A/N: ah, I've been in one of those moods lately. This came to mind last night and it just spoke to me. Also, it's my mission to write a story starting with every letter of the alphabet. I only need Q, Z, X, and U. Most of them are already in the making. Gwen's POV.

Disclaimer: I own no part of Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force, or Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Quit

Kevin had already gone into the backroom while I reached over for the box-cutter that sat near enough for me to just grab without having to go too far to get it. I didn't want him to think anything was wrong with me. Nothing was wrong with me.

I just wanted to quit being perfect.

I slid out the blade, seeing the glint in the silver like the moonlight reflecting off the windshield of his car when he came around to pick me up late for dates. And I stared at the sharp edge long and hard before carefully rolling up my sleeve and revealing the three long scars that resided there, slashed across my wrist from the many other times I had gotten my hands on a razor or a small pocket knife.

Checking to make sure Kevin hadn't come back, I quietly pierced the scars, blood welling out of the wound willingly. I watched it flow, pretending it was my pain and I was watching it bleed away. I wanted to watch it be my perfection, flooding from my system to make me normal, more human. I didn't want to be perfect. I had to quit. I had to stop.

I sliced across my wrist. The blood dripped across my skin, feeling soft and slick. The emotional pain eased out of me, replaced with the physical hurt that seemed to ring throughout my system. Biting my lip kept me from crying out. I couldn't imagine letting Kevin see me like this. I just had to bleed away a little bit more of the pain.

Once the whole scar was slit open again, I dug the edge of the box cutter into the next one, watching the blood of the first slit seep into it as more nauseating pain shot up my arm, making me bite my lip to keep from crying out. Kevin couldn't see me. He didn't need to know anything.

Slowly, I slid the blade down the rest of the scar before digging it into the next one with a bit more force. The emotional pain was bleeding away. I couldn't let it go fast enough. I had to get rid of the pain. I had to feel it. The box cutter was perfect for me. Smooth. Sharp. Painful. Perfect.

I had to get rid of my own perfection with the perfect weapon. I had to quit being perfect.

A clatter rang out as something fell behind me. I spun, dropping the bloodied box cutter at my feet and I saw Kevin staring at me with a hurt and confused expression sprawled across his naturally dark features. "Gwen?" he asked weakly, seeing the blood spattered on my wrist and seeing the tiny droplets on the ground near my feet. "Were you…"

The question hung in the air as I felt tears welling up in my eyes, the pain finally soaking in of how I had been cutting myself for the past few months, trying to bleed away pain that would never leave. Emotional scars were left on the heart. The heart was something that couldn't be repaired. Not even by Kevin.

And before I knew what was going on, I had fallen to the floor, my face buried in my hands as the blood ran down my arms. Hurt flooded my body as if the dam of my physical realm had just crashed, leaving me broken and crumpled on the ground in a heap of pain and misery.

Kevin was making his way over to me after grabbing a small box out of a giant tool chest against one wall. He was dropping to his knees beside me, taking me into his arms and holding me against his chest like a broken doll that he had to fix.

He couldn't fix me. I had to quit being perfect. He wouldn't want me if I were perfect. He was so far from it. And I was all too close… I couldn't do it anymore and still be with him.

I just stared at my bleeding wrist as he wrapped it in the bandages he had taken from the box he had brought over with him. He quietly took care of me, taking off the bandages once more as soon as they were soiled with scarlet and rewrapping my injuries as soon as he was finished cleaning me up again.

And he did that until I stopped bleeding. He did that, taking away my pain and taking away my misery, replacing it with my utmost perfection. And I hated him for it. I hated how he just made me better again. He made me perfect once more and I thrashed against his loving arms, trying to grab at the box cutter to take away the perfect. I had to quit. I couldn't do it anymore.

"Gwen," he said, hauling me away from the box cutter after kicking it out of my reach. Kevin's soothing words lulled me into his chest again, soaking up the warmth that radiated off of him like the heat that came from the sun at high noon. "Do you want to tell me about that?" He stroked my hair with his calloused fingers. "Want to tell me why you were cutting yourself?"

I shook my head, burying my tears in his broad chest and clinging to him for dear life. He was all I wanted to live for anymore. He was all I wanted. I wanted Kevin. I wanted him to love me.

He held me for a long moment and we sat there, me bawling into his chest and him just holding me like a young child that needed soothing.

And finally, when my vision cleared up from being blurred with tears, he whispered, "Let me show you something." And then Kevin rolled up his own sleeves, showing slashed scars that rippled across his whole entire forearm, seeming like an ocean of brilliant white scars against a pale peach plain.

"Kevin…" I breathed, finally able to find words that weren't sobs or streaked with my voice crackling into something shattered. Because seeing those scars just shattered all my previous thoughts about him.

"It always gets better, Gwen," he murmured in my ear before lining the side of my neck and my collarbone with his soft lips that felt like the kisses of butterflies on me. "Everything will always get better." He had turned from dark, ex con with a tortured soul into my own personal guardian angel, wrapping me up in bandages and taking care of me like a sick child and then went right back, still holding onto that faint guardian angel light the whole time. "Trust me."

I clung to him, running my fingers along those scars to know that I wasn't alone. And I looked at my own wrapped up arm and seeing the faint blood seeping through. So I cried again, knowing I had made a mistake that he had, that we were still going to be linked together forever, that I was still going to be perfect and he was always going to be so far from it.

Quit. I had to quit.

Again, I tried to lunge for the box cutter, but Kevin held me back with his natural strength. "Gwen, please don't," he begged me, voice low as if we could be overheard by someone at any second. "I can't stand to see you in pain." His dark eyes were welling with crystal blue tears, the color of sapphires against his obsidian orbs. "I don't want to watch you hurt yourself again. You're too good for that."

"I want- I want to quit…" I breathed, barely managing to swallow the sobs that kept on wanting to choke the life out of me.

"Quit what?" he asked softly, his fingers tilting my chin up so that he was staring right into my eyes, his gaze seeming to pierce my soul. His lips faintly touched mine for a brief moment, giving me no time to bask in the sunlight that seemed to shine in when we were together like this and when we kissed.

"I have to quit- quit being- perfect." The words were strangled from my throat with an iron hand. I held onto him a bit tighter, wanting him to take away my pain, to take away all this misery that I was feeling, to take it all back the way he did when our lips touched and when he was with me and when he was shirtless and when we curled up in his back seat, me laying across his chest to soak in his warmth after a long session of the teenage passions that gripped at us.

Kevin shook his head, blinking sympathetically as if I had done something wrong to displease him. "Gwen," he whispered to me, words said low and enticingly. He didn't even know how much I wanted him at that moment. "I love you just the way you are." He tilted my chin upwards again so our eyes met. "Because you're perfect."

A low whimper caught my words and let them to die on my tongue. It was a good thing too, because just then, Kevin's lips found mine again, this time giving me a chance to show how much I cared for him right back. He was just kissing and then I began to bite his lower lip, challenging him to go farther and then his tongue began to explore the darkest caverns of my mouth as if they were foreign territory despite the fact that he had been there so many times before. And before I knew what was going on, I was begging and pleading for more than just a kiss, for more than just this teenage romance that had flourished between us. I wanted Kevin for who he was, for what he was, for what we could be together.

He broke off the kiss before I could even begin to run my tongue along his teeth. "Gwen," he said, stroking a few auburn strands of hair away from my face as my fingers began to slowly untangle in his deep ebony locks. "Let's just get you home, okay?" His hand returned to my cheek, touching my soft supple skin as I leaned in for another kiss that he returned gently before pulling away again. "We don't want to get out of hand with this." His voice held a bit of a warning. One I wanted to ignore with all my heart. "Let's get you home so I can clean you up the right way."

I buried my head in his chest as he slowly began to rise to his feet, me clutched in his warm arms. And I never wanted him to put me down. He was everything I wanted. He was what made me want to quit. But he was what made me better. He fixed me like I was broken. And I couldn't feel anything else around me except for his warm arms.

He held me. He comforted me. He was there for me when I was about to crash and fall. He was there. Kevin was always there. He was my hero. He made me quit pain. He was my drug. He was my everything.

And he took me home, pretending like nothing had happened while we were together. But that was Kevin. That was how he would always be, my dark juvenile delinquent.

When he took me home, he walked me to the door. He quietly took me up to my room and closed the door after he knew I was nestled up in my bed with my pillow cradling my head. My mom came in, silent as a ghost, and sat on the side of my bed, looking at me with heart-broken and worried eyes. "Kevin told us," she breathed. One hand stroked my hair. "He really cares about you."

I quietly tucked myself tighter into my bed, pretending Kevin was lying beside me when I knew he was out in the hall, talking to my father. "I know he does."

A/N: ah, glad I finished that up after two solid days of working on it. Please review.

~Sky