SO A SATURDAY UPDATE. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was playing Dark Souls like, all day yesterday. NOPE. NOTHING.
HOW DARE YOU THROW SUCH ACCUSATIONS AROUND.
Anyway here is the update so let's all enjoy some ANGST YAY!
The silence was awkward. I hate awkward silences. I've never been the most social of people and growing up a tall, spotty teenager dressed always in black and having no friends practically guaranteed I'd never be the life of the party.
I looked between Zim and Gaz, both of them almost hilariously the same height with Gaz having only a few inches on Zim and in a desperate attempt to dispel the silence asked, "What?"
"Just like that." Gaz raised an eyebrow at me. "You think you can reverse this whole thing just like that?"
"Well, obviously not," I ran a quick hand through my hair. "I mean we need to plan this out. We need to study the enemy and get inside their head and-"
"I don't even know what's happened to you." Zim interrupted suddenly. "Zim assumes it is something supernatural?" He scowled at me. "You always did use it as a crutch when you couldn't better yourself with good, honest science."
I scowled back, though in a way I knew it was true. Zim's science had always been almost unbeatable and as such in my youth I had turned increasingly towards magic and sorcery to defeat it. He could counter an attack coming at him from some kind of laser weapon or bizarre mechanical pair of pants but attack him with demonic imps summoned from fire or stinking nurglings from the realm of chaos? Yeah it had taken him some time to come up with a reasonable counter to that.
By the time we had quit trying to kill one another it had become a showdown of science verses magic, though the truce had been most fortunate since it had become increasingly difficult to use it. As a kid I could raise the dead, as a teenager it took effort to even summon a single ghost to my side. As an adult I had spent a month preparing a summoning circle to bring forth a greater demon of Tzeentch. A month painstakingly drawing the right sigils and gathering the proper ingredients to place around the vast circle.
And all that happened was that I'd fried every electric device I'd owned. Nothing more. Though I had found a single blue feather afterward... to think I'd actually considered that a success.
"Yes, Zim, this is a supernatural thing. Deal with it. Besides it doesn't matter what the nature of this is what matters is-"
"Actually, it does." Gaz cut in and her eyes narrowed suddenly. "The very nature of what happened to you is the key to reversing it. Speaking of which," Her tone became both curious and accusatory in one breath, "How exactly did this happen?"
"I was bitten, Gaz, obviously." And I rolled my eyes at her, though inside I already knew where this was going and I could feel the nervousness rise in my stomach.
"Back at home, back when we were fighting. You said you were made an offer." Gaz's tone was as sharp as a knife. It was obvious she was still furious at me and now she was getting her chance to finally exact some measure of revenge by exposing my foolish mistakes, my weak hearted moment where I allow myself to fall into darkness. She would love this no doubt, rubbing salt into the bite wounds on my neck. I moved a hand up to rub along where I had been bitten and, to some surprise, I found the marks had gone.
I supposed they would have healed eventually, just like every other wound, bruise and scratch I had taken that night.
"Don't tell me you willingly let yourself get bitten."
She had caught me and we both knew it. Still however my pride wouldn't allow her to just unravel my mistakes in front of me. "Look I don't want to talk about it, and besides, that wasn't me saying all that. I mean it was but... I wasn't myself, you saw that."
"That's beside the point." She wasn't letting up and I didn't blame her. Damn me and my stupid big mouth, I can't believe I had bragged about being bitten. Wait, no, I had been right the first time. It wasn't me. It was the other, dangerous, blood-drinking me. It was starting to get a little difficult tracking all the new personalities I seem to be adopting. "You said you accepted an offer. Dib, tell us the truth. Now."
"Or what?" I sudden snapped at my sister, my newly blood-red eyes glaring at her. "Are you going to make me? It doesn't matter what happened all that matters is-"
"NO!" Gaz's shout was so sudden and loud that for a moment I forgot I was being defensive and wilted at her anger. Even Zim seemed to shrink back. "You're not pulling this stupid pride crap again!"
The words hit me in like a sledgehammer to the chest. Instantly I went on the defensive. "What pride crap?"
"That pride crap!" And she pointed an accusing finger at me. "Why do you always do this? Why do you always shut everyone else out? What the hell is wrong with you? We're trying to help you, you stupid id-"
"THAT!" I roared suddenly, the wolf within me waking up at my anger and stalking silently through my limbs. The hunger was sated, yes, but the predator was still there and it seemed it was eager to protect its host. "THAT is why I don't ask for anyone's help! Because all I ever get are insults! I'm just a giant joke to you people, so why the hell would I ever turn to you for help? I get it, alright? I get it!"
"Get what?" Zim asked in a surprisingly calm tone though his PAK legs slowly emerged and clicked as they hit the floor, his crimson eyes dark and cautious.
"I'm the loser, I'm the idiot, I'm the one who threw his whole goddamn life away so whatever. Let's all just have a nice long laugh at Dib's expense because he screwed himself over!"
"That's what this is about?" Gaz's eyes narrowed. "You let yourself get bit by a vampire because you think we all laugh at you?"
"Oh come off it, Gaz. You've no idea what I got through every freakin' day of my stupid life." I had never really shouted at Gaz like this before, and to be honest I wasn't sure why I was doing it now. I could have walked away or continued to deny everything and eventually they'd have been forced to push on without knowing the details of how I was turned. And yet here I was, suddenly the bottles I had long stored, filled with all the hate and anger and frustration I had endured, were cracking and breaking within me.
And all that bottled rage was spilling out of my mouth.
"I'm the family pariah and you're the golden child who gets whatever she wants!" My teeth were showing, I knew it, I didn't need a mirror to tell. Inwardly, somewhere it dawned on me that this could well be the wolf within talking but at the same time it was something I had wanted to say for so long.
Perhaps it was repaying me for the blood by giving me the strength to finally tell my sister off.
"A new car, new games, new phone, all of university paid for and more! What do I get? NOTHING!" I threw my hand out as I shouted, my eyes blazing with fury. "NOTHING AND IT'LL ALWAYS BE NOTHING!" I was screaming now and yet oddly Gaz just stood there. Her eyes narrow and her body stiff but without a hint of expression on her stony face.
"AND YOU!" I turned suddenly on Zim who jumped with surprise, raising right up onto his PAK legs. It was all pouring out of me now, nothing could stop it, like the first strike of lightning in a thunderstorm heralding an immediate downpour. "You're just as bad!"
Unlike Gaz however Zim was all too eager to reply back to me. He moved forward on his PAK legs until he was eye level with me and pointed a sharp finger into my chest. "How dare you accuse Zim of such things! Zim does not care about your stupid li-"
"All you ever do is brag about how great your life is going and how much money you're making selling tech to mercenaries and how much destruction you're causing across the galaxy! Well guess what, I'm sick of hearing about it! I'm sick of you rubbing your success in my face every day!" I was practically in Zim's face at this point. Hell I could have punched him through the wall and into the next room. Part of me thought about doing it, seriously thought about it, but the other half held back simply because Zim was one of two allies I had at this moment.
Punching one into paste wouldn't improve my situation any more than it was now.
Instead however I managed to tear myself away from him for a second and look back to Gaz, my teeth practically grinding in my mouth. "So yeah! I went out and while I was out I got into a fight with a vampire and amazingly despite everything else in my life being complete shit I actually managed to win for once!" I ran a quick hand through my hair as I desperately tried to gather my thoughts before they spilled right out of my mouth. I failed. "And when I won she turned to me and told me a couple of truths, like how I deserved way better than what I was getting and how she could offer me a way out. All I needed was to let her bite me and you know what, I did something for me for once! I said yes because I thought maybe that was my ticket to something better than living in the constant shadow of everybody else around me!"
Finally I caught my own breath and stopped. Finally it felt like every bottle I had stored inside me and piled up and up until there was no longer any room within my soul for the hate and anger I was desperately keeping under control was empty. Finally I felt as though the weight on my heart, unbeating as it was, had been lifted.
There was a long silence where I looked to neither Zim nor Gaz. Instead I looked away to the side, back to the cell I was in one a moment ago, wanting them to take each and every agonizing second to realize what complete assholes they'd been for the last couple of years.
Then suddenly, Zim broke the silence with something I hadn't been expecting.
"You thought I was bragging?" I back to him in surprise. The venom in his tone was incredible and yet I knew it wasn't all aimed at me. Part of it was aimed at himself. "You think I enjoy selling out my people's tech like a worthless mercenary?"
Suddenly he shoved me and, amazingly, I staggered back. I could have easily resisted it and yet I was so shocked by his outburst that I had absolutely no defense. All walls had been dropped and I could only stare open mouthed at the shorter alien as he screamed at me.
"I hate this planet, Dib-Stink! And I hate that I have to spend the rest of my flirking existence here! I hate that I'm not a solider, that I have to survive acting like a leach handing over weapons to races that should be licking my irken boot!" He loomed over me, his PAK legs stabbing swiftly onto the floor around me so he could lean in so close to my face that I could smell his weirdly sterile breath. "I would do anything, anything, to be able to chose my own destiny! At least you always had that! Why do you think I always told you to leave that stupid drone-store with that worthless worm of a human as your work-lord? YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SMARTER THAN THAT PLACE BUT YOU REFUSED TO IMPROVE YOUR OWN SITUATION!"
As he spoke he jammed a finger into my chest and I let him. I had never thought... never realized that Zim was, essentially, trapped here on Earth. He couldn't go out into the chaos that was the galaxy, he was an irken and most irkens were kill on sight to the aliens they had once ruled over so cruelly. Even worse was that, inside, I knew he was right and I had known he was right even before I'd been bitten.
"You know what? When you want the assistance of the mighty Zim you can come find me, until then how about you try and get it into that giant, thick ape-stink skull of yours what a gigantic, self centered moron you actually are!" And with that the alien turned suddenly and skittered away, vanishing down one of the long, maze-like corridors his base was made from.
I stood there simply amazed at his explosion of anger. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen Zim so mad, so upset. Had I really always been so blind? How could I have not noticed how much he hated what he was doing? Maybe he had always found a way to hide his anger, just like I had always tried to do.
Or maybe he was right. Maybe I was just so selfish that I hadn't even thought to wonder if Zim enjoyed handing over his precious weapons for gold plated latinum.
"I'm not the golden child, you know."
I had been so lost in my thoughts that I had forgotten Gaz was even there. Her voice caused me to jump up suddenly and I turned to her, expecting that she would be surrounded by the flames of hell and ready to rip me apart in righteous fury.
However instead she was doing something even more terrifying.
She was standing there. Her hands gripped tightly at her sides, her eyes on me, completely and utterly calm.
Or at least she appeared that way on the outside. Gaz was my sister and I knew her well enough to know that under that stoic appearance hid a rage that a thousand demons couldn't stop.
Her amber gaze fixed onto mine and held me in place against my will. No matter how vampiric I was I would never be able to escape from one of her death-glares.
"Do you really think dad just gives me all those things because I get good grades?" Her voice was so ice cold that I could have frozen to death in it. "I get those things because I work my ass off and the only reason I do so is because ever since you stupidly set that building on fire dad piled all his hopes and dreams on me."
I opened my mouth to say something but no words came out. Instead I sat there, gawking at her like a fish before closing it again and looking away in shame.
"You do realize the only time I ever get to game is when I come home on the weekends? I spent every other goddamn second studying so that he doesn't completely lose faith in both of us. I don't have any boyfriends, I don't go on any night outs, I don't get to do anything fun because if I mess up even once I know he'll come down on me a thousand times harder than he ever did on you. Oh, all he ever talks about is you."
I looked back to her at this and immediately, almost instinctively replied. "No way."
"He does. Any time he calls all he talks about is how hard you work, how you're earning your own way, how you're pulling yourself up by your boot straps and how I have it easy because all I have to do is study. All the crap that makes me feel goddamn worthless while you get to dance around working a piss-easy job and doing whatever you want in the meantime."
Her fingers were digging into her palms so hard I thought they would draw blood and even known with the beast sated the thought of it sent goosebumps along my arms. Her voice was quickly becoming harder for her control, I could tell. It was shaking with fury, her whole body was giving off an almost electric anger and I could feel myself tensing for an inevitable attack.
"And you... you thought I was the lucky one..." Her hands moved from the table slowly, raising upward. "You ungrateful... ASSHOLE!"
I saw it coming from a mile away, perhaps because of my newly heightened vampiric senses or maybe because I had been at the receiving end of Gaz's rage so many times I knew all her attacks. Either way as her fist came sailing through the air at me I dodged it with ease, then she threw another one, which again I easily avoided.
She was panting, her amber eyes practically flashing with an inner thunder and her fists still raised, though she made no further moves to assault me. Instead she did all of that with her voice. "Dad gave you his damn car for crying out loud! Do you know how much he loved that stupid car?" Her voice rose even more, screaming every word into my heart and mind. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HE STILL THINKS THE GODDAMN WORLD OF YOU DESPITE ALL THE SCREW UPS? AND YOU DARE ACCUSE ME OF BEING THE GODDAMN GOLDEN CHILD!"
For a moment she simply gave me a look that could have set me on fire but then she turned and stormed towards the tunnel Zim had vanished down. She paused however at the entrance and turned to look at me. When she spoke again her voice was back to being that stone cold tone which was louder than any shouting could ever be. "Everyone has problems Dib. Everyone. The difference is we didn't choose to run and hide in the dark like you did."
And with that she was gone, vanishing into the neon-red and purple corridor. I stood alone for a moment, then, quietly, I made my way over to Zim's giant chair and slumped onto it. I leaned forward and put my head into my hands.
"Dib, you are a complete idiot."
I had been so blind. No, blind wasn't the right word for it. I had filled my vision only with my own inadequacies, with the tiny but numerous things which had all been stabbing me in the side for years. The failures I had refused to move on from, the evils I had decided to let exist in my own life. Zim was right. I could have walked away at any time. Yes it would have been into uncertainty but it would have better than working at JojaMart.
Or perhaps at least the chance to do something, anything better would have been worth it.
And as for Gaz... How I had never noticed how hard she worked to remain in university? Straight A's didn't come without hard work no matter how smart you were and I hadn't even bothered to ask what she was studying and why. Dad had rewarded her for doing as he had always wanted her to do and in his own, baffling way I suppose he had done the same for me. I had been earning my own way, clinging to the things I had gathered for myself.
A working class pride had been instilled into me.
But it was a pride which had backfired. I had pushed everyone aside to do things on my own, to work purely for myself without allowing any other to give me a hand or even a kind word. I had developed a self-hating tunnel vision, blocking out the efforts of everyone else around me. Zim had been miserable for years, working simply to exist. Gaz had taken up the weight which I had carried for the Membrane name.
"Dib, you need to make this right." I whispered into my palms. "Somehow... you need to make this right."
So it ends with Dib quoting the Protomen. BECAUSE PROTOMEN. Also there are some Warhammer 40k references in there, mostly about the mighty Tzeentch, LORD OF CHANGE. See why I went with him? Lord of Change? Theme of the fic? Yep yep, deep reference thought there.
Anyway yes so that's the update, hope everyone enjoyed it and leave me some lovely feedback and whatnot telling me all what you think or thought or considered or just want to tell me. I'm here for you people.
TILL NEXT TIME DEAR READERS!
