HA fanfic2

Arm: Yeah, Chapter 2 to Abuse. Leg and I maybe swaying towards Zib, but damnit, I've been itchin' to write a ZAGR…

Leg: ::sighs:: Of course, we all know that Gaz likes Zim in this fic, but I have no idea what she's going to do with the couple….Us Zib fans can only hope and get on our knees and pray. ::does so:: Please, oh please O Lord, do not let Arm write a—OW!!!

Arm: ::grinning evilly at Leg as she hides her mallet:: What was that? Oh, and we don't own them. Got it?

Abuse: Chapter Two, 3rd person POV

Dib practically ran out of his house. He needed to get away from his mother. She had gone TOO far today. Damnit, he could feel his tears catching up to him. He had been able to keep from crying all year, until now. How could she? She basically repeated what she had told him over a year ago, but she hit more nerves, due to all the things that have built up over the years.

Dib slowed his pace down. He needed to think. Where was he supposed to go this afternoon after his mom went to work again? Oh, yeah, Zim's house. Dib looked around at where he was, and realized he was already half way to Zim's. He heard a car come up behind him, and he turned to see that it was his father.

"Dib, come home," he ordered.

"Screw you dad! I'll go back to that place when I'm ready!" Dib shouted him, and then ran off. His dad didn't want him to come back; he was only coming to retrieve him for his mother. He didn't want to see her at all. His father just drove off, understanding somewhat that his son needed to relax before he came home.

Dib stopped running about a few moments afterwards, satisfied with the amount of space he had put between him and his father. He placed his hands in his pockets, and noticed that the little steel blade he usually brought to skool was still in there. He pulled out his hands, trying to keep himself from using it. Pulling up the sleeve to his right arm, he studied the small cuts that covered most of his arm, and all of the scars.

He had been cutting himself for a long time now, and he couldn't even remember when he had started. He knew he needed to stop, sooner or later he would get brave and actually do the unthinkable if he continued. That's why the blade was in his pocket. He was using his own strength of will to teach himself to go on without it. So far his longest without cutting himself was a week, and this time he was getting close to completing another week. But he needed to. The pain he was feeling was too much, and it all built up.

No! Dib shouted at himself. I don't need to! I will not cut myself at all! I can make it through this week! Dib fingered the blade again, to prove to himself that he wouldn't pick it up and use it. Then he remembered he was in public, and if he were to use it now, his biggest secret besides the one about the way his mother treated him would be out.

He could Zim's house now, and something similar to a smile made its way across his face. He wondered briefly if Zim had really expected him to come over. Sure, he said that he was, but he never really planned to. Hell, he expected his mother to stay home this afternoon to do exactly what she did to him, but he didn't expect her to be that mean with him today.

The tears returned. Damn, how he hated crying. It was his mother's goal, to get him to cry uncontrollably. She was now succeeding more and more these days too. He never cried in front of her though, that was what she really wanted. Just not to have him cry, but to have him cry in front of her face. He hastily wiped the tears away from his eyes. He didn't want Zim to think that anything had happened to him.

Good luck, a small part of him said. He knew he couldn't keep anything from Zim. Zim was smart. He can tell when something is wrong, even if he never seems worried about it. Making sure that he looked somewhat presentable, Dib took in a deep breath and knocked on the door. He waited impatiently for it to open. He knew his sister would be looking for him soon, on his mother's orders, and he didn't want to be in plain sight when she reached this part of the neighborhood.

"Yes? Oh, Dib, it's you," Zim stated quietly. He studied Dib's facial expression. Something seemed really off about him.

"Well, you seem so happy to see me," Dib muttered sarcastically. He couldn't help it. With the weight of what had just happened to him and how Zim had treated him that year or so ago, it was really hard for him to try and sound cheerful.

Zim moved out of the way and let Dib inside the house. Zim noticed how…depressed Dib looked like, but his facial expression was something that resembled a smile, which wasn't associated with depression at all in the human world. Shaking his head, Zim figured that he would never understand human behavior, and left it at that.

"I bet you weren't expecting me to come over, huh?" Dib asked lightly as he observed the living room.

"No, I was," Zim answered as he walked up next to Dib. He sighed at the mess Gir made earlier. "It's just that Gir decided to break something just five minutes ago and I haven't gotten the chance to clean it up. He got excited about something, I guess," Zim explained as he bent down and picked some of the glass up.

"Gir? Is he that android you own?" Dib asked, getting highly interested in what Zim was talking about.

Zim sighed. "Yes, he is. You're not going to go back to the way you were, are you?" Zim asked suddenly.

"The way I was?" Dib asked, confused. He finally caught on, and just realized how much his head hurt. "Oh, no, no of course not. I can't afford to," Dib stated, trying to sound cheerful, and failing miserably. He sat down on Zim's couch without asking and placed his head in his hands. He had a horrible headache, and it was his whole family's damn fault.

"Are you okay, Dib? You aren't acting like yourself," Zim stated as he glanced worriedly at Dib, who was now rubbing his temples.

"It's nothing. I just have a headache. Just stress," Dib answered. "Do you have anything like Tylenol or Advil?"

"No. I don't use human pain relievers," Zim replied as he walked into the kitchen to throw out the pieces of glass.

"Figures," Dib mumbled to himself. His headache was only getting worse too. All of the smallest, simplest things his mother had done to him were crushing him again. He needed to escape from them all, and yet, since they all remained in his head, he could not.

"What did your mom say to you this afternoon before lunch?" Zim asked. "And don't lie to me."

Sighing, Dib looked up, and could feel the tears coming again. All of the bullshit he had to put up with; his ex-boyfriends' shit, his mother's shit, finally caught up to him. He couldn't even answer Zim before he began to bawl. "I just can't take it anymore!" Dib hissed between his teeth. "My family, the people I've been with. All bullshit. I feel horrible. I can't take this anymore."

Zim was shocked at the sudden outburst of from Dib. He had no idea what to do, and that was the hardest part of it all. How do you go on telling someone you never really gotten along with that they shouldn't be feeling that? Zim cautiously walked over to Dib, and awkwardly sat down next to him and listened to Dib ramble.

"Fuck my mother, my father, hell, even my sister. They've never really cared for me," Dib mumbled continuously.

"What did they do to you to make you think that?" Zim asked quietly.

"Existing. Just everything they've done their whole life. My sister has always been treated special. My mother has always favored her. When Gaz and I were in gymnastics.... We loved it. It was one of the few things I actually enjoyed in my life," Dib momentarily paused to wipe his eyes. "My mother saw how happy we were, and joined. She never got as good as us, and she was jealous of it. She made us quit because she just didn't get it. Gaz and I nearly killed each other after that…"

Zim just nodded and listened. It seemed as though Dib had held all of this in for a really long time. And even though he had lived on Earth for three years, he still didn't know the basic ways of comforting a human. He never expected Dib to be so depressed, never realized that Dib hated his life. There had to be something that Dib lived for.

"And to make it worse, I have tried killing myself, though I failed. My mother made sure of it," Dib muttered.

Now this, Zim couldn't handle. "How long ago was this?" Zim asked. He placed his hand on Dib's arm, trying to tell him without words that he could trust him, just this once.

"Not too long ago. I don't exactly remember when it happened. Sometime after my mom moved back in," Dib answered, his voice choked with tears, but he moved his arm out from under Zim's hand. He didn't like any physical contact with anyone that wasn't either a boyfriend or his sister. Dib saddened. He had horrible luck with relationships. None of them, however, were in his skool. He always managed to meet someone new, but then they would use him and then treat him like shit.

He thought of his most recent rejection. He cried harder at the thought of that. His last boyfriend, Justin, had told him that afternoon that he didn't like him anymore. Dib did the logical thing with the other boy; he broke up with him. That made him feel horrible, and then his mother walked in on him crying about it. She forced him to answer her questions with her usual methods. He just had had enough. He didn't want to live anymore. He felt ugly, dirty, and unloved. He pulled out the small blade that was in his pocket and studied it for a bit. Zim wouldn't know what he was doing; he wasn't human after all, so…

"Oh no you don't," Zim stated as he pulled the blade out of Dib's hands, seemingly able to read Dib's thoughts. He placed it carefully in his lap. "What did you plan on doing with that? Hurt yourself?" Zim asked.

Dib looked up at him with the most pathetic look. He needed to! The pain was too great! It was the only way he could make sure he was still alive and just didn't go straight to Hell. "Zim, please—"

"No. Hurting yourself is not the answer. It only brings about more pain," Zim said, trying to be reasonable. Zim may have seemed like he knew what he had to do, but he was still lost. All he could think of was to help Dib somehow, to make him no longer depressed. Going about that, however, was another story.

"You don't understand, Zim! My life is pain! There hasn't been any happiness in my life! Gymnastics and the paranormal may be the only things right now, but I have neither! I don't want to live…."

I don't want to live. Those words rang like a gong in Zim's head. I don't want to live. No! He had to live! Gaz said she cared about it when Dib was hurt, didn't she? And Zim…well, he did really care about the human, as much as he would hate to admit it on a normal bases. He had friends to live for!

"Nobody likes me. They all think I'm an ugly person, inside and out. All of my ex-boyfriends say so. My mother says so, so it must be true. I have nothing to live for if no one really wants me around…."

"Dib, stop running over yourself like that!" Zim shouted finally. "You aren't ugly. You have the purest of human hearts out there, if you toss the fact away that you wanted to kill me most of the time you've known me," Zim said. He felt sadness. Real sadness. It was possibly the worst thing he could feel. All he wanted to do was have the Dib that smiled back, the Dib that was so sure of himself. It was eating away at his heart, seeing his ex-rival basically pick on himself, just because he thought everyone thought of him like that.

"No body would care if I died, you know," Dib stated sadly, his tears that had momentarily stopped returned again. "No one in skool has ever taken the effort to become my friend. No one has ever said that they loved me, and said it again a month or even a week later! They all ended up hating me! Just like I hate myself…"

"There are people who love you, though!" Zim said in desperation. Why he had said that, he had no idea.

"Yeah? Name someone who doesn't have to act like they love me," Dib ordered him to do.

Zim glanced down at the floor. What was that little voice screaming? The little voice inside his head? He thought of an answer, and truthfully he couldn't come up with anything.

"No one, huh? That's what I thought. There is no one on this Earth who could ever love me for who I was. Just my image or something as superficial," Dib stated cynically.

"But, what of the people that aren't of the planet Earth?" Zim asked to himself in a very low voice, and in Irken so that if Dib did hear him, he couldn't understand him.

Dib sighed and punched the couch. "My mother always wanted me to respect her. Well, how can I respect someone who has never respected me for who I was in the first place? Her thought of respect is complete and total obedience. I can't do that twenty-four seven. I just can't. Not anymore. Before I could do it, but now…. Now she's asking too much of me, expecting me to be the perfect son. She says I put no effort into that. She has no fucking idea exactly how hard I try to go a day without getting some new burn, broken or sprained bones, or cuts and bruises. No idea," Dib rambled.

That caused Zim to look up at Dib. Had he heard right? His mother abused him? He had to read about it in that stupid class humans called health. "Dib…" Zim looked away and pressed his eyes closed. He wanted to cry. Oh god, he had never wanted to cry so much in his life by just hearing the pain and anguish in someone else's voice. And it coming from someone who he had always thought to be so strong that nothing could touch him, that nothing could hurt him like this. This just proved how wrong he could be about someone, and it proved that he never really knew the real Dib.

Dib pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them. He had no where to go. He couldn't go home, his mother would severely punish him for running away, basically. "You know, we've tried family counseling. But all they ever talked about was how I treated her. That was all. Not once had they ever reached the subject of how they treated me. Not once. And it didn't even work. My family life remained the same, even though my mother basically moved out for something she had done to me before," Dib continued. He winced at the memory of the pain of his back being so torn up, and running to his boyfriend-at-the-time's house with his messed up legs. That was the only time his mother had been reported for the things she had done.

Dib gasped as he felt someone's arms around him. No. He wasn't being hugged. He couldn't be being hugged. No one hugged him anymore. No one. Not even his father, or his sister. "I, I never knew, Dib. I couldn't tell. I knew something was wrong with you when you called a truce with me, but I never could pinpoint it. You're mother thought that you liked me, didn't she? That's why she told me to stay away from you this afternoon at lunch," Zim whispered in his ear.

Zim never knew he could be feeling emotions, human emotions, so strongly, and it was all because of Dib. Dib had always been his source of emotions. Usually Dib was his cause of hate, but he also caused him to worry, to wonder, to think over things, to see if what he was doing was wrong, he even helped Zim begin to love the human race, and to feel the great sadness that was coming from the very bottom of his heart. Zim wanted to help Dib so badly. He just wanted to do something, anything, to help him in anyway, and nothing he was doing seemed to work. So he hugged Dib, in hopes that it would help, no matter how great or small, he just wanted to help.

"What…what was that for?" Dib asked it as he wiped his tears away from his eyes. He looked into Zim's eyes and saw something he had never seen before in someone's eye, when they looked at him. He couldn't make out what it was. And he was wondering if he should be worried or relieved to see it there in Zim's eyes.

"I…I don't know. I had to do something," Zim answered shakily. His eyes began to fill up with tears at all of what he had just heard, all coming from Dib. "I couldn't stand to see you walk all over yourself like that. You aren't a bad person, Dib. You always put effort into everything you have ever done, like chasing me. You gave up chasing me in order to protect yourself. You didn't want to get hurt, but in all reality, you hurt yourself for giving up the one thing you loved doing because the person you hated the most didn't want you to have joy in your life," Zim said, his tears spilling over. He tried to wipe them away before Dib could see, but it was no use.

"Zim, why are you…?" Dib didn't even finish the question. He already knew the answer. Zim wasn't feeling sorry for him, he was sad because he couldn't do anything to help.

"When you said that you were to come over today, I never thought that all of this would have been said. That all of what you told me had happened to you. You seemed like what I thought all human mothers on Earth would have wanted in a son. Plus, I never knew humans could be so cruel to another. Dib, it's all so frustrating for me to see the same person who had threatened my very existence say that he wanted to die, and I have no way of helping him. It's a helplessness that I don't like. I've never felt like this my entire life.

"Dib, I don't want you to do anything to yourself. I really don't. You may think that there is no one else out there in the world that does, but there just has to be. I'm not used to all of the human emotions. On Irk, things are very different. Hell, I never thought I'd last this long on this planet. I was beginning to get really lonely. And I believe that the Tallest have tricked me once again. But that is a completely different story," Zim spilled. He cried as he said all of it, but it wasn't because he was feeling sorry for himself. He wanted Dib to live. He didn't even want to comprehend the possibility of Dib doing something to himself.

Dib was shocked to hear all of this be said by his biggest rival. He still felt ugly, though. There was no way he was ever going to stop feeling ugly. Everyone thought he was ugly. Everyone thought he was weird. Everyone thought he didn't even belong in this world. How could something not be true if everyone believed that it was?

"Don't even give a damn about what everyone thinks. They don't know you. They don't know the real you. The very beautiful side to you that no one has seen because you never let them get close to you. I know what closure is, Dib. What everyone thinks isn't important, it's what you think that is," Zim said, seeming to read his mind. "You are in control of your own life. You can't just let people order you around all of the time!"

Dib laughed bitterly at that. How many times has he been told that? All of the counselors he ever had said the same exact thing, and they never were any help to him. "'Take control of my own life'? It isn't possible for me to do. My mother has made sure of that. It's funny, everyone who's tried to give me advice always says that, but they have no idea what no matter what I try to do, I'll never have control of it," Dib stated.

Zim had no idea what to say to that. None at all. He was getting frustrated again. Why can't Dib just stop all of this? Can't he do anything to help his ex-rival? This was absolutely driving him insane. He had no idea on how to help. And seeing Dib in the state that he was in now really threw him off. He asked himself if he could possibly say something and not have Dib find a way to get more depressed from his saying it.

"I don't want to go back home. It's not safe there for me. Gaz should be looking for me now, on mom's orders. When I go home, she'll give me all this shit about how worried about me she was. She'd be the only one who semi-cared if I died, sometime soon," Dib mumbled to himself.

"Did everything I just tell you go through one ear and out the other!" Zim tried not to shout it, but he couldn't help it. "Dib, I can't just sit here and let you talk about your life like that! It can get better! And I would care if you were to die," Zim whispered.

Dib looked at him skeptically, but after everything Zim had said and done for him today, he could believe that. But why Zim, of all people? Why did Zim have to be the only one to care about him, the only one who was willing to listen and not interrupt him? Zim couldn't possibly understand what exactly he was going through. "Do…do you really mean that?" Dib asked as he searched Zim's eyes.

"Of course I do…" Zim said as he leaned in closer to Dib. He didn't know why though, his body went into autopilot. "My time here on Earth wouldn't be so amusing without you here, and I don't want you to be gone from my life. Just seeing you everyday is enough to keep me from completely going insane." Closer, closer…

"Zim, I had no idea what you…felt that way," Dib mumbled as he, too, moved closer. His mind was screaming at him, telling him to stop. He couldn't! He can't! It just wasn't happening! What was going to happen was NOT going to happen! But his heart was winning, and winning fast. Why, just any second now, his lips were going to be planted firmly on….

DING-DONG!

Zim growled at whomever was at his door. He got up from the couch and ordered Dib to stay there and that he wouldn't be long. He opened the door open a crack and saw Gaz standing there.

"Zim, have you seen my brother? I'm worried sick about him," Gaz stated, her arms crossed over her chest. She did look worried.

"No, I haven't seen him. I've been waiting for him all day, and he still hasn't showed up. Why are you looking for him?" Zim asked.

"Mom wants him home. She said he ran out of the house when she told him to do something he didn't want to do. He's going to be in a shit load of trouble if he doesn't get home soon. Well, anyway, if you see him, tell him to get his ass home. Bye!" Gaz stated as she walked off.

Zim sighed and shut the door. Why did he just lie? He never lied to anyone. He glanced back over at Dib, who was staring off into space. He looked somewhat happy, now. At least he didn't look completely and utterly depressed as he had before. And that caused Zim to smile, but it soon faded when he realized that Dib couldn't stay with him.

"You really shouldn't have lied to her, you know," Dib stated finally as he got off of the couch and headed over to Zim. "She'll hate you for it," Dib continued. "My sister really likes you."

Was that…a hint of jealousy, Zim had heard? Zim glanced down at Dib. They were only about two feet apart, but he wanted to get closer to him. Dib looked up at him. "I know she does, and in all reality, I don't care. I have had someone else on my mind since the moment I came here on Earth, though I've never realized it," Zim said without thinking.

Dib looked up at him, as if he was shocked. "Zim, could I just stay here, for a night or so?" Dib asked as he moved closer for Zim. "I don't feel like going back home." Dib mumbled as he latched himself onto Zim.

Zim sighed and wrapped his arms around Dib's fragile frame. "You can't stay here. You'll only get in more trouble if you do, Dib. And I don't want your mother to hurt you anymore than she already has," Zim whispered in Dib's ear.

"I know, but…. If I give her time to blow over, maybe she won't hurt me as much," Dib mumbled into Zim's shoulder.

"If you really want to stay, you can, but you have to go home eventually. You can't just go avoiding your mother like this, though. You're going to have to face her sooner or later. If you want, I'll be by your side when you do," Zim promised him. He felt Dib move out from under his arms.

"Thank you," Dib stated. "Thank you for everything, Zim," Dib said. Dib prayed silently that Zim wouldn't end up being like the others. Like all the people who have hurt him in the past.

"You're…you're welcome, Dib," Zim said as he walked away from the door. "Is there anything you would like to talk about?" Zim asked.

"No. I'll be fine, as long as you're here," Dib stated, and it was the truth, as of then.

Arm: Meep! ::hides from the rabid ZAGR fans:: It couldn't be helped!

Leg: ::sighs:: Well, at least we finished this chapter… Chapter three will be coming… Well, who knows? Not us. The romance is obvious now. Though, I do believe that Arm will be making us focus more on the angst than the actual romance.

Arm: Mm hmm. Well, please review!