Empath

I had never before been so very glad for having a private office. It allowed me to close the blinds, keep the door closed, and the computer monitor off. I had a headache. Again. The walls were thick because of the high-grade military construction but that only helped block sound. Not emotion. And it felt as if everyone was having some sort of emotion drama today. And lucky me, I was picking up on it.

I draped myself across my love seat and put my jacket over my face to block every single faint ray of light that managed to survive in the dimness. My brain felt like barbed wire was wrapped around it and the light were tiny little daggers jabbing in just because the first pain wasn’t bad enough. I groaned and rubbed my temples. This was the fourth time in two weeks I had felt such intense emotions from other people and been unable to close myself off. And the sixth time in a week and a half I’d gotten a headache. It felt like someone took my brain and replaced it with a bomb. A bomb that reloaded.

An agent down the hall broke into a huge fit of emotion. His daughter was pregnant. At 16. “Fuckin’ kids,” I grumbled, not quite knowing why I had the urge to say it aloud but doing so anyway.

There was a knock at my door and I winced. It was Duo. I could tell by the happiness and mischief that always surrounded him and blocked out the majority of his other emotions. “Hey there Q! How abou…Q?”

I groaned as the knives twisted. “Go away, Duo. Please.”

“Have another headache?” Duo asked and I felt him crouch down next to me. Worry washed over me from our bond and I was suddenly anxious about myself. “You know, it’s not normal to have all these headaches, Quat. You should see someone and have ‘em checked out,” he advised.

I barely bit back the retort. One, because it was highly impolite. And two, because I hadn’t thought of one suitably scathing to match my bad mood yet. “I’ll be fine,” I managed to utter through my makeshift covering. His closeness was making it even harder to build up a barrier between him and me and for the first time in a while I could sense below the playful clown he always acted as without trying to. Many mixed emotions swirled beneath the surface. Worry, annoyance at my stubbornness, frustration, and caring. Even emotions not linked to me like his boredom with his job, his enjoyment of annoying Wufei, his anguish over his past and those he’s lost, and his love for Heero were all laid bare for a brief moment. Just long enough for them to scrape away another layer of my mind with a dull razor.

I groaned and rolled away from him. “Duo…please...my head’s killing me.”

“That’s the point, Quatre!” he said in exasperation. “Just go to a doctor would ya?”

“You go to a doctor,” I muttered in annoyance.

Duo sighed and I felt his annoyance and worry growing. “Go home at least, Quat, it’s not like you’re getting any work done with your head under your coat anyway. I’ll take ya home if you don’t want to drive. I’ll even go…close to the speed limit. Whatd’ya say?”

It was incredibly tempting. It was surprising I even considered it, but I knew I had too much to do today. Once my headache ebbed I’d have to stay late to catch up for how long I’d been laying here. Duo put a hand on my shoulder and the floodgates opened wider. I opened my mouth in a silent scream of pain. His worry was stifling. I almost couldn’t breathe. “Alright!” I said, partially because I felt the unstoppable urge to take care of his worry and partially to get him to take his hand off. But his worry still clung to him and therefore me. My Empathy was not this strong. Just touching my covered shoulder had never been enough for me to channel so completely.

I slowly got up; Duo was looking at me carefully. Worry brimming his violet eyes. I still felt that worry. It wouldn’t go away. “Duo please…stop worrying…” I said rubbing my temples. I knew it was futile. You couldn’t just stop feeling something because someone told you to. But his emotions were wearing down on already raw nerves and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

“I can’t when you look like you wanna rip your own head off, Q,” Duo said softly. “You’re one of my best friends and I care about you.”

I suppressed the grimace. “I know, Duo,” I assured him. Already the listed emotions were beating at my head. “Believe me I know that you and the others care about me but right now I’d really rather not discuss it. Just take me home, Duo…before I take you up on that wonderful head ripping idea you just had.” I felt his worry spike again and couldn’t help but wince as his emotions cut at my own heart. I could barely separate his emotions from mine and our worry together nearly put me in a state of panic. I was able to fight it down, though it made my head throb even more.

I rubbed at my temples harder and allowed Duo to pull me to my feet. The world tilted violently and I almost stumbled. I knew something was seriously wrong with me and I wished I’d go see a doctor and stop being so stubborn. No. Wait. Duo knew that and wished that. Not me. I was barely aware of Duo almost dragging me down the hall and into the painfully bright-lit elevator.

On the way down we stopped at another floor and I felt a wave of surprise that made me wince. I looked up and saw Lady Une standing there with a file in her hands. “What’s wrong with Winner?” she asked worry seeping across my channels to mingle with Duo’s. I nearly couldn’t breathe.

“Migraine,” Duo said “I’m taking him home for the day.”

I resisted the urge to correct him. I didn’t have a ‘migraine’ I had a war zone crammed in my skull. Une clearly didn’t like the lack of request in Duo’s voice though. She was still in charge after all. And Duo was not asking permission; he had been announcing it. Her emotions were mixed and they made me a bit nauseous. I put my right hand to my forehead as Duo still had an iron grip on my other arm. “Can we please go?” I hated how much of a whimper that came out as but I couldn’t help it. I was quite literally in agony.

“Does he get these migraines often?” Une asked softly.

“He has been lately,” Duo answered.

I barely stopped myself from looking up and snapping at them for talking about me as if I wasn’t even here. But my frustration and annoyance was still growing by the moment. I reached over and hit the down button. I didn’t care anymore if Une gave me permission to leave. I had to get out of this office before I suffocated on all of the emotions. Duo’s surprise washed over me as the elevator slid down. “Quat, that’s something I would expect from Fei.”

“I don’t really care, Duo,” I grumbled rubbing my temples again in an effort to try and keep my head from exploding. Duo’s worry spiked again and I groaned some in pain. Why couldn’t I shut any of this out? I couldn’t wait for us to get home and, as per usual, that made the trip seem to take even longer.

I went straight to my room and locked the door before going to my bathroom and dropping several pills down my throat to try and help the splintering pain. After that, I went to bed and tried to sleep. Tried being the operative word as every throb of my head seemed to intensify as I tried to relax. Downstairs I could sense Trowa’s worry growing as Duo told him what had happened.

I groaned. Why did Duo have to do that? Trowa had just gotten back yesterday from taking care of Catherine and was still worried about her. Now he was worried about me too. He didn’t need that and I didn’t really need it either. I just needed for my Empathy to stop picking up practically every emotion from those around me. Then I’d be able to function normally again.

I heard the phone ring downstairs and I buried my head under my pillow to try and drown it out even more. I didn’t understand why this was happening. I’d never had this many problems with my Empathy before. I’d even been able to turn it off almost completely while fighting. Turning my Empathy off had been the only way I’d managed to make it through the wars. I’d never been able to fight other human beings otherwise.

There was a knock on my door, “Quatre, one of your sisters is on the phone. I don’t know which one.”

I contemplated for just a moment before I pulled my head out from under the pillow. “I don’t want to talk to her right now, Trowa. Tell her I’ll call her back.” I didn’t hear an answer so I figured he’d already walked away to give my sister the message. Chances were it was more than one of them on the phone anyhow. They always seemed to be on speaker when they were talking to me over the phone. My head would explode if I tried to deal with them now.

The medication wasn’t kicking in fast enough. I could barely even open my eyes with how splitting it all was. And the others were pulsing behind my eyes making me want to claw the offending orbs out of my skull. I went to my bathroom and closed the door, not bothering to turn on the light.

I sat on the ground and rested my head against the cool tiles of the shower stall. I was hoping that the slight coldness would numb the pain out. I wasn’t all that certain it would work but I was running out of options short of drinking myself too stupid to think and I had never been fond of that.

I’d only ever truly got drunk after my father had been killed and that had only been a few times. I winced some, wishing my thoughts had stayed far away from those memories. They weren’t my proudest moments. I still felt like I would never be forgiven for them.

I groaned a bit and rubbed my face. Why, oh why, had my brain wandered there when I didn’t want to think about anything at all? Greif that I still struggled with rose up and I tried my best to fight it down. It didn’t work.

The thoughts that Father would be able to help me with this empathic struggle occurred to me even though I knew it probably wasn’t true. Father hadn’t been empathic. Still, now that the idea was there it wouldn’t leave. Tears sprung to my eyes and I buried my face in my knees. Now I was even more glad I hadn’t taken that call from my sister.

I silently cried into my knees for a bit. The sorrow wouldn’t go away and feeling my friends’ emotions which were certainly not sorrow only made me feel worse. But at the same time better? I couldn’t tell. It was all too jumbled.

I ran my fingers through my hair, unable to stop myself from pulling on it slightly. Why couldn’t I control it anymore?!