For those who have never read any of my work before, You and Me was my first multi-chapter anything, fanfic/original/otherwise. It was originally 29 chapters long (I know, I can't believe it either), but as my older more experienced self occasionally glances at this simple story I make adjustments from mistakes I or reviewers have spotted.
So please, if you do see any spelling, grammatical or bad story telling errors, correct me. I'd rather it aged not into a state of complete lameness. Extra thanks to Penname wa Silver B who helped multiple times.
Believe it or not there is fanart for this thing, if you like the story do check out my author's page for links. For this site's standards certain events in this story border the M rating. Jhonen Vasquez owns Invader Zim. It's soundtrack and Goro Yasukawa was listened to in the making of this.
Chapter 1: I Am
"Stay away!"
The screech was no more than a hoarse whisper. He tried to crawl, but his tired aching body wouldn't budge. Bruises covered him head to toe, and his drying blood was making everything stick to him. He attempted to roll, but one arm was bending in a way he's never seen it before. No interest of seeing it again he shut his eyes. He felt it would only bring further pain into his already damaged mind. Tough hands that never seemed to tire picked him back up again. Holding him in place as another pair speckled in his blood strutted over.
"You'll pay for what you did... I'll make you understand our pain!" The teen hissed cracking his knuckles, "You hear that? That's going to be your ribcage, bastard!" In strong overwhelming panic, he almost fainted as he tried to struggle again. He stopped only when he got his face slapped by his captive, Torque.
They did well, he grudgingly admitted; hiding in the alleyway just blocks from his house. No stars nor full moon could pierce the clouds on this wet night. There might be the occasional pockets in the sky and the fading streetlights, but it only brought black shadows to the alley.
But he did not need light to see who brought his seemingly end.
Awkwardly, seemingly neither did they.
It gave him an odd feeling. He knew humans couldn't work in the dark. It's not how their eyes functioned. If they could see, they would have noticed when his eyes lost their contacts. What they stepped on wasn't broken glass, but his contacts shattering. They would have noticed how one of his eyes hissed and bled from making contact to the drenched Earth. How he wasn't him...
How dare they mistake him for anyone but Zim!
His mind wasn't completely muddled, as he managed to stop the fist from colliding with his face with his only good hand. It didn't hold for long, as the human's left slammed against his neck making the planet he so utterly loathed, out of focus. What he found himself wondering however, as he felt himself being thrown, was why.
Who was this originally for? What did he do to deserve-?
A metal ring reverberated loudly as he collided with the streetlight. Plasma energy flew from his PAK, making the light at the top brighten to a near white, nearly blinding any who unfortunately had their eyes open at that time. The bulb itself continued to expand until the hot glass couldn't stretch any further, popping like a bubble. The pieces scattered around the place, hissing as they cooled in the air. Those that fell, cutting into him made him instinctively scream. But his raw throat would not let him, and so he only exhaled harshly.
"Bro, did you see?"
"Yea, that wasn't Dib!"
"Shit! Who the hell was that?"
"I don't know, I- I don't know..."
"Don't start breaking up on me!"
"I- I'm sorry! Oh my god... Oh my god..."
"C'mon! Let's go!"
As the elder teen grabbed Torque's hand, Zim couldn't hear their panting of breath, or their feet hitting the cement. He also couldn't hear the traffic jam five blocks away, or even the young Tabby who witnessed the entire incident. All he knew was that they left him there. What little of his fading mind could process was commanding the PAK for spider legs, for communication to Gir, the house, or something. But the pack was bashed too far in itself from the collision of the pole. A warning spark from the pack made his whole body spaz, twitch, then was still. A soft scream through his clenched teeth was his last conscious move.
Standby... Standby; Critical repair. Need analysis:
Misty rain settled itself away with the moving fog, the once noisy neighborhood settled in for the night as a plane flew overhead. The PAK, fighting under the numerous software programs forced itself into a emergency lock down.
Severe physical damage: Repairable over time.
"Click-click-click-click..."
Zim's eyes dulled to a dark maroon and his whole body finally relaxed.
Command-Collar damage: Need outside equipment for full repair.
Memory storage damage: Personality is being fused with loss of memory. Personality is being lost in the fusion. Per-
Memory must be saved. Hold unfused memory in Collar chip 023A. Fused memory in chip 00Br9. Personality r-reset.
On the unsettling planet, where chaos has the last words to anything, the only peace you speak of comes from within the mind.
Your name is Zim.
...
"Good, if only you would follow in the steps of your peers, I wouldn't have to teach today!" Ms. Bitters growled over her desk at what remained of her students. The cold was just strong enough this month to keep the high skool open. Ms. Bitters' dreams were shattered this morning when she learned she still had 12 kids in good condition.
Among them was Dib, who couldn't understand how anyone like him could be so unlucky to have the same horrendous teacher since elementary. Was the skool budget just that bad? He stooped the nervous tapping of his pencil when he noticed a lack of a green kid in the room. 'Maybe he got sick too... Yeah, more than likely considering he has an allergy to almost everything...' Which brought a smile and a chuckle up to his face.
Upon sensing the smile with her superpowers, Ms. Bitters oozed into the wall and out of his shadow. "Dib! You are to give everyone who isn't here their homework after skool!" This wiped all pleasantries from Dib's mind, leaving a great lot of room for fear and dread to fill his now pimply head.
Ms. Bitters slithered over to the counter and lifted a gargantuan amount of paperwork onto his desk. Dib would've sworn that they didn't kill that much trees this month, but when wasn't that he proven wrong? His desk, also in solid agreement, collapsed from the weight almost smashing his toes. Paper flew everywhere in a snow like way, given that snowflakes can cut you. Those that landed on peer's desks were being transformed into planes and tossed in the air again. It gave the room an atmosphere of another end to a skool year, despite this one just starting.
"Look!" Bitters barked, "Look at this mess you created!" pointing an accusing finger at the boy who's body was now starting to become more proportionate to his head, "You will not leave till all the papers are sorted in their right pile and every wrinkle is flattened!"
'Kind of like what I want to do to your face.' Dib clenched his teeth and obeyed.
...
"I hate High Skool." Dib moaned to Gaz, leaning forward as much as possible to prevent himself from falling backwards over from the weight of his stuffed, black backpack. He leaned so much, he started to look not like your mom but more like your grandpa. Your mom's grandpa.
"Please, you're lucky to get Ms. Bitters for what, the sixth time? At least you know what to expect." Gaz sighed, pushing the unlimited buttons on her GS-11, which involved all fingers to be active for play. "It's still a strange coincidence that she keeps moving up the same time you are- Oh, watch out for that puddle."
"What?" Dib stopped, but too suddenly. The pack's weight made him tip too far and in the puddle he went. Gaz stepped back in time to avoid the muddy water and deployed her black and pink umbrella in time to avoid the oncoming water spray from a passing car. After a moment of consideration, she decided to help her waterlogged brother up. "Glad that's over." He grunted, removing his glasses to dry them. To dry them with what is still in question. "What are you doing?" He squinted at his sister. She was a skinny purple headed blur who was now reopening her umbrella.
"I told you it was going to be eighty percent chance of rain, right?"
"Yeah?"
"And yet you didn't pick up your umbrella."
"I wasn't expecting to be delivery boy!"
"When will you get it through your large head that you need to stop assuming?" She snapped as Dib felt liquid patter on his head. He didn't need his glasses to think that Gaz just magically summoned the rain. His sister just had that aura about her, similar to one like an evil overlord.
"Yeah, yeah I get it." He glared at the sky. "I should've listened to you again." He hobbled over to Gaz to shield himself from the ensuing downpour. As if everything wasn't wet enough from yesterday's rain, or the day before that, or the day before that...
No wonder Zim hasn't been to skool.
"Now you're getting it." A smirk lasted for about two seconds on her face before it returned to it's former frown.
"Gee," Dib rolled his eyes at the drowning ground, "just when I thought I was going to die of thirst."
"Look at the bright side, our packs were made by dad." She pulled a seaweed off of his shoulder. "They are completely fire, water, smoke, bug, burglar, pig, and Antelope proof. So all that paperwork is safe."
"Wonderful." Dib said in a tone that said otherwise.
"Better than returning to Ms. Bitters for replacements."
"Heh," he nodded, "she'd probably make me iron the damn things!"
"That's the spirit."
If his younger self got a look at his future, he would have probably thought it was the work of Zim (again). It's hard to tell these days. But minus Zim for a moment, and younger Dib would find out that he would still be disappointed with the results.
There were about two or three kids that would be willing to talk to him on occasion, but no one he could call a friend. Either he was becoming more obedient or Gaz was becoming more tolerant of his existence. He was leaning towards the former, as two years ago Gaz learned that Dib responded quicker to her commands if blueberry muffins were offered instead of threats.
That, and she had more things distracting her than games. Dib wasn't sure what he looked forward to less, a new torture skill or when she brought another new helpless animal home. Birds are incredibly fragile, and are never guaranteed to last the night. Which then he has to deal with a mopping Gaz, which was still too creepy for him to comprehend enough to be of any assistance.
The real pain wasn't even when she would bring cats or dogs. They were easy to find homes. Who wouldn't want a cuddly fuzzy thing? No, the trouble came in a form of pigs. He clenched his fist knowing that Zim would laugh himself (preferably) dead from the irony. Gaz would bring home injured pigs. Dib didn't even know their was more breeds than just the giant pink ones. Small black ones, incredibly hairy brown ones. It would've been fine if they could find homes for them, but Gaz refused to give up her healthy pigs to anyone who looked more interested in eating them than petting them. Which brought a whole new nightmare to itself at the household.
"Daughter, I told you to get rid of these animals!"
"They aren't animals, they're pigs!"
"Get them out. Now."
"Daaaaaad! Pigs are people too!"
"-and people are pigs."
"Son; shut-up!"
Membrane only stopped fighting with Gaz when he couldn't find the pigs. Hiding in Dib's and Gaz's rooms was all planned by the Dib himself, surprisingly. Which is the only logical reason in his mind to why Gaz wasn't as harsh with him, because now every day was going to be a new horrible experience waking up and coming in after skool. What did Johnny and Mr. Eff do to his room today? He could only guess what he would find later; right now he had house deliveries to make.
"Make sure they didn't eat my bedsheets!" Dib called to Gaz as she nodded, her gaze never leaving the game screen as she closed the door behind her. He sorta wished she came with him, because he never got mugged when she was around. Plus, he didn't want people seeing him hold up a black and pink umbrella. People question his orientation enough.
He also had no desire to go anywhere near any of the bullies houses, especially Smacky's. Dib wasn't sure why, but the atmosphere around that kid had darkened recently. As much as he was a paranormal scientist and loved finding the answers, he was also a realist who loved to live.
"I'll just leave their homework on their porches." He mumbled to himself. As he unzipped his bag and looked at the names of the absent, one in particular shined and glittered under his gaze as if it were written in some obnoxious green gel pen. Which it was.
Zim.