Notes: OMG HI. I'm struggling to continue this, and the plot has been revamped so totally in only barely resembles what the original intent behind all this was. I'm totally bastardizing their personalities. Now with twenty-percent more crack and seventy-two percent less angst. I want a Beta.

Summary: This is AU. Kurogane and Fye meet at college.

Pairings: Slight Kurogane and Fye so far, with Fye being the more obvious.

Rating: T, for language, violence and attempted feeding of the Kurogane. Add in some misapplication of Latin and we might just have to up this to M.

Disclaimer: (insert here)

Stalk Me Not

3

The War of Even Tide

One drenched stalker and a battle to save the world (id est my personal space bubble) later, I was safely barricaded behind the worryingly feeble wood that was my dorm room door in the company of the only freshman who could possibly get stuck between a desk and a wall.

Really. I don't know how he managed to squeeze into that tiny little space--or, in fact, any of the small spaces he wiggled into since he always managed to be already stuck by the time I got there and suffering from spontaneous short term fucking amnesia (and when he folded himself into the dryers in the girls dorm six weeks after the semester started he officially endeared himself to half the female population--the remaining half tended to treat him like one would the Black Death; with extreme caution and no small amount of disgust).

I ignored him for fifteen whole minutes, preferring to slam around the room, grumble under my breath, and strangle imaginary enemies.

Fye had tried to feed me.

Feed me.

After I finally managed to explain to the girl—Souma—that I'd been kidnapped against my will by the flaky bastard sitting on the other side of the table (and it didn't look like she believed me—probably had something to do with Fye sending her funky smiles, interrupting me every three seconds to 'correct' me ('Kuro-nan, I didn't threaten the livelihood of your family—nor did I give you any illegal substance without your knowing; you came very willingly—' 'DID NOT.' '—after I finally talked you into letting me buy you lunch.') and generally being freakishly friendly) she'd made up an excuse, traipsing off and leaving me to the keeping of the modern day Mephistopheles drenched in fucking mockery. And my water.

Just to punch the point, I'd tore open a packet of Sweet'N'Low and emptied the contents over his head as well and all he did was fucking smile. (But then, at least, his hair was sticky—pettiness can be an art form, sometimes.)

Once the waitress had finally, hesitantly, gotten the nerve to approach us once again to deliver our orders (I was practically growling my ABC's and Fye had just been egging me on until I sounded like a deranged canine/turbine engine and the booths within a five foot radius of us had been cleared out) there had been a slight scuffle between us­—which then evolved into me refusing to eat and him scooching in on my side of the booth and riling me up as he calmly diced the food on my plate.

(I know what you're doing Fye, I know, and you're not winning—or so I thought, but when he finally started making those sick, cooing noises at me again, I—)

Had two choices; chew and swallow or spit it out in his face. The former was fucking childish—I might have been pissed as hell, but I was above throwing tantrums. The world had had enough of my terrible fuckin' twos, and though Fye was quickly reviving that period, I would resist for the sake of humanity and the public at large (though Lord knows the public at large didn't reciprocate that regard).

Once I'd reclaimed my twice damned fork, battled him back to his side of the booth and begun to take antagonized bites out of my steak omelet (half hoping it was infected with cholera—) Fye'd once again begun making strange noises at me, coupled with everything else that was annoying about him and a socked foot (somehow bereft of its shoe) pressed warm against my fucking leg (—and then more than half hoping Fye's soup was swimming with Ebola and his salad laced with anti-freeze).

I was starting to think that either some kind of permanent damage had been dealt out to his brain at an early age or he was a straight up flamer, and had decided that Kuro-mu would make eversuch a nice boyfriend!

And he'll squeeze me and hug me and love me and call me his own (never mind my screams of torturous agony or vehement threats of extreme body mutilation). He'll suck the life out of me.

If I let him.

I stilled in the midst of beating in imaginary-Fye's head (feckin' freaky flirty fuck) with an equally imagined dirt devil.

A plan was forming in my head. A good plan. A GREAT plan.

Because of that jelly-brained, psycho somethingist with a penchant for feeding people, I had to rewrite TWO reports sans any references (since I couldn't very well risk leaving the relative safety of my room and have him fucking things up again or following me around or fucking feeding me or clinging to me, the little parasite). I had two days.

It was time for operation "Hide Like A Six-Year-Old Girl."

I cut a glare at the kid as he attempted to hide himself as best he could, being pinned as he was.

First I would have to fish Ryu-Oh out of the thick swamp that was his own stupidity once again.

--smn--

I shouldn't have bothered.

I just should have left the fuck-twit where he was and finally alerted the authorities once he was dead.

Hell, I should have stuffed him back into those dryers he seemed to exorbitantly fond of.

"Ryu-oh. Stop it."

The bastard was in his own little world of 'OMF, I'M GENIUS' (which translated into "OH MY FUCK, I'M AN RETARD") as he fiddled with a host of (really, seriously, STOLEN) objects at his desk. I was sitting cross legged on my bed, papers and notes and research spread out before me in all their nauseous glory as I attempted to reconstruct my essays. It wasn't working (at ALL) and so far I had one paragraph I didn't like and a headache I despised with all my ickle being.

I'd gotten that paragraph in just before he settled down to start on his newest project, which involved what looked to be someone's fake Rolex, a laser pointer, a mechanical pencil (MINE, goddamnit), and three or four colored paper clips. Not only did the sound of springs and cogs and wheels getting scattered around annoy me a great deal, but the fact that Ryu-oh had to freaking LAUGH (read: giggle like a flippin' love sick girl) while doing this was irritating all the way to the very marrow in my bones.

"RYU-OH."

He just sniggered, ignored me, and a spring launched itself at the wall to his left, bouncing off harmlessly.

All right.

That's it.

In the name of the moon I shall fucking kick your ass.

With as much force as I could manage, I launched the heaviest thing I could get my hands on. (Which, to my pleasure, happened to be my Calculus For Retards text.)

It was poetry in motion, watching that sick excuse for a book sail through the air on a direct collision course with Ryu-Oh's sick excuse for a head.

My attack connected, and, as much as I would enjoy saying he went down for the count, that's not what happened—it is, indeed, very, very far from the truth. Enter the sound of mulched tree against a skull housing a scrambled brain; of Ryu-Oh, clattering as he overturned his chair and met the floor, SOMEHOW TAKING EVERYTHING, EVEN THE DESK, WITH HIM.

Enter Ryu-Oh; bug fuck insane and now upgraded to being pinned between the desk and the floor.

I'd finally been privy to one of Ryu-Oh's ever elusive fuck ups that got him crammed into a tiny cranny no human being under the age of seven should rightfully be able to crawl into; though, in all fairness, it was a desk, and the desk had fallen on him, no sliding, scrabbling, squirming, worming or wriggling required on his part (and it had been my fault, anyway—so with all that in mind, I guess it didn't count).

I figured it was safe to continue with my madcap writing, at least until I got another page or two in.

"Kuro…Kurogane…" He was shuddering for breath and wheezing my name, but there wasn't a chance in hell I'd pass up this chance to get some work done. "Can't… breathe…"

Aw, fuck. The guy was annoying as hell, had the mental capacity of a retarded sea snail and fancied himself a genius scientist on the brink of discovering a cure for the color mauve, but he was a good kid and only had the best intentions (…sometimes). And he was blue in the fucking face.

Slamming my shit down and hauling my ass up, I schlepped my ass over to the prone freshman and glared down.

And slowly, so as to ground the point into his soup-of-a-brain.

"I'm going to help you in about eight fucking seconds, but for me to do that, you're going to promise me…"

--smn--

And five minutes later, I had the fucking room to myself.

Finally.

No thumping, humping, laughing, cackling, pinging, shuffling, mumbling—no nothing.

It was glorious.

By the time my eyes started to burn and nine had rolled around—still with no Ryu-Oh, as we had agreed upon—I was well into the revision of my first essay. Having an attention span greater than that of damn corpse really paid off, I decided.

And at ten I yawned and stretched and filed away the finished essay; and I clicked the light off, burrowing into my covers, burrowing against the world and all the crap it insisted on throwing at me one nerve wracking disaster at a time.

--smn--

And here I was, thinking my life was complete. (Apparently it really was—completely fucked up.)

I'd written the second paper.

I'd revised it.

I'd then frolicked all the way down to the fucking resource center to type them into a twelve point font double spaced fucking format, gotten back to my dorm without incident (barring the worrisome sighting of Fye chatting it up with a young girl, probably in Ryu-Oh's year and all sun and earnest smiles—and she probably didn't know it yet, but had been targeted as his next victim) and had an entire day and a half to spare.

Then Ryu-Oh laid the smack down only he could provide upon those freshly printed papers.

Maybe it was that laser pointer (or what resembled a laser pointer, what with all the paper clips and miscellany spiking threateningly out of it) he'd been fiddling with ever since he came ambling back into the room sometime just before noon, right as I gathered up my crap to leg it down to the Center—maybe he'd aimed it out the window at some point, after I'd come back and left again to retrieve a wrapped sandwich and bottle of water from the MP room (hauling paranoid ass the entire time), leaving my papers stacked neatly on the corner of my desk and largely unattended to—maybe the beam had passed through the window, been amplified threefold, bounced off sixteen different fucking wind chimes, then looped back around just to be a vindictive bitch and zeroed in on my lovingly crafted (for the second fucking time) history papers, notes, rough drafts, revisions, research—everything. And maybe not.

Maybe the fucker just spilled soda and chocolate pudding all over them, then vacated the scene of the crime all weasel-like.

Yeah, maybe that was it, because that was sure as fuck what it looked like.

Breathe.

(Those aren't my papers, those aren't my newly written papers, the ones I just risked my ass and sanity to type up yesterday, those aren't the papers I spent six hours solid writing—each—)

Just… breathe.

(I'm in the wrong room—can't be, Ryu-Oh's the only creature in the universe who can stomach his soda-pudding mix… I've slipped into an alternate dimension—please, God, let this one be void of Fye… I… breaking down… can't rationalize… five… four… three… two… my life sucks—)

"BREATHE, DAMNIT."

One brain aneurism later, I dropped my water and sandwich simultaneously (thud plunk) and slowly approached the remains of what were (surely) my papers I'd seen alive and well not thirteen minutes ago.

Evidently, I've been praying to the wrong Gods my entire life.

--smn--

Two re-rewritten papers; check.

A vow to ban Ryu-Oh from my life; double check.

The second trip down to the Resource Center; regrettable and more than slightly queer—in all senses of the word.

There I was, typing madly at one of the more secluded computers on the dimly lit basement floor; I was aiming for the completion of both papers before I was, say, struck down by lightening, or, in a spiteful act of self-immolation, the computer imploded.

Both were entirely possible at this point.

I almost didn't notice it; the touch, the light ghosting of something only vaguely warm, up against my leg, trailing over my jeans. If I hadn't paused in my breakneck typing to curse angrily at anything that came to mind for the sixteenth time, I wouldn't have caught it all—but I did, and when it returned a second time, I was waiting for it, ready.

The third time, and it was oddly familiar.

Fifth; more substantial, and, GOD, I knew who it was.

Sixth; getting higher.

Seventh; too high for comfort—I smacked the hand away, resumed typing. I was faster now. It was a speed borne of desperation.

Eighth—ninth—tenth; smacked away again.

Eleven stabilized it all—the touches got no higher and there was a warm pressure all up my right leg—for about fifteen minutes.

And then El Diablo was inching up my leg again second by second, lazy smile stretch wide and far.

Definitely the wrong Gods.

-The War of Even Tide-

-END-

1. I really want a BETA. I will continue to whine about this until I get one. The only thing I require you to know front and back are tenses. Past, past perfect, etc.

2. I have a Philosophy paper to write, a month to do it, and a knack for procrastinating like you wouldn't believe. So I will be busy writing that paper early IF IT KILLS ME and this story might not see an update until November. Knowing me I'll end up blowing off the paper and writing the next chapter for this JUST to spite myself.

3. Thank you. Everyone. You didn't deserve that year hiatus I had on this story. You guys are so perfectly awesome. Sorry that I don't reply to your reviews but the reply feature is intimidating and used as little as possible. (PS: Name that lyric. Still going on.)