A/N: okay, so, here we go. Mentions of slash, violence, but only one instance of swearing. Feedback is hugely appreciated, as this is my first stab at IZ fanfiction, and my first experience wading into the waters of this site. Flames will be used to toast marshmallows.

Disclaimer: all characters belong to Jhonen. I use them for my own amusement.

No Return

How'd it ever come to this?

It's a question I've asked myself day in and day out for the last few… centuries, perhaps? I couldn't tell you for certain how long it's really been. I speak with complete certainty when I say that I can hardly remember a time before my life was consumed by this overwhelming burden. I did not ask to be robbed of my normal life, as if picked up like a poorly crafted toy inside a crane machine. A cold, hard, steel arm reaching down at the press of a button, its sharp claws blotting out the light as they closed around my world. At first I had been enthusiastic about the potential of it all. "Just think," I had said, "no more taking shit from anyone! We'll do whatever we want, whenever we want, with no one to tell us otherwise. Don't worry," I explained, "hey, I'll protect you. You and me from here on out, buddy. You and me. Fuck everybody else."

I've never been a fan of literature, not that there was much available in the first place… that was always more his area. Literature never quite fascinated me the way it so easily captivated him, but even I can grasp the concept of tragic irony.

Protect him. Protect anyone. I couldn't protect myself, and I'm no longer sure that I want to. I've started to wonder, and I've seen it in the looks he gives me between passing seconds, if maybe the only way to protect him from this world is to let him go, should such a horrible circumstance manifest itself.

It's not that he actively pursues death, or that he's self-destructive in any way. Sometimes, though, I wonder myself why neither of us has run screaming out the airlock. I think I'm all that keeps him going on most days. I don't say that out of blatant narcissism, I say it because the reciprocal is true. Small, simple things, like a moment of genuine laughter, something that's harder and harder to come by, is all that reminds me that I'm anything more than a simple SIR unit. Those single still frames, insignificant fractions of time when his eyes are bright like they used to be, I know I've succeeded in making him forget his pain, if only for those few seconds, and it's enough. On days when I'm particularly lucky, I catch the ghost of the boy I once knew. The boy who everyone seemed to glance over, or just ignored all together. My adversary, my rival, my friend. The only one on the planet who understood isolation the same way I did.

We couldn't have been more incompatible with each other. I was always so rash and my plans were always so poorly constructed that they always fell apart at the seams. Usually taking him down, too. I have to smile at the thought of so many operations gone wrong; how much equipment we've damaged, how many things have exploded as a direct result of our interference. Things that we look back on with a twisted sort of fondness.

He went through a phase where he developed a tendency to run on caffeine and sugar for days. It proved to be incredibly entertaining. He'd ride it out as long as he could, and eventually, he'd crash. It wasn't long before I could read him well enough to predict when it would happen. I knew he wouldn't admit to feeling tired; he'd rather push his body past exhaustion, thinking he would look weak in front of me. It became routine after a while, for the two of us to sit on my couch and watch whatever pointless program was available. It never mattered, though, what it was, because we never watched it. It was his excuse for sleep and my excuse for…. I know it goes against tradition and the natural order of things. It's unspeakable, unthinkable, impossible… but under the current circumstances, it seems only fair to give you the whole truth. I have no reservations concerning the two of us, or the questionable nature of our relationship.

Funny, I've never used that word for what we have before.

I suppose when it's forbidden to speak of, words to describe it don't come easily. We found a language of touch spoken only between sheets, punctuated with soft sighs and nails raking across skin. Something that we dare not name, for fear of what would happen should we speak it out loud. In living an illusion, it's dangerously simple to get lost. At times, I start to wonder if I'm just imagining the intimacy between us. Then I'll feel the innocent brush of his hand or a touch on my shoulder that he's learned to disguise as a stumble, and once we're safe behind locked doors and closed windows, things are the way they ought to be. Free of my absurd disguise, I stop fighting and let myself fall. For a few precious hours, I don't have to be anything but his lover. All too soon, it must be pushed aside and our masks must be firmly set in place all over. The secrecy of it all tears me apart. The lies we're forced to live, the identities we've been forced to assume for too many years have all taken a toll.

There are rules firmly set in place that are never mentioned in any kind of text. There's no legislature to enforce them, and there's no need for such documentation to enforce it when you can simply dispose of someone with the snap of your fingers. There are secrets I wish I'd never known, secrets that have destroyed the very foundation of everything I had based my life on. You are the only one who we are certain will receive this message, and be able to fully grasp it. Those are words I never thought I'd say.

The Tallest, those whom you most revere, they are little more than figureheads. Their armor causes unnatural elongation of the neck and spine while the chest plate breaks and resets the sternum. The gauntlets they wear keep their arms and shoulders weighed down and their hover belts cause their legs to atrophy entirely from disuse. There is nothing wonderful or glamorous about being a Tallest. It's all smoke and lasers. A farce and nothing more. Nothing but puppets. Strange, how much puppets amused Tallest Purple so much. I digress.

Nobody, of course, will tell you this. A Tallest himself would not dare betray this knowledge, or offer even a brief account of what his body endured. Unless, of course, he wanted his lifespan cut tragically short. Taller Irkens make excellent soldiers, it's true. They can carry more weight, build more muscle, and last much longer in battle than one of short stature. It would seem only logical then, for a governing body interested in remaining behind the scenes and in control, to get rid of its most prominent threat. It's exceptional, really, when you think about it. They leave you crippled in body and spirit.

Tallests, throughout history, have never had very long life spans. No one will tell you how many of those deaths were consistent with suicide, either. There are two Tallests for a reason, you know. It wasn't always that way. It's just easier to persuade someone when their whole world is on the line. Threaten someone's last anchor to sanity and you'll be surprised how quickly even an Irken will concede and obey.

I remember when we first were taken to meet them. This mysterious, elusive body without a name. I'm not sure they even have a name. Call them whatever seems most sensible to you. Puppet-Masters, Overlords, the Men Behind the Curtain. We've only ever used the third-person plural pronoun in reference. They. Them. Naming something, apparently, is what gives it power. We've already given them enough.

We never really met them, so much as were led around dark hallways and saw a bunch of cloaked figures. Swore some kind of allegiance in a language we didn't understand, and were whisked away. What followed was a bit of a blur, and all I can really recall from our initial encounter was white hot pain and the sound of his screaming and sobbing.

If I ever wanted to know what pure agony sounded like, I had gotten an answer.

I'm pretty sure I know how it feels, too, but I tried not to give them satisfaction. Oh I screamed and I know I cried, don't be mistaken. What ended up breaking me in the end wasn't a process meant to disfigure and cripple my body. It was lying on that cold, metal table at the end of it all, listening to him scream and whimper, begging for me to make it stop. "I'll protect you" I had told him, only a week or so before.

I failed.

Even worse, I'd failed him. I'd broken the one promise I truly meant to keep. He managed to call out a garbled assortment of painful noises, trying to pronounce the single syllable my name consisted of and I answered, and it calmed him a bit. Breathing, I remember, was especially painful. Talking, I found, was even worse. And whatever I was feeling, he was feeling it, times a thousand.

Irkens are taught to ignore emotion. In fact, there are receptors in your Pak meant to pick up on the neurological activity from the brain. Everything from hormone production to what would be instinctive reactions are 'filtered' before the transmission ever gets to the synaptic gap. It's a process that goes unnoticed and takes only fractions of a millisecond. They could filter out pain if they wanted to, but without pain, what's there to be afraid of?

Part of me died on that wretched slab of metal that day. I had forfeited my identity and surrendered the rest of my life to faces I'd never seen. When I heard him crying again, much softer this time, I asked him as best I could if he was all right. It was a stupid, asinine question to ask because I already knew the answer. No, he was certainly not all right and he would never be all right again. He didn't berate me for the inappropriateness of the question, surprisingly enough. He drew in a breath of air and winced, trying to collect himself. "I'm scared…"

It was all I needed. I summoned every ounce of strength left in my now-disfigured body and begged it to forgive me.

There are no words, Irken or Human, for the agony that ripped through my entire form when I fought my way into a sitting position. My chest was compressed so tightly that breathing became a problem in a matter of seconds. I could barely get air into my body and I felt my head spin. The overwhelming sharpness from the sternum break was like nothing I can really describe. For your sake, I'll skip the details and suffice to say it was in a pain unlike anything I'd ever felt before. After staggering, crawling, and dragging myself across the short distance between us, I rested a moment, and slowly climbed to my feet. It didn't take more than a second for me to collapse onto the table beside him where I immediately passed out from the pain.

When I woke up, I was still lying next to him with no idea how long I had been unconscious. I had already exhausted my body, so I offered him the only comfort I had to give. I tried to hold his hand, but all I could manage was lightly touching his fingers. It was a pathetic attempt at comfort, but it was all I had the strength to offer, and if he felt similar, it was probably all he had the strength to take.

"You're stupid. You're so stupid, do you know that? You're so, so stupid." It wasn't the reaction I'd expected at all, and I wasn't sure how to feel after all I'd just put my body through on his account. He laced his fingers between mine, though, and I could tell he was on the verge of tears again.

"What are you talking about?" It seemed like a legitimate question.

"Why did you do that? You could have died, you know."

"Because you got the comfortable table. Really, you should go try mine out; feels like you're lying on a slab of metal." Humor at a time like this. I was grateful when I heard a small laugh.

"Please don't leave me."

I told him I wasn't going anywhere. It might have been the pain that made me say it, or maybe it was out of sheer exhaustion. Perhaps both. I'll never know what made me chose then and there as an appropriate time and place when it was anything but. I've always had a knack for strange timing. Lying side-by-side on the hard, uninviting surface with hands clasped and shoulders pressed together in the aftermath of agony, I closed my hand around his,

"I love you."

It took me a moment to realize I'd said it out loud.

"…Is this real?"

He needed rest. "Don't worry about it. Get some rest, okay?"

"I've loved you for so long." He tried to turn his head and look at me, but it was unfortunately immobile. "I wish I could see you right now."

"I'd rather you didn't. I don't think I'm much to look at today."

"I don't care."

I'm aware that our species has attempted to "phase out", if you will, what humans would call a "sex drive". Funny how there are some things even the most advanced technology can't change. Yes, the Pak receptors help keep it to a rarity, most of the time. I won't get into neurological specifics, but suffice to say should you remove those receptors, emotions are strange and difficult to manage but they are well worth having. You undoubtedly have little interest in the happenings behind our bedroom door, and such discussion is irrelevant to the topic at hand. I bring it up only to tell you how worthwhile something called "love" is. Love is not synonymous with sex, keep in mind, though when the act in performed in the context of love, it's truly the most powerful feeling one can experience. Love is both a strength and a weakness; it makes you vulnerable at your very core but gives you the strength to do things you couldn't have imagined otherwise.

Which finally brings me to the reason for this message. I know this all sounds like nothing but circumlocution, but I've made it a point to address the previous topics in hopes that you'd be able to better understand what we need to do and why it has to be done.

We're leaving.

There are things They want done that we cannot order. Yes, we've been insensitive and cruel and done things for which there is no forgiveness. Using the airlock as a trash chute for those who dare speak against us, sending soldiers off to die for one superficial reason or another, annihilating innocent victims of conquest pursued only to satisfy our destructive whims… both of us equally guilty of all Seven Deadly Sins, I think they're called, thousands of times over. We didn't start that way, and we haven't ended in a similar manner, but the middle of our reign are years I'm horrified to look back on. He is too; perhaps even more than I am. We had taken out our frustrations on the Empire. Our furniture as well, which is irrelevant bur true nonetheless. All I could feel in the daytime was anger and at night I was overwhelmed with grief. The "power" we had over the simple things only made it worse.

They have demanded we order the termination of all "unfit" Irkens. To "help evolution along", as they put it. Any citizen under a certain height once they've stopped growing is unnecessary to the empire and will be put to death. Not that there's much room for it now, but They've been working to produce a technology to inhibit free will to be integrated into a smeet's Pak at birth. It's been successfully integrated into SIR units and I hear it shows promise. It works on sending some kind of pulse to the frontal cortex that effectively freezes one's ability to reason. Bad things are coming, and you deserve a warning.

Our escape will likely fail and we'll be caught, brainded "traitors" and found guilty of treason by the Control Brain, and executed on screens across the galaxy. You are the only one who can be trusted with the truth. Irk knows you have every reason to hate us and turn us in yourself. If we should make it to our rendezvous with the small resistance group we've been working with, and they manage to reconfigure our Paks operating system, the Control Brain will receive a message declaring that we've been deactivated. We'll send you instructions and any extra parts you might need to make the adjustments, if you should want to keep off Irk's radar. The new system works like a one-way mirror. You can see them, but they can't see you. The Pak functions normally, but there's no evidence of it and no way to trace it. It will also be best, regardless of your feelings toward us, if you changed the hard-wiring of any Irken equipment, to make sure you won't be found.

Think of this as a small fraction of the debt we owe you.

I hope someday our paths will cross again. Chances of survival are not in our favor, and every logical voice of reason is begging that I reconsider. I cannot listen to Them, however, and I cannot afford to lose the only thing I'm living for. I made a promise I failed to keep many years ago. I look at him, and in spite of the overwhelming odds, I feel like the two of us have a fighting chance. I wish you could understand it. More than conquering a thousand worlds or sitting at the highest throne is the feeling I get when his eyes meet mine. I hope you find someone to love, and perhaps even someday, a way to forgive us. I hate to say it, but you're the last hope for the universe. Just don't blow it up, okay, Zim?

Sincerely,

Red

(try not to set too many things on fire this time.)

Endnote: well, there you have it, folks. My first IZ fanfic. Tried to keep it as much of a surprise as I could, but I think it became pretty obvious. Doesn't matter; it's the most coherent thing I've written in a while. Let me know if this is something you'd like me to continue; I have an actual storyline in mind, but I didn't want to get into an arbitrary narrative that would just hang, tacked on to the end.