Essence
Part One
By Lady AngelFiren

*BEEP!*

Heero's laptop chimed energetically as he came into the room. Less than three seconds after hearing it he had already accessed his mailbox and was reading over whatever had arrived. I watched him silently from the bed, marveling at his efficiency and his focus. I wondered what exactly he had gone through all his life to be so good at what he did. I didn't really want to know. I saw the subtle change his face always got when he wasn't happy about something as he turned to me, seemingly struggling to maintain the stoic façade, but for once being only mildly successful.

"What is it?" I asked, knowing I wouldn't like it. I never liked it when something drew Heero away from me, whatever it was. We had a strange sort of relationship, mostly dictated by him. Sex, yes, but there was little communication. To say I was happy with that would be an outright lie, but I was not dissatisfied enough to persue my goal of having an actual conversation with Heero anytime soon. I didn't think he could handle that. He was certainly not cold towards me on purpose; I had managed to get him to cuddle with me and even stay with me through entire nights, but those occasions were few and far between, and they only happened after an extremely long mission.

'Mission.' I am really beginning to hate that word. All I ever hear from him is ninmu this, ninmu that. He is obsessed, and it _cannot_ be healthy. Nobody should be that dedicated! It makes me so mad when he jumps headfirst into these impossible situations just because some old guy told him to! Its not fair! Ok, so maybe I'm getting a little clingy and desperate sounding, but I need some attention here! Would it be so hard for Heero Yuy to step off his pedestal and give me a crumb of affection? Yeah, it would. It is. So I'm not gonna ask, but that doesn't mean I can't be angry, or hurt, or maybe even a little over-emotional about it. But is he gonna see that from me? No way. That would not be playing my role as his baka, and I have to be Heero's baka. Not sure why though.

So anyway, not like I was babbling or anything, (Me? Babble? Never!) but I watched him turn to me, and felt a pang of anger rise in my chest as I waited to hear his newest reason to leave me behind as he went off to play 'hero' (Crappy pun intended! Don't like it, don't read it.).

"Mission." He ground out. Man, is he ever _tense!_ And I do mean tense. His hands were at his sides in tight fists; every move he made was rigid, like it hurt to move but he was determined to do it anyway; and his eyes flashed a dangerous blue that sought to burn through anything they rested on, including me. I think he has some kind of delusion that he's really got laser eyes. Heh, right, and I'm the tooth fairy. Yeah. What was that I said before about babbling?

"Gee, you don't say. Hunh. I never would have expected _that,_" I drawled, giving him a dark little smile. I was feeling especially bitter for some reason. Must be 'cause I stay up all night thinking, trying to tell myself that I actually have a reason to be here aside from playing sidekick and fuck toy. I do believe in helping others relieve their stress, but sometimes I just need a little time to myself, and this was one of those times. I didn't want to hurt anymore. Maybe he'd just leave and I could have a little while to sort things out. Fat chance.

"Both of us." He said dangerously. He says everything dangerously. I'm actually starting to believe that he isn't just trying to impress me with his toughness anymore. Maybe he really _is_ that severe. Perceptive, aren't I?

"Eh? Where we goin?" I was genuinely curious. Despite the way Heero and I always end up in the same vicinity, we rarely have missions together. I have a tendency to be better at stealth operations, whereas Heero has this 'thing' with blowing shit up, just for good measure. It sometimes makes me a little envious of his recognition. Nobody cares who went in and almost got their ass canned stealing the data and statistics and whatever else was needed to allow him to press the 'boom' button, they just wanna see the pretty colours flash over their vidscreens when they watch the news or whatever. Not that I'm really into the whole publicity and recognition thing, but a little would be nice. Oh well, ain't gonna happen.

"J and G want to see us for an 'evaluation.' Together."

"Christ, Why? Have we not spent long enough being trained and tested and playing lab rat? I don't wanna go! Tell them to take their stupid evaluation and shove it where the sun don't shine! I'm not goin!"

"Baka. Its orders. We leave tomorrow at 0600 hours." With that he shut down his laptop and prepared his things. All he had was an old duffel bag, into which he placed some weapons and a small number of explosives; and over top of that a few changes of clothes. He went into the tiny bathroom that branched off of our shared room, flicking on the light efficiently and shutting the door with a curt sound of wood striking wood for the briefest of moments. Exactly four minutes and thirty seconds later he was out. I knew his routine well enough, fifteen seconds to prepare toothbrush, two and a half minutes to brush teeth in the correct fashion, another fifteen seconds to rinse his brush and dry it off. One full minute to wash his face and that left him exactly one minute to pee and clean any water (or fingerprints) up from around the sink and be done. I mean, efficient much!? He cleans his fingerprints up for fucksakes! That is just not natural! I don't clean my fingerprints. Who the hell is gonna look for our fingerprints?! Jesus, I don't know how much longer I can take this

Heero went to his bed and laid down on his back, rigid as a steel pole, turning out the lamp on his side of the room and closing his eyes. I heard him consciously slow and deepen his breathing as he forced himself to sleep, which must be very difficult for someone as tense as him. I got up from my bed and went through my evening routine of brushing my pearly whites and then combing out my hair as quickly as I could without damaging it. It reached down to my hips, and I was always concerned about it being singed or shredded in battle, but so far I've been pretty lucky. Hope I never have to see the day my hair is cut off. I don't know what I'd do without it. Ok, so maybe I'm a little vain. Is that so bad? Heero thinks so. I swear if I hear him tell me to cut it off once more I'm gonna kick him in the teeth. And I am well aware I'd never have the chance, but I like to live in my delusional little world. The place where I'm actually a match for Heero in a fight and he is a loving, expressive person. Like I said, delusions.

I finished with my hair and re-braided it, keeping the plait loose but secure. No sense breaking or splitting my hair from having it braided too tightly, now is there? A few minutes later saw me laying in the darkness listening to Heero's breathing as I thought about what this mission would mean. 'Evaluation' is not a word I like to hear when it comes to those 'doctors.' I had the most horrible feeling that I'd wake up in one of their labs and have some weird surgery or something done to me. I was scared that they'd test new drugs on me and fry my brains. I was really scared that they'd cut off my hair. Worst of all I shuddered to think of what they had in store for Heero. Everything they have ever done to me is probably only a small fraction of whatever happened to him. His tension, his alertness, everything about him screams 'Augmented! Abnormal!' and I don't know what kind of childhood he had, but it cannot have been anything outside of a lab. I eventually drifted off to sleep, and was thankful that for once I could rest, undisturbed, for a whole night. I just hoped I wouldn't have any nightmares. I really didn't want to hear Heero telling me to 'go to sleep, baka,' in 'that' voice. I seriously did not need him reprimanding me because I can't force myself not to dream.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I waited exactly one hour and thirteen minutes for Duo to fall into a believable state of restfulness. The nervous, cynical tension that constantly rolls off of him when he is awake is disturbing and distracting. I don't know how to put him at ease, and his thoughts are so quick and negative that if I let myself sense them throughout the day I would have given up the war a long time ago. I am not so strong as he thinks. Its difficult to say that. I want to be strong, I want to keep peace, and I want him to be happy, but I just can't seem to do any of those things. He has one thing right though; I _am_ a perseverant, obsessive bastard. I don't know how not to be.

Finally allowing my body to relax, I withdrew the careful barriers I have always kept around my mind, and let the world around me flow in. Its like walking through a dark room all the time, until you finally find the light switch. I have had this sense as long as I can remember, and could not imagine living without it. It is something that the infamous Dr. J has not been able to take from me, but he has taught me to control it, which I am thankful for to a certain extent, although I still abhor the man with every part of my being. What he has done to me no, its better just not to think of it. I spend all day a prisoner in my head, may as well try to enjoy my small freedom.

I instantly began to get impressions from Duo. Apparently he wasn't as deeply asleep as I had hoped, for I saw stirring traces of conscious thought in him. He was thinking about me again. I didn't want to intrude, so I blocked off most of what was coming from him, but not before I caught the distinct picture of him holding me in his arms as I cried. Well that had certainly never happened before, nor would it, but I made a note of it anyway and tucked it away in my head for future reference. The surroundings were strange, metallic with no natural light, like a lab; and the feeling I got from it was distinctly alien. I did not understand what I was seeing or feeling. I heard myself say my own name in the flash and noticed how uncharacteristically expressionless Duo's face was, then I got no more impressions from him.

I was disappointed that he was thinking of me, sometimes I would get the most beautiful and intricate things from his mind, or even just glimpses of what little happiness he has had in his life. There are often very strong impressions that came off of a little boy he sees himself with in his dreams. He has very pale hair, almost colourless, and deep, deep eyes. His eyes always look like they belong on someone much older than he; it makes me feel like I'm watching him, and he's watching me right back. I don't know who he is, but I know he's dead because I can feel his presence around Duo almost all the time. I think that the boy's spirit is guarding Duo. I hope so, he seems like a good protector. Hopefully he can do what I can't.

Focussing my mind elsewhere, I let the other people in the building flow through me. I don't venture out and pick thoughts or feelings from people, they mostly come to me, and I can focus on certain people, although its easier with those I know. We were in an apartment with a kitchen, a bathroom and one very small bedroom, barely big enough to fit our two beds in, much less a desk or television. Duo constantly complains that there is nothing to do here because we don't have TV, but not once have I seen him actually miss the thing. He always finds a way to use up his seemingly endless energy, usually by talking to me. And here's where the difficulty between us comes in.

When he talks to me, I hear everything he's saying; often he has so much to say that I have to stop really working to listen to him. But I hear everything that goes on underneath what he says as well, and it confuses the hell out of me. He is so fleeting and tumultuous that I hardly ever get one strong impression from him, its more like trying to feel three different people at once. Part of him is extremely cynical and depressed, so much so that I often feel that way myself after spending too much time focussing on that part of him. Another part of Duo is just so hyper and excited all the time I can barely hold back the urge to giggle just from being around him. I don't giggle. The last part I get from him is the worst. Its emotional and confused and is always asking the smartest questions into the rest of his mind. In effect, this third part of Duo leads the rest of him in circles, and he ends up a mess of nerves and tears on the inside, even as he is trying to tell the world that he's fine on the outside. I get all of this from him, but I have no idea what to do with it because I can see that every time I try to be constructive, the smart, confused part of him will interpret it wrongly or bend it into something entirely different.

So I really am not so strong as I wish, I can't even help my only friend sort himself out. How am I supposed to save the world? Best not to think about any of it and just concentrate on the mission. If he knew how emotional I really am

I shivered and listened with my heart to the rest of the building. Mostly people sleeping, but I got a few pictures from young children of their friends and memories of what they did all day, an old woman thinking about what will happen to her when she dies (she knows its coming, I expect an ambulance will be here to take her body away by morning), a couple who got in a fight and are both secretly sorry, a very sad picture from one child who saw her father beat up her mother a few hours ago. There are all kinds of things I see, and I find it extremely ironic that in saving the world and upholding peace I'm really not doing anything at all to help these people, except giving them lives to mess up. If they could just learn to see past what is happening, they could have a better kind of peace. But it will never happen, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I am doing all I can by trying to keep the peace between nations, and that in itself has taken every effort I have to put forward.

Duo often wonders why I never react to him, I get that from him all the time. He thinks I don't care, but I do. I just don't know what to do about it. I think that in having this sense, this vision, I have sacrificed some of the other ways of communicating and interacting. It probably didn't help that I spent my childhood in a dark lab on a tiny colony and had no friends at all until I came to Earth, but I think that if I had been exposed to normal things as a child I would have turned out much the same. There is fear, of him, of myself; I've discovered an unwanted challenge, being in his presence so much of the time, because he confuses and jumbles me to such an extreme. That's why I have to turn my sense off when he's around, and then I find it near impossible to hear him or react to him because I feel empty without it. If I could get around that, than maybe I would be able to talk to him, to stay in bed with him for a whole night and wake up with him curled up against me. I would tell him how I felt about things more, and I think I would just be entirely better for him, except that I'm not able to do any of that.

I started to feel the day's wear on my frame as I settled more comfortably in the bed, and my mind began to get jumbled (it always does when I'm tired), so I closed it up somewhat, letting only a few vary strong things come in, and tried not to think of them at all. I drifted off to sleep, grateful to be allowed to relax, even for the few hours that I was unconscious and unable to really experience the feeling of having all the weight off my shoulders. Soon I would have to get up again, and I dreaded the thought of returning to the place I'd spent most of my life. It was not simply anger or nervousness, I think I actually fear that place, and that's a weakness I cannot consciously admit to myself, because it makes everything I try so hard to achieve pointless. If I can't do it right, if I can't be strong and fearless when I do something, I see no point.

Duo doesn't think that way at all; he leans towards desperate measures, and so is much better at quieter, stealthier work. I'd get in there and I'd freeze; if I didn't see a way out, I'd self-destruct. He somehow manages to keep his head, and I have no idea how, despite the fact that I've been reading his thoughts and feelings ever since I met him. Of all the people I've ever experienced, he is the one who I can't seem to clearly see. Its as if there is a wall made of impressions that are coming off of him, and its so thick I can't get anything comprehensible from it. So I run away. I self-destruct. I'm cold and unresponsive to him, and I don't know how to change that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The buzzing of my alarm clock dragged me back into consciousness. I'd been having the nicest dream, about when Solo and I were little and we'd snuck into an opera through the basement. We had managed to get all the way up to the top of the huge opera house and had watched the show from the rafters, laughing at the way the fat old men would sing. Solo had been having the time of his life, and consequentially, so was I.

Then a woman came on the stage, and at first she was trembling and reluctant to make a peep, but then she did, and both of us were silent, awestruck. He voice had risen up into the rafters with a soul-wrenching quality, and I clearly remember the way the whole house had suddenly gone dead silent and completely still, except for the young lady on stage. Looking over during the performance, I saw Solo watching intently with tears in his eyes, and I knew he was thinking of his family. This woman must have reminded him of something or other that had happened, and he was brought to uncharacteristic tears for the duration of her song. I realized that I too had tears in my eyes, and I scuttled closer to him, looking for comfort. He took my hand in his and we both cried for the whole thing. When the lady was done, there was a long moment of silence, like the house was afraid to break the mood she'd set, and then, slowly at first, but then faster and louder so it sounded like a whole rainstorm in a few minutes, there was applause from every direction. It was amazing, captivating, and we snuck out of the house later on, not even having to heart to steal from the audience that had shared the experience of the young diva's voice with us. Ok, enough of Memory Lane.

I pulled myself into some semblance of consciousness and kicked the covers off of me, knowing that once they disappeared, I'd have to get up anyway. Can't sleep without covers, now can we? Yeah, so I somehow found the strength to get up and get ready to go, and I was just starting to really wake up around five fifty, ten minutes before we had to leave. Of course Heero had already been up for awhile, and this morning he was especially early in rising because some lady died in the building last night, and the ambulance woke him.

Heero said he would take care of transportation (figures he doesn't trust me, bastard) so I basically just had to remember my toothbrush and I was good to go. And dammit, I forgot my toothbrush, which I didn't even realize until we were on a commercial shuttle to whatever colony we were scheduled to arrive on in a few hours. Its great how I get so much information, I love to be totally prepared for anything and everything. Oh well, Heero's always prepared enough for us both. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to missions and work and anything relevant I definitely pull my weight, but sometimes it was easier to let him do it, and pointless to try and help.

Why I was thinking about this so much is beyond me, I get into the strangest moods sometimes (especially before missions), and Christ, its hard to get out of them! I knew we were getting the rubber end of the plunger on this particular mission. I mean, anything having to do with those doctors is not cool, but this was just scary! We had to actually go and hang out in their creepy mad scientist labs and let them do whatever they wanted to us? *cringe* I just did _not_ like the sound of that.

I looked over at Heero sitting beside me on the shuttle. We had ended up in some seat so random it was cliché, beside the window. Heero sat in the aisle seat, probably so he could take over the vehicle if he had to for whatever reason, so I got to look out the tiny little window at the big black nothingness of space. Jesus, I wished he'd talk to me for once. There weren't that many people on the flight, so the shuttle was only about three quarters full. Probably because not too many people want to go to a tiny little colony with almost no inhabitants, but that's just a guess, how the hell should I know? I looked harder at Heero and realized that he had his eyes closed and was just siting there like that, arms crossed characteristically over his chest, hair as dark and tousled as always, breathing deep and controlled.

/What the hell? Ya know what, I'm not even gonna ask what he's doing. Probably using some special resting trick that only Perfect Soldiers know how to do, like super space sleep or something. Shit, I wish he'd say something./

And whaddya know, Soldier Boy spoke.

"I'm thinking. That's all."

A few terse words and I was occupied for the rest of the flight, wondering what had made him say something at that exact moment, and how he knew what to say. What's he think about anyway? Shit, I was completely tied up in thought knots by the time our shuttle landed. I'd pretty much forgotten about the mission, well almost; that is, until we got to the space port, in which case all my dread resurfaced and I became a bundle of nervous tension. Heero hadn't changed, or so I thought, except that before we got off the craft he took my hand very briefly and looked me in the eyes. His glare softened just barely, and then he let go of me and was making his way off the plane. Whoever gave him the authority to just walk around and mess with people's heads I don't know, but I swear I'm gonna hunt them down and slowly bleed them to death for it. He should not be allowed to do that

So off we were, and there was a car waiting for us, which Heero went into with only small caution, so I figured he knew the driver or something, or at least he knew that the driver was someone too afraid of the doctors to make any dumb or independent moves against us. No point in doing so anyway. I was fairly sure that a pair of terrorists were capable of taking on a cab driver. Especially this one. He weighed more than the car, I swear, and wore a button on his shirt that bore his picture and said 'Hi! I'm Lenny!' in cheerful yellow, accented by purple. Beautiful contrast, I know. I think I'll paint my house purple someday, with yellow trim and shutters. Just gorgeous. He was white, like almost everyone on this colony, which made it hard to believe that Heero was from here, 'cause he's Japanese, but I don't think he's completely Japanese, 'cause he has blue eyes. Hmmm, I wonder if even _he_ knows where he came from. Oh well, its not like I'll ever find out. I'm good enough to sleep with, but not good enough to wake up to. Great, I feel so special.

What was that? Me? Sarcastic? Naw

Upon arriving at the evil mad scientist's lab, we were greeted by the fiends themselves as we stepped from the car, which had pulled into a sort of garage that could obviously be made entirely secure and inescapable if all the doors came down. Love to feel safe donch'ya know, especially in this place. I really like seeing that there's no way out.

Yeah, so maybe I was just a tad tense as we stepped onto a smooth concrete floor and the driver took off at a healthy, (if a little eager) pace.