I don't own Invader Zim. Still. Characters created by Jhonen Vasquez. Still.
Warning: If you thought the last chapter was bad, this is worse. Violence enters the picture... violence that a few of you might even find disturbing.
Chapter Three: Why is this happening?
"I can remember, at the age of five, being told that childhood was the happiest period of life. I wept inconsolably, wished I were dead, and wondered how I should endure the years to come." Bertrand Russell
"Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell." Francois Mauriac
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein
As Gaz moved in menacingly closer to him, Dib suddenly recalled the evening he tried to get a permission slip signed at his father's fanatically guarded studio. As if this wasn't frustrating enough already, Gaz showed up with the sole purpose of viciously betraying and obstructing him every single chance she could find. Had he tried to murder her? No. Had he tried to sell her to slave traders, laced her food with poison? No. Before leaving for the studio he had mistakenly thought she was offering him a slice of pizza.
One single slice of pizza. Gaz never did know when enough was the hell enough...
Dib's relief when Gaz finally stepped in from the sidewalk was short-lived. Pain exploded in his face like a shattering lightbulb, swung into his shin like a club and gored him deep in the stomach. Her more usual reaction offered an even more amusing spectacle to the dispersing crowd, stopping it in its tracks.
"Fight! Fight!" a few of them began chanting, but if the word "fight" describes a two-sided and evenhanded contest, it was woefully inaccurate here. Her physical strength more than a match for that of any boy anywhere near her own age to begin with, Gaz refused to restrain her aggression in the least. What made matters still worse was that she had no regard whatsoever for the concept of fair fighting.
No matter what the provocation, few boys would dare to hit a girl back in front of so many witnesses, and as soon as it became obvious that this one wouldn't either, the laughter began to build...
At least they've all found something else to watch, was Dib's first thought, but when he heard a loud yell of "Hit him again!" right before a particularly vicious punch right drew a fresh burst of delighted guffaws...
They're laughing at... at THIS?
To Dib's utter disbelief, the spectators were now reacting as if a boy getting savagely beaten up by a just barely younger girl was the most hysterically funny thing they had ever in their lives seen. Desperate to somehow ease this relentless onslaught, Dib steadily backed up until the chain link fence at the edge of the playground cut off even this retreat. As the blows and kicks now fell even harder, the boy leaned into the rusted wires, wanting only to get away from her, from them, from himself. Gritting his teeth against the sobs tugging at his throat, Dib covered his face and shielded his crotch, bracing to ride out the storm of fists and feet, the stinging waves of applause, and rising above even that, the horrible, heartless laughter.
"YAYY! Grrls kick ass!"
"Oh, she can certainly stand up for herself!"
"She rocks... hardcore!"
"She's cool. She's really cool."
"Wheeee! Look at her go, she takes no shit, no sir!"
With the spectators cheering her on to ensure their own safety, Gaz's assault continued without mercy, drawing no line between healthy assertiveness and just plain bullying. Even boxing, the most aggressive sport of all, clearly forbids striking a fallen opponent, but as Dib finally collapsed onto the sidewalk, Gaz concluded her assault with a final, particularly brutal kick.
It worked. For once Dib kept his mouth shut all the way home. Once inside, Gaz once more took out her GameSlave from her pocket; at the sight of the familiar start up screen, so totally did she forget such trifles as wet hair and clothes that they may as well have dried instantly. Gaz took her seat on the living room couch, settling in comfortably for another game, and if THIS one got interrupted too he'd really be in for it.
X X X X X X
Dib would afterwards never completely recall how he made it home. Even though it was barely three thirty when he closed the front door behind him, all he wanted to do next was lock the door of his own room safely behind him and go to bed. But before he could make it as far as the stairs, the events of the afternoon caught up with him and he knew he'd have to sit down somewhere in a hurry.
He made for the kitchen instead and just as he grabbed for the edge of the kitchen table his knees buckled, dumping him exhausted over the closest chair to slump in abject misery.
Usually the first thing Dib did after skool, whenever he wasn't running out to stop Zim from destroying something, was head straight for his computer for a video conference with one or another of the Swollen Eyeballs, preferably Darkbootie. Even through the identity cloaking screens, Darkbootie could usually tell when something was bothering him, and Dib nearly always logged off feeling much better than he had when he logged on. Today, however, Dib didn't trust his voice to remain steady long enough for a conversation with anybody.
At some point the hover screen floated into view and the Professor cheerfully offered a few quick platitudes about things looking brighter in the morning before the image blinked off again without seeming to notice that Dib had spoken not a single word.
Even as he reassured himself that it was finally over, Dib kept insisting that none of it had happened. He could not stop shivering... but each time he braced to stand up, his soaked clothing gripped tighter, tugging icy chains across his bruises.
His mother would have... Dib drove away all such thoughts; it was no comfort now to recall how she would drop anything else whenever she saw him this upset. That was then and this was now, and now he had to take care of himself. Of himself and Gaz...
Oh. Sure. He had saved Gaz from being hit by a car. But her typically watching nothing but her GameSlave would force him to continue watching cars for her... meaning that it was only a matter of time until this all happened again. Watching out for Gaz really meant watching out for Gaz turning against you...
Okay, so they still didn't realize why he had a problem with Zim... but what in the world had what Gaz done to him look like? What made that okay?
It wasn't the first time she'd savaged him over a game, and it was far from the first time he warned her of danger, but what was new was her blackmailing and brutalizing him in public... and to his unbounded disbelief... she got praised for doing so! No, indeed, Gaz would never be caught dead taking any shit... but was it really all that difficult for people to tell someone who "takes no shit" from someone needlessly GIVING it?
Books and movies made sure you knew who were the bad guys. Cowards all, they preferred to attack in swarms, and any who did work alone invariably chose someone to beat up who was unable to hit back.
Only upon noticing a meaty, coppery smell did he notice the pool of watery blood spreading across the kitchen table. Abruptly the boy snapped his head up to glower furiously at something well beyond the wall. His breaths came faster; something in his stomach began to burn, making his skin and clothes feel even colder. Gritting his teeth sent pain jabbing along his jaw; the clotting blood made it difficult to breathe through his nose.
So... THIS... is what... they ENJOY... THIS... is what passes... for FUNNY...
By now Dib was used to being unpopular. He knew he wasn't liked. Gaz didn't have friends either... not like that came as a surprise... and yet it hadn't stopped them from cheering for her! No, something was horribly different about this.
By now, the rainwater was dripping to the floor more slowly. As his clothes tightened around him, Dib received a vivid sensation of shrinking. It was as though he had finished a bath and now wished to climb out, only the sides were soaring beyond his reach as a deepening chill crept into the water. He shivered harder, recognizing the horrible thought slowly sinking into him.
To justify their reaction, they had vilified him. This went beyond mere dislike. This was worse. This... this was...
Hatred. A hatred that would at least make some sense if he'd been beating her like that...
Pressing his shaking lips together, Dib swallowed noisily. The room blurred but Dib held his shaking breath; no way would he grant them this victory. Besides, his father always told him not to cry.
Pressure filled Dib's head as he dragged in a long, shaky and sodden breath. People he hadn't even met... the very people he was fighting so hard to defend from an alien invasion... hated him. Maybe, just maybe, Zim was right after all; people were just no damned good.
What was the point. What... was... the god... damned... point... of anything any more. As the setting sun continued pulling the warmth out of everything along with the light, Dib felt all sensation of time fall away, as if he had spent his entire life up until now sitting here at this table, and as if he would spend the rest of his life sitting here as well.
X X X X X X
Feeling the first rumble in her stomach, Gaz stirred herself enough to turn toward the stairs and snap, "Well, where's my supper?"
When Dib didn't appear immediately she sprang off the sofa, marched up the stairs and barged right into his room. A second later she came down the stairs howling, "If you know what's good for you, Dib, you'll be in the kitchen making my supper right this second or - "
She snapped on the kitchen light to find Dib sitting at the table, head hanging, shoulders slumped. This time it was a very different kind of space he was staring into; he seemed to be in a trance of some sort. He hadn't even wiped up that mess on the table. Well she sure wasn't going to do it for him!
"HOW DARE YOU TRICK ME!" Gaz shrieked in a tone that never failed to make him cringe. But this time he didn't even budge, let alone flinch. Why was he dragging his feet like that when she wanted supper NOW? Didn't he hear her say she was hungry? He was really asking for it this time.
Preparing to smack him into action, Gaz came closer. "Dib wake up." No response. "DIB." Still nothing. Now standing at his elbow, she drew back a fist, an experimental fist this time. To her astonishment, he still didn't move... other than a flicker somewhere deep in his eyes. Gaz knew then that something was seriously amiss.
"Dib, cut this out. Now." Gaz tried to sound more angry, but she could tell she was dangerously close to saying please.
And still he gave no sign of having heard! Gaz couldn't stand it when anything was outside her control. What if he'd finally lost whatever mind he had to begin with? She would then have to start actually doing her own chores, and more unthinkable yet, his too, instead of enjoying herself on her GameSlave for endless hour after hour.
Briefly Gaz debated with herself. If this didn't work she would set to work and strip his room of every single last scrap of paranormal garbage in it. With nothing else on which to waste his time, Dib's convenient services would surely return.
A few hours, or maybe only a few minutes, later, Dib heard something drop on the table in front of him, followed by a brusque, "Eat."
It was a plate... a plate with an off center microwave sized pizza. The pizza looked soggy around the edges and it was burned in the middle, but he hadn't heated this one, Gaz had. And she was offering it to him.
When it finally happened, it happened when Dib was at his lowest, most vulnerable point... and this tiny gesture stole inside him to tug free what all the pain and humiliation of that afternoon could not. Something which he had been desperately holding back, something hot and jagged, finally buckled inside him. Dib began to cover his face, but to his chagrin he was already crying, crying uncontrollably. The final shreds of his self-respect fell away... but at least this way the sound drowned out Gaz's inevitable "Whiner."
(A/N) I wouldn't go "Awww!" just yet. No, I have neither lost my mind nor radically altered my definition of the word "love." The next chapter will show what Gaz's rare and fleeting moments of the most basic human decency look like to the recipient. Actually, such unpredictable emotional whipsawing offers anything BUT relief...