AN: …Never mind. I will not be better. I just need to accept that about myself and move on. However, now that finals are over, it may be that I will yank myself together enough to finish posting this poor lonely thing.

Anyway, standard disclaimers apply. YYH is not mine, nor is Sandman. None of assorted Buffy/Angel/Bones/Pirates of the Caribbean references are either. (I'd recently watched the latter two when I wrote this, and I write mushroom-style.) Also, I could not resist, so Death (in the Pratchettian sense, not just the Gaimanian) is not mine either.

Also not mine (regrettably. yet.): Windswift. Since she is seven flavors of awesome and her fics are my personal fanon in YYH, Kurama's thing about tying shoes? Hers. To be found in "The Ties That Bind". Such a good story…

Chapter Two

"Hello, Kurama! You wanted to see me?!" Botan called, waving merrily from her perch on the bench outside the high school attended by this particular one of her ex-con, ex-demon, pseudo-detective charges. At least Kuwabara and Yusuke were nominally human… although the only real difference that seemed to make was to lower their maturity levels, in comparison to Kurama's and Hiei's, by a very large number.

"Ah, yes, Botan," he replied, wincing slightly and glancing over his shoulder. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. But Shuuchi here, please."

"Right." Botan gave a moue of apology. "At least I didn't go in looking for you, though! It's so much easier with Yusuke - he's always on the roof. I don't think he knows what going to class is like, except from what Keiko tells him."

"While I kept you waiting until lunch hour while I reacquainted myself. I apologize." He set down his bag beside her, carefully placing it so that everything inside come to rest without mashing anything else. She could imagine all the neat outlines perching. She'd bet the corners of his books weren't even crinkled.

"What did you want to see me about?" She pressed after his moment of contemplative silence stretched out too far for her. He was a sweet kid/demon, and he had saved the world, and she would flatter herself (and him) with the idea that they were firm friends. But she had ferrying to do.

"Well… not to put too fine I point on it, I had a bad dream."

Botan scratched her head. "…I'm sorry?"

"Karasu featured prominently -"

"Ooh, that creep! If you hadn't killed him, I would have! Perverse fiend." She stopped, frowning. "You know, he was very disturbing, and if you want to talk to someone about it, I'm all ears. I can be extremely comforting. And there's no shame in someone who wants to keep your head on a stick and keeps talking about how sad killing you is going to make him freaking you out, so don't say a word about it being embarrassing!"

"- but that isn't what bothered me, specifically," Kurama finished, smiling. His fingers smoothed the strap of his book bag over and over, and there was nothing wrong with it to begin with. "I don't think it's his ghost, and I suppose a nightmare or two isn't entirely unexpected."

"Oh." Botan switched gears with the ease of a very nice car. "If you think it was a normal nightmare, and you aren't having an emotional breakdown, what can I do?"

"I'm... not entirely sure it was a 'normal nightmare.' " He released the flayed-smooth strap carefully. "Karasu isn't what bothered me. There was someone else in the dream, and he wasn't… mine, if that makes sense."

Botan winced apologetically. "Not really."

Kurama pushed his bangs back. "It was more of a feeling than anything else, but… For one thing, he was nothing I'd seen before. Everything else made comparative sense - things I've witnessed or could infer, or would be expected to imagine. This other person didn't have any basis." Botan nodded, and he paused. "My head on a stick?"
"Well… pike." She winked, trying to seem cheerful and comforting at once without looking like she was being comforting. "I may be getting my psycho stalkers confused. The point is, I think I know what you mean, but I still don't know what you want me to do."

"I realize that, with the Tournament, paperwork in the Spirit World is probably a bit backlogged," he said delicately, "and despite Koenma's infinite mercy, he is sometimes overwhelmed."

"At least you didn't make a crack about his tender age."
"It took a great deal of self-control. My request is that you… check and make sure. I just want to know for a fact that Karasu went on to wherever he belongs. For my own private amusement."

"Because you're not being haunted," Botan pressed.

"No." He smiled innocently. "You know me. I like to hedge my bets."

"Well, of course I will! Leave it all to me." She sighed, watching his hands start in on his helpless shoulder strap again. "Did he get to you that badly?" she asked sympathetically.

"I beg your pardon?"

Right. Boys. Botan huffed out a more annoyed breath, springing to her feet with a fist in the air, startling Kurama into leaning back. "Never mind! Just remember that your life is your own -"

"Except when it's Koenma's," he pointed out dryly.

" - and you should live it! Go out with a friend, read a book, start a hobby!"
"I'll put all three at the top of my list," he said, with perhaps a trace of irony, and then, sincerely, "Thank you, Botan." He went to return to school grounds (off which, she realized, he most assuredly should not be), lifting his bag with thoughtless grace. The books didn't even know they were being moved. Inasmuch as books knew anything.

"Oh, and…" he paused, glancing over his shoulder with a friendly smile that made her blood backtrack, "if you go to any of the others over this, your garden will abruptly produce a large variety of very lovely plants which happen to prefer ferry girls to photosynthesis." He turned to face her properly. "I do not have a problem with asking for help when it's needed. As of yet, there simply is no call to alarm them."

Botan glared. She was certain her subordinates should not be able to threaten her. Since that never seemed to stop them, she said, "Whatever you want. It's your funeral."

Kurama laughed, returning to his sneaking back into school by walking as if he were being paid to grace it with his presence. "No, not that easily."

I sat on the edge of my bed and looked reluctantly at my pillow. It was past midnight, and I really needed get some sleep, or I'd look tired tomorrow and Shiori will worry. Normally, I would have her placated by now, but at fifteen it was harder to dismiss your nightmares as the after-effects of a clichéd horror flick, especially as that channel did not start showing them until after midnight; when I fell asleep, I had no way of knowing what would be on. Waking up like a fish thrown on land like that halfway through The Grudge did nothing to make her relax.

And one nightmare was not going to put me off of my semi-routine normal, healthy, what-every-mother-wants-for-her-child eight hours. The same way one transparent scare tactic was not going to turn me into a fighter so pathetic he was incapable of hitting someone standing right behind him.

More to the point, I supposed, there wasn't anything much left to keep me awake.

Still, I rose and went into the wash room, cleaning my face and hands, and on general principle brushing my teeth in case they've magically become dirty in the last few hours (I never did have a late night snack, as the only appealing thing left was ice cream and I hated to deprive Hiei).

I started to brush my hair, and then left it. There really was nothing left to do but sleep, and be content with four-odd hours. I drifted off to the sound of humming.

"Go to sleep now, little ugly

Go to sleep now, you little fool

Forty winkings in the belfry

You'll not feel the drowning

You'll not feel the drowning…"

I was kneeling in the attic, a chalk circle drawn around me, and I checked automatically for any kind of symbols, candles, bodily fluids, or other indicators of ritual. Kuronue was always making such messes with those things…

But there was nothing. It was mine.

Karasu was on his knees, turning over an empty red glass bottle about the size of one of his fingers in one hand, stroking the lock of a chest with the other. "You have such lovely toys, Kurama," he mused. "It's a pity you keep them locked away. I'd wager even you don't know where you keep half your things. I put mine on shelves, you know, not in all these boxes."

"That's an opinion that you would have."

He settled back on his heels, then stood, head to one side. "Do you know why you're so afraid of me? Why every time I come near you, I am graced with the pretty sound a heart makes when it's going much too fast?"

"I could list several very plausible reasons."

"All of them wrong." He stepped up to the edge of the circle, and I watched one black boot smudging the white grains. In the tone of one illuminating the meaning of life itself, he explained, "This won't stop me."

I looked into his face, finally. "You haven't crossed it yet."

"I'd rather you did." The corner of his eyes crinkled as if he were smiling, and the rest of his face didn't move. He might as well have been wearing that mask. "You killed me, you know, and this" he waved long fingers like what's left when a tiger's paws have rotted and left nothing but bone and claw, "doesn't exist."

"Said the spider to the fly," I scoffed, eyeing limbs that might as well belong to a spider, for all their angularity. And he did seem to be adept at spinning webs. I could learn something. Or teach something…

"Now that you mention it…" Who needed to smile when they can use that tone? It had legs and walked up and down my spine. "Let's go somewhere more comfortable."

"No." The room decayed over centuries in the blink of an eye, and then was what it had started as again. "We do this my way. There are always rules. What do you want?"

"A loaded question," he noted, eyes narrowed.

"You can hardly wish to stay here. Wouldn't it be torture, watching me die of old age or at the hands of another?"

"Oh, Kurama," he sighed. "You won't grow old. Think what you do for a living, and then of your track record. As for the other… I've already killed you once, or I wouldn't be here. My bond with you is far beyond what any other will ever lay claim to. I admit that your… dalliances disturb me, but they always pass."

I opened my mouth and he wasn't there. I looked around, fighting déjà vu, and saw nothing right up until fingers wrapped around my wrists from behind, curling as if they were double-jointed and yanking me back against a narrow, bone-hard chest.

"I, on the other hand," he began, breath on my neck -

"That," said a cheerful, firm, and feminine voice (which reminded me of Botan without actually sounding like her), "is quite enough" we were standing in a hallway "of that."

The hallway was longer than made sense. There are spatial rules, and this place was bending them. It was also black, possibly glass given its mirror-like qualities. I watched our reflections stretch and lump on the floor, the walls - I couldn't lose track of him here.

Still, I glared at him, standing safely (illusions are important) three paces away. "Is this yours?"

"No." His eyes smiled. "But it could have been. You're catching on."

I bit my tongue and walked away, opening the first door my hand met. Perhaps not wise, but what I'd done, now…

Inside was a room that made the hallway look like a formula for spatial reality. My eyes insisted that I was looking at a space which was infinite in the truest, most mind-bending concept of the word, within which was suspended a small pool of light with a room under it. My brain decided that this was impossible, dismissed it, and moved on to the room right in front of me/suspended light years away and still visible.

A desk, a chair, a man sitting in the chair. The chair and desk looked somehow too real and plastic both at once, and the man was a skeleton.

He - it? - looked up from the quill scratching across his parchment. YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE, MORTAL, he said.

His words slammed into my head like sarcophagus lids crunching closed, not bothering with my ears.

"So sorry," I replied. "My mistake."

TRY THREE DOORS DOWN, THEN SECOND TO THE RIGHT, he added helpfully.

"We will. Thank you." Karasu, this time, and he reached over my head and swung the door shut in my face. I was standing with the roughly two inches of space between him and the door, and his lips brushed my ear as he remonstrated, "That happened because you didn't concentrate." He pushed the door open again.

It was… different. A messy, white living room with a ratty couch, scattered clothes, and several goldfish swimming contentedly in their bowl. On the couch was a woman, shorter than I, paler than her walls, with a mop of black hair and a smile that made me feel at home and in love.
"Hey, guys," she said. "You take a wrong turn?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well," she answered, swinging her legs down from where they were draped over the arm of the chair, "everyone does. But they all find me again eventually." She stood, stretching, casual black clothes shifting on her slight frame. Leaving her arms above her head, she looked at us curiously. "Usually not here, though, I have to say. What's up?"

"I am not entirely positive," I admitted, "but I believe I have an incorporeal stalker." I stretched my hand out, offering her a rose, and she took it with an absurdly pleased grin.

"Aw, aren't you the sweetest thing! Now, let me see… what can I give you…?"

"There's really no need," I protested, nonplussed, as she rummaged through a pile of clothes. They were all black.

"Oh, there're rules," she responded offhandedly.

"There are always," Karasu added, fingers winding in my hair, "rules." Leaning closer, he added under his breath (which smelled of something coppery and red and rotting), "You and cheerful grim reapers - I've had enough of that, Kurama. That ferry girl isn't going to be able to help any more than Koenma's pathetic excuse for a detective squad."

"Hey!" The woman snapped her fingers. "Not in my house, mister."

Karasu stepped back, my hair unwinding, looking as surprised as I felt and not nearly as relieved.

"That's better." She grinned, and Karasu couldn't help relaxing, and I couldn't help sneering at him. "Here you are." Her hand opened over mine, and a necklace dropped into my palm - a silver chain, on which dangled a small circle cut by a Greek cross.

I held it skeptically, and glanced at Karasu. "It's a necklace."

"Yes."

"Is the necklace going to help?"

Her eyebrows rose. "If you don't want it, I'll take it back."

"No, thank you." I dropped it over my head.

"Then it helps," she answered, smiling again.

"A cross to fend off the vampire," I murmured, fingering it. Her mouth twisted. "You don't know him," I protested.

"Yes." Her words settled like more than sarcophagus lids; like mausoleums. Like the sound of the Roman Empire collapsing. Her face looked older than time, and I remembered that it was. "I do. I know everybody." Then her smile was casual again. "Speaking of which, I've been seeing an awful lot of you lately, Kurama. Fourteen years with hardly a note, and then boom - an orchestra. What's up with that, kiddo?"

"I have places to be…" It was a weak protest.

Karasu's eyes narrowed at her. "You have not been there. I would have noticed; I've been looking."

"You weren't really, you know - when people look for me, they tend to find me. I'm very timely. Anyway, you only get to see me twice. Usually." She reached out and tapped his chest sternly. "You weren't looking, but you sent an awful lot of other people my way."

"Exactly," I bit off.

"Mm." Her fingers twined together and she dropped back onto the couch, resting her chin in the basket they make. "This isn't going to work very well at this rate, long-haul speaking. Both of you tell a secret, okay?"

I said flippantly, "I have no idea how to tie shoes."

"I did not kill my parents."

"Just your sister and everyone else you ever loved."

His eyes lit up like a child's. "Not yet…"

I looked to the woman. "He is dead. I don't want him. Take him with you."

She sighed, standing slowly with her hands braced on her thighs. "He's not alive," she acquiesced, "but he's not dead, either. I can't help." Her head shook, earrings weaving and the ankh on her necklace shimmering, her eyes infinitely sad. "He's not mine. He'll stay another night."

- and stirring my hair. He locked my wrists to opposing shoulders, rendering my arms useless, and kneeling is not the position from which to kick, and I couldn't think…

"Just think," Karasu mused conversationally, "she's what binds us together. Now, is that so bad?"

"She's not."

He leaned back against the wall, pulling me with him, almost into his lap. "You know, I wouldn't be here if you hadn't let me in."

"I think I'd remember." I tried jerking away, and he closed his hands more tightly, until the bones in my wrists ground together. He's stronger. Fine. You knew that. Another tactic. I threw my weight forward, trying to force him over my shoulder, but there was no momentum. It didn't even phase him.

"Who were you thinking of, when you died? You were clinically dead, you know - I killed you, if only for a moment. So what were your last thoughts of? Kuronue, who died for you? Yomi, who - perhaps the harder task - lived for you? Your little friends, any one of whom would have killed me for you? Dying is a bit confusing, Kurama - I only went where it was easiest to go. There was a beacon calling me to you, and it was not of my making."

He talks too much.

His grip had loosened, and I slammed an elbow back into his ribs, in what should have been enough of a blow to knock the breath from him, albeit not an opportunely aimed one. It didn't.

He grabbed my wrist again, and I heard it crack, though I felt nothing. Still my hand dangled unresponsive and useless as he grabbed the chain of the necklace, dragging back.

If I couldn't feel pain, dream-reason dictated that I not be able to suffocate (maybe? But then, if bones could break…). But my head pounded, black spots dance in front of my eyes, my vision swam.

Karasu was weaving together two locks of hair, one red, one black, with his free hand. My remaining functioning fingers scrabbled at the chain cutting off my air like a rat on a wheel. All I could see was the blood-red and obsidian-black, weaving in and out.

I smiled, triumphantly, and said (without actually saying it because I was chocking to death and that would be impossible) "You're just the same."

He pushed me forward, releasing my neck and hair, and I choked on the air that was suddenly too available and not nearly enough.

And I woke up.

AN: All hail the indomitable Death! She is peach-keen. And the guy-one is awesome too. They should rule the world together with Susan; it would be cool.

Also, all hail reviews, because they make me happy. And remind me that, no really, I have to update because the computer - marvelous as it is - will not attend to these things on its own.