White, red, green.
"Hello."
"Hi. I haven't seen you around here before."
"Can I buy you a drink?"
Warmth.
"Mm...that was fantastic. I don't think I ever want to move again."
"Neither do I."
Roses.
"I..."
"I know. I love you, too."
Cold.
Dark.
Screaming.
Laughter.
The laughter was in his head, clawing at his mind. Someone was screaming, screaming. He was in the dark, crushed, confined. He shoved until it gave way. There was more beyond it, so he kept shoving. Shoved through soft and slimy and tangling until there was open. Scrambled toward the nothingness outside the dark.
Yusuke Urameshi broke the surface and collapsed on top of the dirt. He gasped for air and forced his eyes open. It was night, cloudy and damp and cold. His breath did not fog in the air.
He struggled to his hands and knees, found a handhold to pull himself upright. Cold marble beneath his palm. He looked down and saw his own name, saw the span of his life, saw... Yusuke turned stiffly, instinctively, to his left. Another headstone. Another name. The most important name. A life that had ended the same day as his own.
The laughter and the screaming were in his head again as he fell against the pale grey stone. His dirty fingers ran across the letters carved on the front.
"Kurama..."
His voice was rust.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Yusuke turned and faced his death. Memories choked him at the sight of the man, Karasu, his long black hair and violet eyes.
Red hair, red blood, so much screaming, and the laughter. Hands around his throat. Kurama's voice shaking as he bargained for Yusuke's life. Kurama's eyes locked on him while Karasu...touched him.
Kurama's eyes.
"They were so pretty in his head, I just had to keep them," Karasu purred.
Kurama clinging to him weakly. The world fading away.
Green eyes in a box.
Yusuke lurched to his feet. "Why? Why did you kill him, you sick bastard?"
"I always kill the things I love."
"I know. I love you, too."
"You don't know love."
Karasu laughed, that horrible laugh. "You and I are alike, you know. A raven and a Crow. Both lusting after the same shiny thing."
Crow? Yes. He felt the black wings in his mind, guiding him.
Yusuke pushed away from his lover's grave and felt a supernatural speed flow into him. In half a second, he was an inch from Karasu.
"You stole him from the world. Do you know what used to happen to thieves who got caught?" He had the man's wrist in an iron grip. "They lost their hands."
He twisted with the Crow's strength, and Karasu's hand separated from his arm. Karasu choked out a cry as he fell to his knees.
"And you do remember the Code of Hammurabi, don't you?" Yusuke cooed. He mockingly caressed the man's cheek, then dug his fingers into Karasu's eye sockets. "Scream for me. Scream like you made him do."
Karasu screamed with fear and pain.
Yusuke snapped his neck. "An eye for an eye."
The Crow's strength left him, then, and he stumbled back onto Kurama's grave. The cool earth welcomed him like Kurama's arms.
"You were the other half of me," he whispered to the headstone. "I love you. I'll find you, I swear. He can't take you away from me again."
His vision blackened again, and the world began to slip away, melting into white. As a cold breeze swept through the cemetery, he thought for a second that he heard a voice whisper back.
"I'll be waiting. I love you."