Walking in the rain - bloodsoaked and tearstricken, a tumultuous chaos tumbling through my mind - far too much perfection on the surface, bred and trained to be the one that fixes the world. And yet the cracks in my armor are seen all too easily if one bothers to look beyond - beyond their own needs, beyond the way they scream for my help when all I want is to crash and burn.

It almost feels a little like pleasure to feel the way the cold water sinks into my flesh, a drenching downpour that I don't really want to escape - just like the dark swirl that I ride every night in my own heart as I watch you sleep, painted pretty in the scene behind my eyelids. It's so hard to realize that I already know what I need, and even harder to admit it to myself. Heaven forbid I admit it to you, the darkened angel.

It seems sometimes that you're the one that's perfection - even though I've held that false title for so damn long that it seems a far more familiar mask than my own name. But I've never told you any of this, have I? I've never told you that I sit alone in my room, in my Gundam, in any dark place I can find at night and cry until the wrenching, sobbing pain wracks its agony through my heart, leaving me a broken mess in its wake. I never told you the reason why I have -all- of these scars - it's so very easy to simply chalk it up to the training, the war, the lack of childhood that I've gone through.

I never told you that all I want is for you to find me, just once, seeking me out to talk or go drink coffee somewhere or to go get pizza and wipe away my tears. I never told you that I want you to come to me in the night when my hands are shaking and I'm clutching the blade so tightly that my fingers are white and my battered skin is red because it's the only way I can FEEL anymore and I don't deserve to feel anything else but this.

I've never told you I l- but I can't say that word, I can't even think it.

Please. I can't tell you that I need you. I can't tell you that when I stare at the night sky I see your eyes, your name written in the stars. I can't tell you that you're the light of my life and the reason that I don't press down just a little harder, even though I'm too afraid - yes, I am afraid. I'm so scared and lost and alone and I need you.

Please. I need you and I don't want to be the strong one anymore. I don't want to be the Perfect Soldier. I don't want to be the cold, uncaring person that everyone sees because that's just not me, and you're the only one that I think has bothered to take a good look at this mask, because you have your own and know what it's like to hide. Please don't run away. Please don't leave me.

Please come and bandage these wounds and hold me, because I don't think I can take another night of the rain pelting down across my back like gunfire, slamming the door just like everyone expects me to, not eating or sleeping for days because all I want is to bleed -

My own little God of Death...

Duo, please. I need your help.