, unless he proved that he was a hard worker eventually.

When Vash studied Lukas’ face, he could tell that he was tired—after all, so was Vash, and his initial guess for the kid getting next little sleep was staying up too late and partying with the rest of the hoodlums that seemed to occupy the school. Discipline really did seem to be growing slack in this school...and that would have to eventually be changed.

“You should go to bed earlier, the library is for studying….” He looked around, sighing at the noise, as clearly no one else seemed to have that in mind. “Or it /should/ be for studying…” His mood was declining pretty quickly as the chaos was starting to get louder and travel to the back of the room, thus encouraging the development of a headache with his current lack of sleep.

Shaking his head however, he sat down at the opposite end of the table and started flipping through the book—TRYING to focus on the reading and see if he could find anything that would help him with what he was having a hard time with. This task was very quickly proving more difficult as he clung to his coffee cup in hopes that the caffeine really would rid him on the headache.

He was going to have to talk to the Librarian about this.