You can actually see the traces of his Asian ancestry more clearly, like this -- the delicacy of his features, the exotic tilt of his cheekbones, the smooth line of his jaw. It doesn't shout at you like Wufei's heritage does, it whispers of a samurai print, of the delicate likes of ukiyo-e. It's a hint, a subtlety that is overshadowed by his blazing personality when he's awake.

Awake, you only see him -- the nuclear intensity of his will, the unleashed power of his determination. Sleeping, he's just a young man, shorter than most, slim and sleek as a sleeping cat, just a touch androgynous -- a true bishonen, were it not for the scars liberally scattered across his body -- another thing about him that you don't notice when he is awake and the force of his personality is pressing against your own. You don't see the marks that a lifetime of battle and assassination have left on him.

And unless you are one of the fortunate few he calls friend, you'll never see what lies beneath the burning light he sheds. You'll never see the gentleness, the dry humor, the quirky taste in music, the sweet shyness of his smile, the way his eyes sparkle when he's amused.

You'll never see how his neck arches in surrender as I touch him just so, the soft moan that he makes as he lets his orgasm take him and he gives himself up to me and the pleasure that I give him. No one else has ever heard that sound, and to me it is sexier, more intimate than any porn-star cursing and profanity.

Soon enough, he'll wake, and the fires that were banked for the night will blaze forth with all their fury again. But until then, he's mine, the gentle lover I dreamed of through a childhood of seeing people sell their bodies for their next meal or their next high.

Sleep well, Heero. I've got your back.