I have had comments that Zim and Dib are Out-Of-Character. My response to this is: Of course they're out-of-bloody-character. It is many many many years into the future. Zim's life had been destroyed by the tallest telling him the truth, and Dib had years of having everything he knew laughed at and destroyed by everyone he knows. If you don't fully understand this, please, read and absorb the flashback in paragraph 2.
Note: People and things change over time. nothing stays forever. and this is a NEW IMPROVED version of the story, new and improved thanks to a comment that got me over my laziness and made me re-write the story that I knew was bad. Thanked comment maker is DreadfulBeautifilLuv22. The Familiar, signing off.
--- -- -- - -- - --
'Fuck it, Zim. My day was absolute shit, and I do not want to hear any shit from you'. Zim sat curled in the corner of the couch in the flat that he shared with Dib, fearing the anger that was to come. 'If I hear even a whimper from you, you won't be able to walk for a week.' Saying that, he punched Zim in the face, and proceeded to take his rage out on his smaller flatmate.
After Zim had been beaten nearly senseless, Dib picked him up and threw him into the kitchen area saying 'I'm hungry. Cook me some pasta.' Zim nearly shuddered at the thought of water, but was thankful he had been spared from worse.
-----
The next day zim was sitting on the tattered couch, watching some day-time tv, and thinking about how his life had become a total mess.
It had all started seven years ago, when they were both in hi-skool. Dib had hit puberty hard, and though he was at least 6-feet tall and good looking, he was still rejected by the entire student body. Zim hadn't grown at all, and had had to suffer through years of teasing, bullying and abuse. Most of the came from Dib, who used Zim as a way to vent his own frustrations.
One day, during senior hi-skool, when Dib was about 17, he had found Zim alone around the back of the skool. Zim had his back to Dib, who grinned at this perfect opportunity. Dib had been planning on just beating Zim up, maybe breaking a few bones, doing things like that. When Dib had Zim underneath him though, the plans changed. Memories of girls laughing at him, of never having a date to dances, of being ridiculed and humiliated came surfacing. So, as he had Zim under him, he decided to have a bit more fun then just beating him up.
Dib had punched Zim in the face, to stop him from thinking of protecting himself, and had held Zims' hands up to his neck, crushing his windpipe with his weight. Zim couldn't remember much after this, because everything had become blurry, but he remembered the human pulling his pants down and forcing something into a hole he had ignored up until then. He remembered that the movement had hurt him, but that had slowly died away as it became lubricated with his own blood, changing to a difeerent pain as the open wound was rubbed. He remembered that the human had injected some water based substance into his body, and it hurt so much he would've screamed if he had had any air to scream with. All he could do was lie there and wait for the substance to drip out of his body, where it burnt his legs.
When Dib was finished he had told Zim 'Tell anyone about this, and I WILL make the world see you're an alien.' When Dib found out about Zims' exile, it became 'tell anyone about this and I won't protect you anymore.'
By the time Dib was ready to leave the city, Zim had become so downtrodden and scared of Dib he didn't even think about arguing. Not even when Dib destroyed his base and Gir, and forced him to move to a dfferent town with him.
Zims life after moving had become an endless stream of abuse and rape. The only time he had any vairiety was if Dib got sick and had to stay home from work, or if he ever was allowed to go out and get shopping. Which was almost never for both actions.
He would have loved to kill himself, but Dib kept anything that could be used like that out of his reach, and he stopped seeing the point of killing himself. Dib would probably find someway to either bring him back to life or would do terrible things with his body. Not that he hadn't tried to kill himself. He just healed too damn' fast for anything minor to make any difference. He had tried cutting his wrists once, but Dib just forced him to clean all the blood off the floor. He had succeeded in killing himself that one time, he had hung himself using some rope Dib tied him up with sometimes. But when Dib came home and cut him down the PAK reactivated him, leaving him with a stiff neck and sore throat, plus all the bruises from when Dib punished him for the act of rebellion. It also made Dib more aware of what he left in Zims reach. Locks were placed on almost every door that might contain something Zim could use against himself and if he wanted to open the doors, he had to beg Dib for the key.
To get away from depressing thoughts, he watched daytime tv. Right now Orpah or something was on. The hostess was talking about todays show. 'Are you being abused by your partner? Meet four people who went through abusive relaionships and will talk about it today.'
Zim watched the show intently. At the end the hostess said 'if you are being abused by your partner, don't suffer in silence. Tell someone about it, contact the police or phone the National Abuse Helpline.' Zim turned off the tv. He had never thought of what he had with Dib as a relationship before. Should he tell the police about Dib? But then who would look after him? How could he get a job without any form of human identification? He just didn't know what to do. Dib had so much control over him.
-----
When Dib got home that night, Zim was standing inside the door.
'I want to leave, Dib'
Dib laughed at him, and held open the door. 'You can leave anytime you want. Just don't come crawling to me when people discover you're an alien. I hope you enjoy scientists, Zim, because you'll be seeing alot of them if you leave.' He saw the hesitation in Zims eyes. 'Good to see you've seen sense' he closed the door. 'I learnt of a new trick today Zim. Take your pants off.'
'No.'
'We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way' he cracked his knuckles to emphasize "hard."
Zim was starting to feel scared. Whenever Dib learnt of a new "trick" it was always painful for Zim. He didn't want this life. Scientists wouldn't be half as sadistic as Dib was. Zim leapt for the door, pulling it open and jumping outside before Dib could grab him. He didn't know this city well, but as he was running down the stairs he was confident he could find a policeman somewhere. He puhed past people in the streets, getting startled cries because he was definately an alein. He hadn't seen his disguise in years, Dib had hidden it from him.
There! A black and white car with POLICE written on the side. He banged on the door and started screaming. 'Help me! Don't let him get me!' He knew Dib would be chasing him. He had to be. Zim started to cry as he banged on the door. 'Don't let him hurt me again' he said, sobbing. He collapsed to the ground. 'I don't want to be hurt again.'
The police man got out of the car and looked at Zim, but didn't know whether he should arrest it for being an alien, or help it because it was obviously upset. His decision was made when a young man came up from around the group of people watching the scene. 'I hope he's not annoying you, sir. He's my younger brother and he has a skin condition that causes him to have hallucinations and become delusional. He didn't take his medication today.' The police man looked between the young man who had come up, and the crying thing at his feet that had started to mutter 'no, no, no, no, no' over and over again. 'Well, make sure he has his medication. And try to stop him from causing any trouble.'
'I will, sir. Come back home, Zim.' He grabbed his wrist and dragged him away.
BACKATTHEFLAT
Dib pushed Zim up against the wall, with an arm against Zims' neck holding him up. 'What the hell do you think you were doing pulling that stunt.'
'You said I could leave any time I wanted.' Dib pushed his arm further into Zims neck, blocking off any air.
'Well I lied. You are MINE Zim. You can only leave if I get bored with you. And if I get bored with you, I'll kill you so I can pull the pieces apart.' Zim was gasping for breath. 'You can't leave Zim. If I'm stuck here in hell, you're going to burn with me.' He dropped Zim on the ground, then started to kick him in the chest, yelling insults at him and ignoring the cries of pain Zim made as ribs cracked and bones broke under the viscious onslaught.
A thudding came from next door. 'Keep it down in there! I'm trying to watch the game!'
'Sorry Sir!' He picked Zim up by his shirtfront. 'See what you did, Zim? you made that man lose track of the game.' Zim could only whimper and vomit up blood onto Dib.
'Uhhh' Dib said, dropping Zim. 'You disgust me. Go clean yourself up, and get rid of this mess, before I have to do it myself.'
Zim nodded and went to clean himself off with the burning water, but it was better than when Dib had done it for him. He had nearly drowned and burnt to death. It wasn't an experience he would like to repeat.
--- -- --- - - ---- -
Fridays were always the worst, though Saturday morning and Saturday night were bad as well, with Sunday morning being a close third. On Friday Dib always went out for a drink with the people he worked with. A drink that usually turned into seven, with Dib getting turned down by every chick at the bar and being laughed at by his colleagues for his inability to secure a one-night stand. So by the time Dib finally made it back home he was usually drunk, pissed and horny, none of which were good things for Zim.
Zim had been thinking, as he normally did, about his life with Dib. The best chance he would have to get away would be when Dib was drunk. He had slower reflexes then, and wouldn't be able to catch up with Zim if he ran, he just had to hope Dib didn't catch him, because who knows how terrible his punishment would be. He would be able to get out when Dib was opening the door, so that's why Zim was standing by the door at 1:40 on a Friday night/Saturday morning, listening for Dib to come up the stairs and open the door.
Footsteps dragged on carpet and sounds became muffled because concentrating on them was too hard under the alcohol, scratching at the keyhole as he tried to figure out which hole the key went into, and opening the door widely so he could stagger into the room and shut the door behind him. Zim. Where was the little green bastard?
'Zim? Zim, where are you? Get here now Zim, before I make you suffer for trying to hide from me.' But Zim had already left the building.
-- - --- - -- -- --- - -- -
Where could Zim go? He was already out of the building and running. He couldn't go to the police, they'd just send him back to Dib, and he didn't want to die. He didn't know anyone here, he couldn't contact any other Irkens to help him, the only thing he could do would be to keep running and hope Dib never found him.
How far could he run though? He hadn't had any exercise in a long ime and was already starting to feel puffed. Plus his body still hurt from when Dib had punished him on the day he ran away, plus almost every day since then. His ribs were still broken. Maybe he didn't need to run. Maybe he could just find someplace safe and hide. The car came out of nowhere and Zim saw everything go black.
-- -- -- - -- --- ---
'Oh my God. I think you hit something.'
He stopped the car.
'Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I hope we didn't hit anything. Dad's gonna fucking kill me. He doesn't know I took it. God, I hope we didn't kill anyone. Will the insurance cover the damage?'
She got out of the car and ran over to the body. 'I think it's a kid. Shit! It's not breathing! Do you know CPR?'
'Yeah' he ran over to the body, and knelt down beside the girl. 'Pretty odd looking kid. Thank God. He has a pulse. I'll do CPR while you call an ambulance.' She phoned for help while he breathed for the body.
The ambulance came two minutes later.
They placed Zim on a stretcher and told the kids to follow them to the hospital, then sped off at a speed nobody could hope to follow while staying within the legal speed limit.
Inside the ambulance they were quite surprised when Zim coughed up blood inside the respirator. Not only because he was alive, but also because his blood was green. They rolled him over on to his side (not that he was really on his back, because of the PAK) and removed the respirator so he wouldn't choke and drown on his own blood.
Zim heard people make noises at him, and he figured he was somewhere bright, but every time he opened his eyes all he saw were blurry shapes and whiteness. Whiteness, bright lights, lots of pain, he thought he was in a lab being tested on by scientists in white coats.
'No, no, no.' he repeated, struggling to get away. The noises surrounding him became soothing, trying to quieten him. Of course they would try and make him quieter. It would be easier to dissect him then. Any protests he was about to make were cut off by choking on blood and losing consciousness.
'Oh thank God he's asleep again.'
'I know. I don't want to have to sedate it. It's not really human.'
'Yeah. We might kill it by trying to make it better.'
'But its still got to have the liquid drained off its lungs.'
'If it has lungs. Lets leave that to the surgeons.'
'Yeah. We just have to keep it alive until we reach the hospital.'
'Why do we even bother trying to keep it alive?'
'Bcause if anything dies, we don't get paid. When it gets out of the ambulance it can die, but I want to get the extra money.'
'Yeah. Hey look! We're there'
'Finally.'
They wheeled the stretcher into emergency and left all the problems of performing surgery on an alien up to them.
-- -- - -- --- --
Yes, I rewrote it using a what if scenario. What if the policeman had've believed Dib. Special thanks to the reviewer who was worried that it was going to happen.
Note: Rape is not about the sex, it's about the power. Now, doesn't that help to explain things a little? Dib doesn't see it as having sex with Zim, he sees it as showing how much more power he has than Zim does. Later on he does do it for the sex, but having sex with Zim is also showing him how much power over him he has. So the enire "romantic" situation between Zim and dib is all about the power. realise that and understand the story.
In a nutshell: Dib has sex with Zim to reieve his frustrations with his life, and to show dominance over Zim. Zim didn't fight it because of depression, and when he had gotten out of the depression, Dib had too much power over Zim, so Zim couldn't fight back. When Zim realised his life was in Dibs control, the depression came back.