A/N: Here's the next chapter because we love you all! 3
Disclaimer: I still don't own Zim or JtHM or any of those wonderful things. I'd probably have an anyurism if I suddenly did. Justmacy doesn't own them either. Sorry folks.
The sun poked through the black out curtains hung over my window and shone right in my face. Stubborn bastard. I crunched my eyes shut tight and groped around to shut the curtains more. Alas, I failed in my attempts. I sat up begrudgingly and looked at my clock. It was six thirty-five... In the morning.
Too early for a sane person to be awake.
"Then I guess its just right for me. Suck it up- it's the first day of skool," I grumbled, digging around in the nearest pile for something to wear. I came back with something that smelled clean and was studded. It'd do.
"Are you alive? Time for breakfast, Dib!" Gaz pounded on my door some more.
That was what had woken me. I just couldn't get enough of the sisterly way she spat out my name. There was such venom in her voice. It was sweet. I opened my door, scratching at the round scar on my chest. The little round hunk of shiny flesh itched a lot even though it should have been done healing back in July.
My sister growled at me. "You'll blind the neighbors. Put a shirt on and come down stairs. Its time for your cereal."
I somehow managed not to slam the door in her face. I shrugged into the first shirt I grabbed (I discovered later in the day that it read "Love your enemies. It'll piss them off." How apropos.) As promised the plum-haired demon I shared a house with was waiting for me in the kitchen. Her menu was sickeningly predictable. Care to take a crack at what breakfast would be? Yeah, that's right, Cheerios. At least it was a hard food to screw up. She couldn't really go wrong unless she poured cottage cheese on it instead of milk.
She joined me at the kitchen table, munching a bagel with one hand and playing her video game with the other. I considered asking her if she'd sought help for her addiction. She must have heard my thoughts because she glared at me for a solid ten seconds before resuming her game.
When we left the house she left her precious Game Slave next to the bowl where the car keys were kept.
That's Impressive. …Do you hate her car as much as I do?
"I'm not supposed to listen to you."
But don't you hate it?
I sat with the passenger's seat pushed back as far as it would go and I still had to bend my legs up to fit into the little Bug properly. "You bet I do."
xXx
Hai Skool.
I hadn't set foot on its campus in three whole months. My peers hadn't seen me and vice versa. They had no idea. There they were, gathered around the building. They huddled in protective circles on the lawn, lounged on the steps and leered out from the pillars that supported the metal awning over the front walkway. They were all in the same place with the same general purpose: survive the next year and get it over with as quickly as possible, taking as many others down along the way as they could.
"At least you're too tall to stuff into a locker, though I expect that you're still light enough to get thrown into the dumpster."
Gaz's comforting commentary was delivered without looking at me. She stared out the windshield and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. My sister was easy enough to read- she wanted to get back home and get on the computer. (Hai Skool had too many bad memories. Her tormentors had only made her more merciless, though. Lucky her.) She was taking classes at a top online university and making pocket money designing websites in her free time. (Dad paid for her education, of course).
"Get out of my car, Dib."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and crawled out of the tiny purple vehicle. My sister only allowed enough time for my to grab my backpack before she peeled away from the curb. The VW's door almost took my hand off as it slammed shut. I watched the car become a speck on the horizon then turned to the place that would become my second home by default for the next nine months.
The farther I walked the more something very important became clear to me: I was now a Senior. Most of the assfaces who'd shoved me into lockers, dumped trays of food on my head and consistently brought up the subject of my less-than-sane state had graduated. They were gone. Sure, there were still a few bullies left but they no longer had any role models to follow around. They would be clueless. All the other potential jerks were younger than me because, guess what? That's right. I was a Senior. I was proud of and ready to accept my place at the top of the food chain. I was tall, scary-looking and way above 75% of the student body in the hierarchy.
This profound revelation made me smirk and straighten up as I (can you believe it?) strutted through the halls. I could have sworn I saw a few of the freshman girls gawping up at me in awe. I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and how exactly to get there. They wished they could be half as cool and collected on the first day of school. It might have been the anti-depressants working in harmony with my anti-psychotics, but I felt damn good!
My first class was Anatomy and Physiology with Mr. Mortiz on the far side of the school. The classroom came with a nice view of an industrial plant across the street and the river that its waste was dumped into. That lovely view, combined with the fascinating welcome-back lecture, put me straight to sleep. I think I passed out just in time to use my new course outline and expectations packet as a pillow. The same lecture would be repeated in all of my classes with only slight variations- staying awake through it six times would be a waste of precious energy. (Not to mention the fact that I'd heard it eighteen times total in previous years!) I knew I wasn't missing much.
I woke up before the bell rang, irritated at my conscious state. The door opening had interrupted Mr. Mortiz's droning and woken me. There was a late arrival. My classmates and I stared at the kid but I couldn't see him very well unless I squinted- my glasses had stayed on the lab table where my head ought to have still been. All I could make out was the vaguely male blob at the front of the room asking Mr. Mortiz to please forgive his lateness.
Whatever. Go back to sleep.
I readily obeyed, tucking my head back into my arm and dozing off again. I didn't move until class was over. I stayed in a sleepy daze through my Amerikan Government and English classes. It was a warm day and I really didn't think the Swiss manufacturers of my backpack could have made it any softer if they'd tried. It made a great pillow, a big, green-striped, comfy pillow.
I drifted back to reality during fourth period because there was no desk to sleep on. I was stuck sitting on the gym's collapsible bleachers with two-dozen other guys. Coach Limpia was in charge of us. He was the ideal PE coach- huge and hairy with a beer gut to boot. He informed us, not without much bellowing, that we had to have $20.00 with us the next day so we could buy our PE uniforms. Otherwise we'd be doing push-ups with someone sitting on our back for the better part of the hour. My malnourished muscles ached at the thought. After we were all dressed out, he said, we'd start off the year with a rousing game of Slaughter Ball. Cheers went up all around me and I managed a crooked smile to hide my anxiety.
Slaughter Ball was the bigger, angrier cousin of Bludgeon Ball. The basic rules were the same: pummel everyone else and whoever's left standing wins. I'd had my first and final experience with the game freshman year. I wasn't so good at keeping secrets back then so it had quickly become a round of Smear the Queer. You can guess who was playing the Queer and who was doing the Smearing. I'll give you a hint: I'd only recently regained feeling in my left arm. The doctor said it went numb because repeated blows to one part of my back had messed up the nerves leading to it.
Dude, chill. Look around you- most of these guys are underclassmen. They weren't here during your freshman year. They don't know you're gay. You have a shot at surviving.
I nodded slowly. There were a few fleeting thoughts of playing Slaughter Ball with some amount of mercy tomorrow. I batted them away with an impatient hand. No, these underclassmen would pay for the sins of their predecessors. They would go limp off to lunch after fourth period tomorrow wishing they had changed their schedules when they could. They would be in awe at the viciousness of the crazy kid. I would conquer them all.
I chuckled to myself when yet another bell dismissed us. (Bells are the government's chosen method of mind control. In a decade or two we'll be living in a totalitarian state. Any resistance could be easily done away with because the sound of a Bell ringing will send citizens into a docile, zombified state. At some point after that we'll all die. Well, maybe not me because my Dad is the great Professor Membrane, but everyone else would be extinguished for sure).
I picked at table by the window and dumped the contents of my backpack onto its round top. There was a nice view of the parking lot- everything from the jock's cars to the teacher parking could be seen. This covered most of the inhabited territory. It was prime real estate for fights during lunch. If I claimed it now then I could charge admission to fights later in the year. I fixed any passing undesirables who looked like they wished to join me with a death glare until they passed, shuffling their feet and wondering what they'd done wrong. It was my table. They needed to find somewhere else to sit.
Gaz had packed me a lunch because she assumed I was too incompetent to do it on my own. (Which isn't true! I'm clinically depressed and prone to hearing voices. I'm perfectly capable of preparing food… I don't happen to care about eating). It occurred to me, as I peeled the infuriating plastic wrap from my sandwich, that this was the first time in a month that I'd eaten without her supervision. That was probably why she'd dumped a box of granola bars into my backpack as we left, demanding that I eat at least two of them during the day to keep up my blood sugar. There was an "or else" attached to that demand and I had a growing suspicion that she was watching me. I made a mental note to eat a granola bar after my sandwich.
I chased each bite with water. Gaz had made the sandwich dry, nothing on the bread but bologna and cheese. Plain but edible and relatively healthy. It was perfectly acceptable for her to live off of junk food but she refused to let me do the same.
It wouldn't be a big deal if she could at least make an appetizing sandwich!
"I know what you mean. Its enough to make anyone not hungry," I muttered, "as if I were hungry to begin with." I glanced down at my class schedule. Chemistry was next, followed by Physics. Those were two classes I couldn't wait for. Sure, Government and A+P were fun (English and PE were sent to us from Satan with hatred and loathing) but Chemistry and Physics? Say hello to my life's purpose.
The kid who'd shown up to A+P late caught my eye and I really lost my appetite. He was walking towards my table and my brain refused to function.
Glower! Smile! Growl at the guy, just do something, Dib!
I settled on staring down at my food like it had started to grow a head and talk. It was rather embarrassing but it was better than staring at the black-haired, blue-eyed stranger who (God help me!) dressed like me. I watched his boots walk by out of the corner of my eye, struggling to maintain some composure. Staying under the omnipresent Gaydar of my fellow students was a priority.
Girls didn't know how lucky they were. They could sit around and blush and giggle over guys all day long and no one would have a damn clue what they were doing or why they were acting like such idiots. Girls sucked royally.
I balled up the plastic wrap from my sandwich and stuffed it into the bottom of my backpack. I reluctantly unwrapped one of the granola bars and stared at it. I did not want to eat it.
Relax. You get to play slaughter ball tomorrow and do who-knows-how-many sports and whatnot daily until June. You're not going to get fat.
"Tell that to my scale," I griped, taking a reluctant bite. I didn't want to risk my sister's wrath no matter how loath I was to eat. I shuddered at the memory of the electronic scale's reading after my shower that morning. The number 130 mocked me still. I'd gained almost 20 pounds since my return from the hospital two months ago.
Yeah, you are a lard ass, but at least your pants still fit.
" 'Cause they're baggy." I threw the remains of the granola bar in the trash and slunk out of the cafeteria. I didn't know how I was going to stomach eating another one of those before I went home. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to go home and sleep.
xXx
Tak was sitting on the couch and plucking away at her laptop when I got home. I'd modified its keyboard to fit the Irken's hands when Gaz had bought it for her last Christmas. (She did this against Dad's express wishes that Christmas be banned in our household. I'm tellin' you, the man had to have had some indecent contact with Santa). Ever since then she and I had had some sort of strange peace between us. She kept Gaz from killing me and I helped customize her human electronics. She was also kind enough to ignore the insults I flung in her general direction when my sister and I argued.
Genuinely looking at her disguise for the first time in years I realized she was kind of cute. It made me wish that I liked girls and that she liked… humans. Gaz wasn't technically human anymore- her Game Slave had wired itself into her brain and now she couldn't survive without it. She was part machine.
"Where's my sister?"
"Grocery shopping." Her feline SIR unit started winding itself around my legs, making me trip. I fought the urge to drop kick it. I knew from experience that it would claw my face off then Tak would claw my face off. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Tak chuckled.
"Why are you here?"
"I'm waiting for Gaz, obviously." There was a pause long enough for me to assume she was done speaking. "She says you need to feed the mutants and that you did good today, whatever that means."
My eyes bugged out a bit.
I told you she was watching you!
Sweet Christ on a pogo stick that was creepy. "Thanks for telling me, Tak," I choked out, turning around and heading towards the basement. Wow. You were polite to the alien freak. I think you get good karma points for that.
"I think I should tell someone about you." My inner narrator had been back for quite a while. Today was the most active he'd been in over a month, though. I was starting to be concerned.
Quit thinking- its bad for your health. Just go feed your pets.
"Hey, Dib!"
I turned around, leaning against the basement door. "Yeah?"
"Why did you try to kill yourself? Your sister is worried that you'll do it again. Were you manufactured without a self-preservation instinct?"
I thought back to what I felt on that day with the muzzle of the pistol against my chest. I hadn't eaten in about a week and was finally feeling thin when I'd accidentally bumped into someone at the mall. They'd called me fat. It wasn't much of an insult coming from a dude that clearly had a problem with food himself- he'd made me look like a twig. It had fucked with my head though- enough to snap me out of my malnourished trance and start up the hunger pangs again. (To think it was just when I'd trained myself to stop feeling them!)
"I was hungry."
A/N: Hey, you! Yeah, you! We're talking to you. What do you think? We wanna know!
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Love and Muffins,
Invader Nae & justmacy
