Enjoy~

"Don' ya have work in the mornin' er somethin', Grimm?"

"Nah." I yawned out an answer from where I sat on the couch, elbows on my knees and rubbing at my face, beginning to feel tired once again after the initial shock of meeting this new entity had worn off. "I have tomorrow off. And why are you calling me 'Grimm' all of a sudden?"

"Ah, I see." The specter known as Shirosaki said from where he sat beside me. I could feel the couch bounce slightly with his movements as he nodded, subtle as they were. "And coz we're friends. Ain't we, Grimm?"

"Uhh..." I hesitated, not knowing how to answer that. We had only just met and he wasn't even human. I wasn't really sure what he was at the time, but I knew he had never been a human, I could feel that much just sitting near him. He wasn't really alive either, at least not in the same sense that I was. I couldn't even prove that he was real and he certainly, if nothing else, was not what qualified for a typical friend. But then, what the hell was normal anyway? "I guess so."

I could practically hear the smirk in his words as he spoke again, his lilting voice sounding ever amused as he reassured me. "We're friends." He told me, sounding rather confident and pleased with himself. "Ya can call me Shiro if ya wanna. Friends can do tha' sorta thing."

"Ok." Again, the little smile was tugging at the corners of my lips as he spoke and I didn't need to look over at him to know he had a face splitting grin of his own on his features.

"And ya can call me 'Shi' when we get even closer if ya wanna. 's up ta you." This time, I did look over at him. He winked at me in a mockingly lewd way, that wide grin I had pictured plastered to his unnaturally pale features.

I answered his wink by raising a single blue brow, again wondering why the hell that smirk was so damn charming when it shouldn't have been anything other than mildly creepy at best.

"Don't you mean 'if'?" I asked him, realizing he had purposefully said when we get closer and hardly even thinking about all the reasons that would never work, like the whole nonhuman thing or the fact that I wasn't supposed to be able to see him, never mind that I didn't even know him.

"Nah. I meant 'when'." He threw his head back in laughter at my reaction. When I continued to only stare at him, wondering if I was being haunted by an insane ghost or something, he only began laughing harder, clutching his stomach and eventually falling a little over dramatically to the floor, where he finally began calming down again, wiping tears away from those tantalizing, inverted eyes.

The smile on my face grew just a little bit wider.

We had been talking for hours, and continued to talk for quite a while longer about nothing in particular. It was weird, but not in a bad way and I found that I actually enjoyed our conversations. It was kind of nice having someone around, even if that someone wasn't supposed to really exist.

I was so comfortable around him that I let my guard slip and my fatigue catch up to me, eventually falling asleep on the couch next to him as the sun out side began to settle behind the skyline of the city. I think he knew that was going to happen though, that's why he had been trying to imply that I should probably go to bed.

Shiro had been right; I should have went to bed long before I fell asleep. I should have taken advantage of the absence of the less benign creature that seemed to have it out for me. The peace and quiet could only last so long, the shadowy thing that fed from my energy and my fear wouldn't stay away, wouldn't let anything interfere for long.

I hadn't known it at the time, but he had been the reason it had stayed away. Shiro was repelling it somehow, had been since he had shown himself to me in the kitchen the night before, but he couldn't keep it up forever. As the shadowy thing, the monster that was ever waiting for an opportunity to attack and take what it wanted grew angrier, Shi was beginning to loose the fight. He was wasting more of his own energy, reserves he couldn't replenish since he hadn't been feeding, and that thing was only growing stronger in it's rage, a rage it would be taking out on both of us.

But for now, it was quiet enough in my little apartment; peaceful while it was just the two of us. I'm not sure how long I was out, but when I awoke, all was silent in my building as well as the streets outside and the room was dark while the world awaited the sun's rise.

I laid still for a while, back flat against the mattress of my bed and the blankets pulled up to my chest, mostly hiding the gauze I had wrapping and protecting the wound from the fight the day before. I was comfortable and warm and the combination was slowly lulling me back to sleep. The surprisingly warm and solidly built body pressed against my side wasn't really helping matters any and only made going back to sleep all the more inviting, but it was my day off so I really didn't need to get up at any particular time. I was content to sleep the day away if I got the chance, something that had never happened before. I had never even thought about it before, always the type to get up and start doing something, anything.

My eyes slowly opened to stare up at the off white ceiling as my tired mind gradually woke up enough to make me realize just what was going on around me. I was pretty sure I had fallen asleep on the couch and, as proven before, once asleep I don't move until something wakes me, which isn't usually too hard. I'm normally a pretty light sleeper and I don't sleep walk or anything crazy like that. That would just be pushing it too far on my long list of un-normal shit.

I tried to prop myself up on one elbow to look around the room and sort out how I had managed to get there but found that the solid weight against my right side was pinning me down, resting on my outstretched arm and shoulder, though surprisingly careful to avoid the jagged gash running down my chest.

I looked down, fighting the slight defensive aggression that was trying to make me freak out at being pinned in such an exposed position. Every experience I had ever had told me to fight, to lash out and get away from whatever was holding me down, holding me still, keeping me vulnerable.

"What the fuck..." I mumbled groggily, taking in the expanse of smooth, pale flesh that stood out in stark contrast from the dark sheets and my own golden skin. The sheets were pulled away from his lithe shoulders and lean back, settling around his waist, the edge of a different fabric peeking out to reassure me that he was still at least in his pants.

In the darkness of the bed room, with no sunlight peeking in from the blinds, Shiro actually looked as solid as any living person. I couldn't see the slight shapes of what lay under him like I had been able to before. Even what I could see of his clothing, as little of it as he seemed to be wearing, looked solid and substantial. I vaguely wondered if he would be visible to anyone else while he was like this. If a normal person were to walk in, would he or she be able to see him the way he was? He seemed so...real.

As I laid there, unable to bring myself to look away and trying to decide if I should be freaking out and kicking him out of my bed, his snowy brow creased slightly as if he could feel my lingering gaze on him before he pried his eyes open to look up at me. They flashed in the darkness for a split second, the gold seemingly glowing brightly enough to produce it's own light, further proof of just how inhuman he was. It didn't last long though, hardly long enough for me to even notice, just long enough for me to wonder if it had really happened at all.

"Mornin'." His normally lilting voice was quiet, hoarse almost from the few hours of sleep he had gotten but he still seemed tired, drained. Did things like him even need sleep? It seemed kind of strange to me, but how was I supposed to know. Shiro chuckled quietly, letting me know that I had apparently voiced my question out loud without realizing it in my half asleep state. "Not usually, but i's a good way ta conserve energy."

At the time, I had wondered what that meant. I wondered why he would need to conserve energy, as he had said. I probably should have been questioning whether what he said was true or if it was just an excuse to get into my bed, he hadn't exactly been subtle in his pursuits, but the thought never crossed my mind. It was like I just knew he was being honest. And it turned out that he was. The conserving energy thing was important, though he didn't give me the slightest hint that he was slowly being worn down and loosing the battle I didn't even know he was waging.

"So..." I really wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing in my bed, laying curled against me and snuggled under the sheets like we were more than just friends, but I really had no idea how to approach the subject. Normally, I would have just started going off, probably yelling and growling my annoyance, possibly breaking a thing or two, maybe his face in the process, but I actually kind of liked him. I, for once in my life, had no desire to offend or hurt the person next to me, the person touching me. "Didn't I fall asleep on the couch?"

"Yeah ya did, an' let me tell ya; yer a lot heavier than I thought ya'd be." He snuggled his face back against sheets that covered my bared chest and abdomen as he spoke, like he was more than ready to leave it at that and go back to sleep.

I was still throughly confused and I'll admit a little impressed. Granted, I didn't know how the rules or whatever of supernatural creatures worked, but Shiro was several inches shorter than I and not nearly as solidly built and it was pretty impressive that he had managed to not only carry my heavy ass down the hall, strip my tank top off and put me in bed, but do it all without waking me up. Oh, and crawl in next to me.

Without lifting his head back up, he chuckled quietly as if knowing what I was thinking, which should have been a little disturbing, but it really wasn't. The sound vibrated in his chest and against mine where he was laying, his bare abdomen all but glued to my side. As his breathing slowly evened back out, sending little puffs of hot air to tickle against my collar bone and neck, I wrapped the arm he was laying across around his shoulders to keep him close and let my eyes drift shut as well.

I felt a lazy but triumphant smirk slide across his features and shook my head slightly, not bothering to open my eyes to look at him. I knew he thought he was already winning the little if/when debate from earlier that night, before I had fallen asleep, and maybe he was but I didn't really care. At the moment, I was more than content to snuggle with the entity I was beginning to convince myself was really there and sleep until the sun came up. It would turn out to be the last night of decent rest I'd be getting in a while.

While I slept, as the deeper REM stage began to take over, I dreamt yet again. It wasn't like either of the other dreams I had had up to this point, not really. No shadowy creatures invaded my mind, nothing fed me nightmares and visions to instill fear. The world around me was white, sterile, empty if you looked around with your eyes. Just like in my dreams before, the white carried the same undercurrent of power, of protective aggression, of...something.

I found myself laying upon the white. I knew it to be a bed of some sort, though it couldn't be seen and blended seamlessly with the rest of the white that surrounded me. As I looked around, a figure nearly as colorless as the rest of the dreamscape began to emerge, splitting away from blank void as if from nowhere. Horns adorned the creature's head, it's face was mask like and almost fashioned after a skull. Markings began in the center of it's chest, a very male and muscled chest, and spiraled outward, disappearing behind it, around it's shoulders and running up it's mask like visage. Long, flowing hair whipped about behind the creature I now knew to be male, as colorless as the rest of the specter. The only deviation to his pale pallet of colors was the rich glowing gold that emitted from where his eyes would have been, should the skull like mask have not been in the way.

As the specter neared me, I found myself nervous, a little apprehensive but not afraid, like I knew what was coming and knew he didn't intend to hurt me. Like most dreams, vivid and filled with very real seeming emotions and sensations, bits and pieces really didn't make sense in a real world setting, but it didn't seem to matter and as I watched, the creature appeared directly above me. His head tilted slightly, a wide and familiar grin seeming to stretch his motionless features as he glanced at me before looking down. Following his piercing gaze, I realized that I was naked, still laying upon the bed that I couldn't see. He seemed to laugh, a chuckle more than all out laughter, but it made not a sound. The noise was there but it wasn't and all within my dreaming world was silent.

The whole situation should have terrified me, the creature it's self should have been enough to have me falling out of bed and waking myself up as I thudded to the floor of my apartment. But strangely, it wasn't frightening at all, nothing about the creature or the rest of the dream seemed alarming in any way.

Before I knew what was going on, a wet heat engulfed my suddenly straining member and I arched away from the white, looking down to see a long, faintly bluish tongue wrapped around my cock, golden eyes looking up at me hungrily. That devilish tongue slid around my shaft, the pointed tip laving over the head of my cock and teasing at the slit. I moaned my pleasure, the sound deep enough to rumble in my chest as the specter lowered his head to further engulf me, his tongue working and twisting and stroking all the while he bobbed up and down over my member.

My hips twitched and my hands fisted in sheets I couldn't see as I fought to stay still while he continued his assault. As pleasure over came me and my sense of reason, I let my head tilt back and the need to move take over. He didn't stop me, but placed clawed hands on my thighs to guide my movements as he greedily sucked with a hunger that seemed to overwhelm him just as badly as my need did to me.

I moaned and grunted, trying to give voice to the pleasure consuming my mind, but again all seemed silent within the dream. Even still, he seemed to understand and that smirk was back, curling the corners of where his lips would have been should that mask like thing not have been there. I tilted my head back, eyes squeezing shut as heat spread through out my abdomen. I came hard and felt as his long tongue swirled about to collect my spilled seed while I rode out the waves of my release.

Panting slightly in the aftermath, I allowed my body to relax and opened my eyes to see the ceiling of my bedroom, late morning sunlight playing through the closed blinds to throw shadows across the off white paint in harsh, vertical stripes. Brows furrowing in the confusion that always follows waking up from a particularly vivid and intense dream, I turned my head in time to see Shiro smirk up at me, sticking a single finger in his mouth like he was sampling something's flavor and swirling his cerulean tongue around it in a lewd and surprisingly familiar way that didn't quite register at that moment.

My eyes widened and darted to my lap to see the sheets tented, a darker stain coloring them. I groaned in slight embarrassment and dropped my head back to the pillow, throwing my free arm across my eyes and blowing out a deep sigh. There was absolutely no point in even trying to deny what had just happened, and all while Shi had been sleeping at my side. Though, it didn't look like he had been sleeping through all of it, which would have been preferable.

"Musta been a good dream." His tone was teasing, but not in a cruel way. It was more a tone that spoke of knowing something he shouldn't have. Still curled comfortably against my muscled abdomen, my right arm still looped around his slender shoulders, Shiro chuckled quietly and drew his finger from his mouth with a pop.

Not really knowing what else to do, I played along with him. There was no point in being embarrassed over something I had no control over.

"It was. Ya should have been there." I told him, much to his amusement. I let my arm fall away from my eyes, allowing my other one to fall to the mattress as well and release Shiro. I stared at the ceiling a moment longer, wondering what I was supposed to do with my day off and what seemed to be a very attached ghost thing. I looked over at said ghost thing as I felt the bed shift with his movements, noticing how much less solid he looked again, even with the room still being cast in deep shadows. I could see the shape of my dresser behind him, the door just beside it. He was so insubstantial that I could even tell the door was open.

As he climbed to his feet, stretching his arms above his head and yawning like any normal human, I realized he looked more tired now than he had the first time we woke up. I wondered at that, but didn't feel I really knew him well enough to question it. Maybe he always looked tired after getting up, or maybe it had something to do with the whole conserving energy issue.

I climbed out of bed after him, happy he had at least left my boxers on when he had put me to bed and again wondering at just how he had managed that. I crossed the room to my dresser, pulling out a pair of clean boxers and jeans, relieved that Shiro didn't comment on the dream or the mess I made in the pair I was wearing, or the stiffy I still had that wasn't very well hidden in my thin underwear.

Leaving the bedroom, the pale specter of my new friend followed me down the hall. I paused at the bathroom door, looking back at him and kind of hoping he wouldn't follow me into the shower, that would have been a bit awkward. Shiro grinned at me and rolled his inverted eyes before continuing down the hall passed me and toward the front of my apartment. I watched him get half way to the next room before he simply vanished.

Blue brows furrowing, I scanned the hall and the sitting room beyond for a moment, hoping it was normal for him to do that. I could tell something wasn't right with him, though he acted normal enough, or at least what I had deemed as normal. Still, it was a gut feeling I had that told me something wasn't quite right, like he was sick. I realized it was something concerning his need to save energy and I also realized that he hadn't always been visible to me, even while he had apparently been around. Perhaps they were connected somehow.

Finally convincing myself he was fine, I turned back toward the bathroom to shower and ready for the day, a day I had no idea how I was going to spend. I showered, glad when the hot water didn't help me find any unwanted marks. After I climbed out and changed into the clean boxers and jeans, I pushed the door open, letting the hot steam from the shower billow out of the room and peeked around the door frame, still kind of hoping to see Shiro. When I didn't see him floating about, I turned back toward the bathroom and grabbed my tooth brush from it's holder before wiping the condensation away from the mirror with my hand.

"Aww~ did ya miss me er somethin'?"

I jerked my hand away, jumping back even as I realized what had just happened and glared at the visage in the mirror. Shiro smirked back at me where my face should have been, all but silently cracking up, his voice muffled through the glass of the mirror like he was actually inside it or maybe behind it.

"How do you do that?" I asked as I stepped back to the sink and began brushing my teeth, staring at him in the mirror. It was strange to look into something I was so used to seeing myself in and that not be what I was looking at.

He gave me a half assed shrug in answer and separated himself from the mirror to join me in the bathroom like he couldn't stand to be away from me anymore than I could stand to be away from him, though I hardly realized it quite yet.

After a few minutes of idle talk, mostly him trying to explain to me just how he managed to replace himself with my reflection, which I still don't really understand, we were headed back toward the front room when I decided to ask him what I had been wondering at before the shower.

"Shiro, you ok?" I asked curiously, looking over to see that he was nearly invisible again, though not quite as badly as the day before and he was still looking off somehow. He still held that face splitting grin, his golden eyes were still just as fiery, but something still didn't look quite right, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

He gave me another half assed shrug, his grin lessening just a bit as he looked over at me. "Eh. We'll fin' out."

I frowned but didn't say anything. He knew what I had been talking about and he knew his answer hadn't satisfied me, but it had been the only answer he had to give. I still didn't know what was going on and he really didn't know if he would be alright or not. We wouldn't have to wait long to find out.

As the day went on, the two of us sitting around and still getting to know each other, the very air within my apartment seemed to get thicker, darker. We both felt when it started probing around again, when it had finally had enough of Shiro's antics. Though the shadows still had yet to show themselves, I could feel them hovering near by, could tell they were angry. There was an almost cruel undercurrent to their feel that sent a chill down my spine and had me nervous and paranoid again. I could also tell that at least some of that anger was pointed toward Shiro, though I had no idea why yet.

Occasionally, when he thought I wasn't paying attention, I would catch him with this odd expression. It wasn't quite fear, but it certainly wasn't his usual, amused grin either. Shi almost gave off an air of nervousness when he wasn't careful to keep it away from me, an uncertainty that didn't suit him well. I liked all of his brash confidence.

Finally, as the sun began to set again, deepening the shadows and dimming the lights of my home, Shiro turned to me, the smirk gone, his white brows pulled together and his eyes a bit wider than normal. He still looked more opaque than he had, still looked like something was wrong and I found myself worried before he even said anything.

"I...I'm sorry..." He all but gasped out, his lilting voice breathy like he was straining even though it seemed as though he was only sitting on the floor beside me. It had been a battle of wills up to that point, a silent and invisible war between he and the shadowy demon that had taken more out of him than a physical fight would have. And now that the bastard was beginning to get the upper hand, Shiro wouldn't have the strength needed for a physical confrontation.

Confused, I shook my head slightly, blue brows furrowed to match his. Before I had the chance to ask him what he was talking about, he jumped from the floor and rounded the couch. I stood from where I sat, still not understanding and beginning to think the worst. However, that didn't even begin to describe it.

I looked over the back of the couch to see Shi standing in the opening to the dark hall, his back toward me. His colorless hair seemed to flow out behind and around him, as if following currents I couldn't feel nor see, his stance was squared and tense but his head was tilted back slightly, looking up at something that must have stood taller than he did.

As I watched, my look of confusion slowly melted away as my eyes widened. Passed Shiro, the darkness that I mistook for simply being the dark of the hallway began swirling and changing, moving and flowing on it's own. It bubbled and folded back in on it's self, nothing but malevolence and anger roiling through and from it, aimed at Shiro for the time being. It seemed to disregard me all together at the moment, but that wouldn't last and as I watched, tendrils of darkened shadow seemed to bleed from it like and open wound, dimming the light I had turned on in the sitting room.

"Grimm...Grimm, don' freeze up now..." I snapped my wide eyes away from it and to Shiro in time to see him bare white teeth at the shadowed creature as it began to emerge, invading the lit room and seeming to swallow both the light around it and the natural shadows. A darkened object vaguely in the shape of a massive, clawed hand reached from the hallway entrance, separating from the rest of the mass and gripping onto the frame of the entrance. Large enough to nearly wrap around Shiro's waist, another shot from the darkness to collide with the pale entity that I had befriended as I took a step back.

Never before had I seen it this angry, this enraged. It was hungry and it was sick of the being that had been standing in it's way for the past couple days and Shi was very nearly out of strength to keep fighting it. The thing that had been tormenting me, haunting and toying with me since I was little was back in full and it was more powerful than it had been back then, more angry and more bold. It wasn't going to wait for me to fall asleep this time and it wasn't going to let anything stand in it's way.

Where's the dramatic music when you need it? Let me know what you thought please~