Private Finished Nightmares and Sirens

He jerked awake, a cold sweat on his forehead, his breath ragged. His room was quiet and dark except for him. James rarely slept well, nightmares and insomnia saw to that.

Sitting up he whipped the sweat away, he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so he saw no point in trying. Slipping out of bed, he pulled on a pair of sweats and out the door he went.

He'd wandered a while, found a drink machine and bought a bottle of cold coffee. He didn't really like them, but he was addicted to coffee so it didn't matter.

So he wandered the halls, no real direction, somehow ended up in the college dorms. His thoughts went to Anna, he cared about her, more than he realized.

Humming in thought, he walked to her dorm. As he reached to knock, something happened, the halls seemed to light up. His unopened bottle of coffee dropped as his hands went to cover his eyes. At first he thought the lights had come on, but they hadn't. The hall was now like high noon to him.

Flinching, he backed up, covering his eyes as pain shot through them, his elbow accidentally knocking against Anna's door. He slid down the wall next to the door as the pain continued.

"What the fuck is happening!?" the Shadow asked as he woke up, looking through James' eyes. James of course was unable to answer. His breath quickened as panic set in, the newly developed night vision started painfully fluctuate, seeming to pulse on and off.

His hands shot up to cover his ears as the pain spread to them, he could hear a door open, someone say his name it wall to loud. Gritting his teeth, his entire body started to tremble, it was overwhelming, even his nose was burning now.

Looking over, he saw Anna, he didn't know it, but his eyes briefly turned silver. He took a big breath, trying to focus, the pain lessened a bit, but his senses continued to go into overdrive. "I..I don't know...what's happening."

He closed his eyes as she transferred a feeling of calmness to him. I was as if his senses were taking everything in at once, his eyes ached, his ears rung and nose burnt. The Shadow went silent, he was as shocked and confused as James was, maybe even more so, he didn't remember ever having a body, let alone senses.

James felt Anna press her cheek to his head, his nose twitched as he picked up on the perfume she'd worn the day before. In the blur of his senses overloading his mind, he felt something, something he couldn't quite understand yet.

"A-anna...," he stammered, trying to focus on her, a light at the end of a painful confusing tunnel. His vision blurred again, he body started trembling, he gritted his teeth as the pain peaked.

Then, it was gone, his eyesight, hearing and smelling were all normal again. He blinked his eyes as they faded into their normal gay-silver eyes, like metal dulling with age. A gasp and a sigh escaped his mouth as relief flowed over him.

He rose from his crouch, still trembling badly, "I...I..," he took another a breath, "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened." James felt himself sway just a bit, "couldn't sleep..started walking around." Looking down, he remembered his coffee and picked the bottle up, "I...I wanted to talk."

He followed her into the dorm, his mind settling but overtaken by the troubles that had awakened him "Oh..yeah..," he said as she took his coffee, "I...uh...might be a little addicted to caffeine," he cleared his throat knowing she was going to be concerned.

Sliding into bed, he looked over at her, he was always either nervous as if embarrassed or incredibly comfortable around her. This time, maybe thanks to her powers, he was comfortable. His gray-silver eyes showed his gratitude for everything she'd done for her, "thank you."

His hand reached out and brushed over hers, "remember when..I had my breakdown, and...I told you things?" She was the only person he'd told everything to, even Nyota didn't know everything. "There's....there's something else...."

He opened his mouth and closed it again. It was hard, so hard to talk about. Taking a shaky breath, he gently squeezed her hand and looked at her, fear in his eyes. James cares about her, so much, his emotions wouldn't let him realize it yet, but he could feel enough. Enough to know he didn't want her to hate him.

"I..I told you I left that group of thieves," he finally said, still holding onto her hand. "I'd been with them my whole life..," he found himself scooting a bit closer to her, as if searching for comfort from her.

"For a while.....I was putting money away, a bit from everything I stole," his eyes didn't leave her, he needed her, he didn't know it but he did. "Something...happened when I left."