I own nothing... not the songs, not IZ, just Merana and Jendai... *sniffles* Only 2 more chapters left...
Chapter Seven
"Sitting in my room now, hiding thoughts
just hoping one day I'll get out
I hear a voice call out my name, breaking trance
So silent so I can stay the same."
-Creed, "My Own Prison"
"And that's how I met Mer..."
"Interesting meeting," Zim smiled faintly. He noticed the weariness in Jendai's voice, as well as the scratchy tones it was developing. The other Irken looked close to stopping his tale. If he stopped, he would end it. Now, though, Zim didn't really blame him. He'd had an idea these things had gone on back home. He had never taken part in the beatings, although he admitted inwardly that he'd almost wanted to at times. The tallest Soldiers in the barracks always went out to do so on their free hours. It was almost a rite of passage; a rite Zim had never been a part of due to his height. He had to keep Jendai talking. Maybe if the mechanic's mouth were kept busy, his mind would forget its purpose of carrying out the ultimate solution. "Did the Soldier named Des ever come to this planet?" he asked.
Jendai looked up sharply. His eyes narrowed. "How did you know about that?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet. When Zim hesitated to reply, he sighed, shoulders heaving with the force of the exhalation. "Don't bother explaining. You read that book, eh?" He smiled wanly. "Should have figured. Suppose you don't need to know anything else if you read that... Anyway, Des was lost, crashed here, got the shit beat out of him by yours truly for everything he did to me and Kas, and then was sent on his way again by Merana." The gloved fingers-mangled and normal-flexed, the knuckles cracking almost impatiently. "Where'd you put the blaster, Zim?"
"You don't sound afraid." What would it take to halt his demise? Zim chewed his lip thoughtfully. He couldn't let another Irken die, as the death of their own kind went against everything programmed into Irken minds as much as the thought of committing the act itself. "Have you tried this before?" he asked, deciding it was better not to divulge how much of Jendai's journal he'd actually read.
"It didn't work. I had Mer then though..." Sorrow filled his face again. "This is hard, Zim..." he muttered. "You're the only other Irken alive to hear about this... heh, it's kind of embarrassing actually..."
Zim settled back, pleased with his work. Perhaps if Jendai got this story all the way out, he would reconsider his death. Then, his little side mission would be accomplished. "Go on, Jendai. You have plenty of time."
~ ~ ~
He sat gloomily beside the window, hands folded into a pyramidal shape, the fingers touching at their gloved tips, one pair resting remorsefully on his temple as blue eyes stared forlornly into the rain patterns. There were dark circles engraved deeply under the azure jewels, showing, without any other outward sign, the severity of his depression and the serious lack of slumber. At times, pain filled them, pain both inner and physical. The marks from the rescue were gone, the holes sewed up and the wounds healed.
The wounds you could see, anyway.
Emotional wounds took far longer to heal, and paralysis took a literal eternity. He would never walk on his own physical power again. Now, he was forced to rely on the power Irken technology had given him at birth, he had to rely on the robotic legs from that night until the day he died. He sighed, staring out at the wet world. Long ago, he'd learned the dangers of earth. Humans tried to kill you, water burned your skin, most foods tasted like poison... Not that he was ever hungry anymore anyway. He just felt sick. Sick, weak, helpless... The pills he was forced to take-to make him sleep, and to chase away the physical pain-did little to ease this sickness. He fingered recent burns on his bare arms. Water. Stupid, useless stuff. A book was opened across his lap, as he was supposed to have been practicing writing and reading the human language. What use did he have for the stuff? All he needed to know were curses, that was enough for him. The past haunted him. It tore at his sanity, breaking him more than any Soldier beating ever had.
Ah yes, breaking. What was the point of being unbreakable now? Two months of this horror, or this hell as humans said. Two months of being trapped on earth with another alien, probably the only thing keeping him sane now. Two months of paralyzed legs had finally done what no Soldier had ever come close to doing. Two short months... sixty long, trying days, had broken his spirit. There was nothing left to live for now. He already had it planned out. How he was going to carry out the deed, what he would say in the journal he'd started keeping recently, how he would prepare his mind.
Human poison. So many uses for it! So many uses for a simple, perfect thing... There was the obvious one, then some did things for cars, cleaned things and destroyed pests. The only one he had access to was one known as "antifreeze." Supposedly, it destroyed the organs, providing for a slow, very agonizing death. A sardonic smile, soft and fragile, slunk onto his tired face. It didn't matter anymore. There had been so much pain already, so much suffering, what did a few hours more matter? A bottle waited for him under the kitchen sink. Waited until the cover of night freed him from the pain, the scars, from the past that haunted him. Damn this rain. It only sunk him deeper into depression. His hands slid further up his face, hiding his mournful gaze from the world.
"How are you doing, Jendai?" a soft, feminine voice asked from behind him. The Djemy again. She seemed to have an obsession with him. He wished she would just leave him alone in peace... her constant attention made it hard to do what he intended.
"Fine," he snapped, hiding the blank pages from her amber gaze. Her name was Merana Sali. What did that matter to him? He rarely spoke to her anyway. Rarely spoke at all, for that matter. He knew almost everything about her, her purpose, her ambition, her cause... and in return all she knew was that he was an Irken mechanic who had been banished and had far too many scars. "Do you need something?"
He heard a slight sniff of indignant tone from her. A delicate hand came to rest on his shoulder. The Irken shuddered at the touch, even the thought of another female touching him brought too many demons back to life. The hand vanished. "Something's bothering you," Merana said simply. "Your antennae are against your head. Your species only does that when something's eating at them."
His eyes narrowed. "Nothing," Jendai mumbled, keeping his eyes fixated on the outside world. "Just leave me alone. I need to be alone." She hesitated. "Leave me alone, Djemy."
"I just want to help you." Damn, she was persistent. "Please, tell me what's wrong. Maybe it's something I can help ease."
"You can't do anything else for me," he growled, turning his head slightly to look at her. His head hurt. It always did around this time of day. "Now, all you can do is leave me alone." He turned back to the window, telling her the subject was closed. He heard her finally walk off, muttering to herself. The fragile smile returned.
Nothing would stop him from committing himself to the deed now.
Everything was settled.
Long fingered hands placed the human music disk into the player, selecting the correct song. Music flooded the darkness of the kitchen. Every few moments, lightning flashed, illuminating a weary Irken face. Showing a bottle in his gloved hand. He stood in the center of the room, watching the rain continue to fall outside the huge kitchen windows.
"I feel the cold wind blowing beneath my wings
It always leads me back to suffering
But I will soar until the wind whips me down
Leaves me beaten on unholy ground again."
Human music was strangely pleasing to his Irken senses. Especially this song. It personified his emotions and his decision perfectly. He slowly unscrewed the top of the bottle, reading the warning in halting fragments. Hah, he didn't need to know this. Poison was exactly what he wanted. He was tired of it all. Tired of the twisted irony of life. What he wanted now was for death to release him. To finally free him from his toil. To break the cycle of trying to live. It was pointless now...
"So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance before you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time."
Even if Merana were to come now, it would be too late for him. He was so deep in his resolve to die that he doubted he would notice if Leeri herself walked into the room. Leeri... He would see her again soon. He would see Leeri and he would see Daske. They would keep him safe from the Soldiers again. He could finally be happy. He wondered faintly if his passing would affect Kasden in any way. It wasn't important now anyway. There was nothing the Tallest could do about it now, or would do for that matter. He couldn't let such thoughts stop him.
"'Cause my shackles
You won't be
And my rapture
You won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me."
He raised the bottle to his pale lips and took a long, shuddering swallow, almost gagging at the bitter taste. It was like a mix of ahki and soap. His body convulsed suddenly, sending his back pod attachments spasing out of control. The motion threw against the cupboards violently. A slight grin was on his face, even as pains wracked his abdomen. Apparently this poison affected Irkens worse and faster than humans. His vision blurred. Through the haze he could hear Merana calling him. Someone stroked his antennae soothingly. "Hold on," she whispered. "Please, Dai, I'll do all I can."
"So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive."
Anger filled him. "No," he rasped out. "I want... to die! Leave... mee... lone..." It was hard to speak. "Go... way!" He wished he could explain his reasoning to her, wished he could tell her all that had happened to him. All the troubles, the pain, the suffering. Why he had to do this. His mind refused to relay the information to his mouth. "I... 'ave... oo."
"I know now what trouble can be
And why it follows me so easily
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you shut me down
Again
Let me introduce you to the end."
His breathing grew shallow, coming in ragged gasps from a heaving chest. He turned his head to the side, throwing up everything he'd forced down his throat. More pain wracked his beaten body, causing him to convulse on the cold linoleum. The hands of the Djemy were all that prevented his neck from snapping off his shoulders as the rest of him shook violently.
"Though you know you care
my shackles
You won't be
And my rapture
You won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
And my laughter
You won't hear
The faster
I disappear
And time will burn your eyes to tears..."
Jendai's already utterly exhausted body gave one last, desperate convulsion before his blue eyes fluttered closed.
Sometime later, the cobalt jewels slid open again, staring into amber pools. The eyes he looked into were wet with tears that were rapidly falling onto his chest. "Hello," she murmured. "You're alive."
The statement was almost enough to send him into another fit of despair. Yet, something stopped him. "You... you saved me?" Jendai whispered, shocked at how hoarse his tenor voice had become since the incident. He tried to move, then discovered he was far too weak to do much more than speak or blink. The pain was gone now, replaced by only a nauseated feeling and a heat in his face that wouldn't go away. His head still ached. "Why? I wanted to die, Merana Sali. I have nothing left, on Irk, or on this hellhole."
"Jendai..." something cool was pressed to his head. It was a frozen washcloth. No water, just a cloth that had been sitting in the freezer. He shivered once, then visibly relaxed. "I saved your life... again, because..." The amber eyes looked indecisive. "I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I worked so hard to save you the first time. I don't like to let hard work go to waste." Her free hand stroked his antenna lightly, more of a comforting gesture than anything else. Jendai, unashamedly, relished the touch. In a deepening haze, his mind turned the Djemy's image into Daske's. He smiled wanly. "Go to sleep, Jendai Kaalae. You need your rest. I'll be here with you the whole while."
And she was. The moment his eyes opened, they locked with hers. Judging from the light coming from the windows, it was sometime in the late afternoon or early evening. She'd moved a chair beside the bed; added more blankets over his shaking body, and hadn't changed clothes. The weakness in his upper body was slowly fading, while the sickness persisted stronger than ever.
"How are you?" she asked softly. There were black circles under her eyes that stood out in contrast with her pale, pink-toned skin. Her fingers were cool against his face. They uncurled to reveal new pills that he'd never seen before. He was too weak to resist when she put them in his mouth and watched him swallow them. "Those were called antidepressants; they'll help you so you'll have to take them from now on." Her eyes look wet. "Are you any better? Worse? Can you talk?"
The Irken nodded faintly. "Feels same," he mumbled. "Cept, doesn't hurt."
Her cool hands stroked his antennae again. "Poor thing..." A frown creased Merana's delicate face. "I was able to fix what you did to your body, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have to live with being sick for a while." The hands froze when an involuntary purr formed in Jendai's throat, building with relief and pleasure. "What?" she asked, genuinely surprised at his reaction.
"Irken sweet spot," he breathed. It had been so long since he'd felt that touch he longed for. Too long, in fact. "Keep goin'. Please."
"Oh." She resumed the act. "I see." Pale, perfect lips pursed in a small frown. "I did all I could for you," the Djemy explained quietly. "Your body will function normally as soon as we can get you well again." She paused once more. "Why?" The simple question was the thing he'd been dreading the most. "Why did you do it, Jendai Kalae?"
He coughed. "Kaalae," Jendai offhandedly corrected. "An' I dunno..."
"Yes you do," she insisted. "You know, otherwise you wouldn't have done it. Tell me. Please?" There was something in her eyes that forced him to explain. He looked away before telling her. He told her everything, starting from as early as he could remember, up until this moment. She waited patiently through the parts where his voice broke, where the tears threatened to boil over, where emotion halted the parts that haunted him the most. Sometimes, she would murmur in surprise, but for the most part, Merana was quiet, as Kas had been, simply listening. As the story ended, he was stunned to see small tears at the corners of the Djemy's own eyes. "So, that's where all those scars came from," she whispered. "You poor, little thing..."
Jendai turned his head away from her as best he could. This nausea was returning with all the memories of the past. "I don't want sympathy," the mechanic snapped. "Like Kas said, what Leeri did was awful, but nothing anybody says or does can change what happened to me." His eyelids drooped. "Now you know, Merana Sali, why I wanted to die."
"Is that still what you want, Jendai Kaalae? After all you've lived through, everything you've beaten, do you still want to end it?"
Her hand gently, firmly, grasped his chin, turning his head to look directly at her. Jendai stared into her face. In that moment, the Djemy struck him as beautiful, even more so than Leeri. Her face, in fact her whole body, had such a delicate structure to it, looking as if you could break her by simply holding her too tightly. The amber and white orbs, so fascinating to him now, bore into him, compelling him to tell her the truth. Silver-blonde hair, a color Jendai had never seen before, hung down past her shoulders, flowing over her body. Her hair was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. Now, he imagined running it through his fingers, just playing with it in general. He wondered how she would react, was her hair like a Djemy version of antennae...? And then he shook the thought off. What was wrong with him? Leeri still haunted his mind, and he shouldn't abandon her memory this quickly. Yet, something changing... something was forming inside him he didn't think could ever happen again. Careful not to break her, his hand slowly reached up to grab her wrist. "No," he murmured, finally breaking the silence. "You're right... I can't do it. Not with..." His hand went limp, falling back to the bed, not even rustling the blankets.
"Shh, shh," Merana smiled, pulling the blankets up around his shoulders. "I know you won't. Go back to sleep. You need rest."
He almost said no. Then her fingers brushed his antennae once more, slowly stroking them, and he was forced into the most peaceful sleep he'd had since the day his voot runner had smashed into the pavement outside her house.
"Keep them closed," Mer lectured, steering him into some room. "If you peek, you don't get the surprise!"
"I'm not looking," Jendai laughed. He was seated in what was called a wheelchair, as Merana felt he wasn't strong enough yet to move even with the use of his robotic legs. It was a less dignified position than he'd liked to have around the house, but Mer's orders weren't challenged. He kept his eyes tightly shut, laughing at the absurdity of all this. This was so funny, being pushed around the house by a tiny humanoid because he'd been stupid enough to think he could die in a house with someone who could heal with a touch. "I swear!" he said, still laughing. This was the first time in a very long time he'd laughed this freely. He thought he sounded like Min.
Mer pushed him forward for a moment, then stopped the chair and moved away from it. "Okay," he could almost hear her smiling. "You can open them now."
The first thing that met his eyes was the scarred, battered hull of a blue voot runner, lying on the cement floor of a square room. For a long time, he stared at it, laughter dead. After a moment, he took in the rest of the room. It was lit by evenly placed, overhead lights that hummed pleasantly with their fluorescent glow. Along one wall, windows let in sunlight from just below the ceiling. The walls were painted blue, running down into a black, cement floor. There were tables and shelves that were filled with materials and odd tools of human origin. The only thing he recognized was a small, plain box of Irken make, placed carefully on its own, private shelf. He blinked, stunned. "Blue and black, your colors, right 'Dai?" Mer asked, coming around to kneel at his level on his right. One of her hands rested gently on his. "You're a mechanic too. I figured this would be heaven for you."
He slowly wheeled his chair forward. His free hand-Mer didn't let go of his other hand-gingerly touched the voot's broken side, the glove snagging on a jagged edge. "Hey," he swallowed heavily. "Good to see you again..." Students loved their voot runners almost like living things, as they were one of the few things that would never be taken away if things got bad. If they lost their job, they could lose everything except their voot runner and their back pod. Jendai was no exception to this love. It was hard for him to see his voot in such a dismal condition. Feeling choked up, he turned away, slowly looking over every inch of the room. It passed his inspection. "Thank you," he whispered to Merana, returning to her. "This... this is amazing. I... I don't know what to say."
"You're welcome," she smiled, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tight. For a moment, he sat tense, resisting the feeling that was coming over him. No. This wasn't right. He couldn't... not this soon... he couldn't let her go this fast... His body relaxed out of its own accord, letting the pleasure sensation rise up to his mind. Involuntarily, Jendai hugged her back, gaining enough control of his body to keep his hands from running up and down her spine, noting the absence of the back pod. That fact was a little unnerving, but... he'd learned to cope with her other, more obvious differences.
"Is there anything you need me to work on?" he asked, breaking away. Her hands lingered in his own, pulling slowly away. "Like toasters or anything?"
She laughed. "How'd you know the toaster broke?"
"Thing was smoking like hell when I tried to toast something," Jendai explained, shrugging. His vocabulary of Earth curses had become almost as vast as a human's... he was quite proud of it. "Figured something needed tweaking but didn't know what I should do..."
Merana shot him a warm smile. "I'll go get it for you, 'Dai."
He watched her go with a soft, equally warm smile on his face.
Time passed, turning eventually into ten years that somehow seemed shorter than he would have guessed. He healed, emotional wounds even beginning to patch themselves up. Yet, one refused to even begin to heal, continuing to fester and tweak at his mind. It never left him alone, especially in sleep. During the day it was easier to shake it off. But when night came...
In time, the major hurts lessened, fading back into nothingness as he tried desperately to remain who he had been. To keep his mind busy, Jendai would hole up in his workshop for days, slaving away on projects or things that had broken. At these times, he was inapproachable, surly and almost in a different place all together. Merana learned quickly how to deal with him in these instances. Personally, Jendai didn't like the Irken he was becoming. More and more he found himself lashing out at inanimate objects in a blind rage. Curses were frequent from his mouth and he had little idea how to stop the flow once it began. On the other side, sometimes, he would sink so deeply into a period of depression that he caught himself thinking about diving off the edge once more. At these times, he again holed up in his workshop, weak and vulnerable rather than angry and aggressive. Merana also learned how he needed her at these times. How much he needed to know that there was still something around him who cared for his life... how much he needed her to touch and reassure him.
In order to focus his new aggression at something living, he'd learned how to drive a human vehicle. Merana had explained her duty on the planet, and had asked him to accompany her, to aid in her various rescues. He hated it. The other drivers had no consideration for him, an attitude he was all too familiar with in beings. Other than his annoyances, he was quite good at aiding her, driving her and keeping any onlookers quiet... a task which he grimly enjoyed at times.
It was on one of these rescues that his sanity frayed almost to the breaking point.
"Just a few more miles to the site, Jendai," the Djemy said from the passenger side of their white van. "It's a fairly recent crash, so there shouldn't be any gawk-ers."
He barely nodded his head, so intent was he on the road. "What race?" he asked curtly. "Do you know?"
There was a long silence. "Irken..." Merana said finally. "Irken craft..." More silence. "I'm sorry, Dai... You, you don't have to come with me if you don't want to. It wasn't right of me to ask you..."
"I'm coming with you," Jendai retorted. "They can't hurt me any more than they have, and they won't have a bunch of Soldier bastards around to help them..." His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He turned off into a large field of grass at her insistence, eyes alert for anything.
It was hard to miss. A voot cruiser, smashed into the ground, smoke rising from its hull and outer skin. There was no sign of movement Jendai pulled up, a fact he noted with slight satisfaction, no sign of life. He stopped ten feet from the wreck. Merana slowly climbed out, advancing cautiously. For once, she didn't wait for him to collect himself, to sort out his thoughts and retrain the memories. Resting his head in his hands, elbows braced on the steering wheel, Jendai took a few long, relaxing breaths before ducking out into the chill night. No matter what he saw, no matter what he remembered, he would control himself. He promised himself to do so. With a sudden swell of courage, he started over to where Merana stood over a semi-conscious body...
And stopped dead.
All resolve melted as he stared into that face. A face unchanged by years of beating up on the innocent. A face he knew better than his own, and loathed with every ounce of his soul. A face he longed for years to beat in, to break its fragile bones...
The face he now looked into was the face of Des, unaltered by time.
He fell back against the van, startled at how near it suddenly seemed. His breath came in rushing, hissing, gasps as he fought to stop himself from seeing the gleaming red of Des's half-open eyes and ripped uniform. Beneath his gloves, the muscles of his hands bunched, tensing for battle. Why now? Why this? He felt his eyes narrowing into furious slits. And felt his pulse pound in his veins, ordering him to destroy without mercy, without discrimination, and with a thirst for vengeance. Unwillingly, his robotic legs took a few wavering steps forward. Merana said something to him, something drowned out in his seething rage. Not even her slender hands grasping his wrists made him halt in seizing Des's green throat. The Soldier's eyes flew open the moment he was touched by Student hands. Des paled to a pasty white in recognition. He uttered a few, frightened, indiscernible words, kicking feebly in an attempt to escape Jendai's crazed grip. The SIR who normally would have protected its master lay inactive on the ground, its head severed from its pencil-thin neck.
Effortlessly, Des was lifted from the ground by the one whom he had tormented, and was slammed into the side of the van. "You!" Jendai snarled. His voice dripped with scorn, hate, contempt and, above all, raw rage. "You sorry, goddamned, piece of shit bastard Solider!" The word "Soldier" was belittling in his transformed manner, where in others it would have been honorific.
"I... I don't know you... You can't know m-me!" Des managed to choke out, his eyes huge from terror. "I... I... I... am Invader Des-" he was cut off, gasping when Jendai's fingers dug into his tender throat.
"I know exactly who you are, you lying sonofabitch!" the Mechanic fairly screamed. He had no control over his words or over his actions at this point. He was too far-gone into the abyss. "And you know exactly who I am. Otherwise you wouldn't be pissing yourself right now!" Des yelped. Oh, he knew. He knew all too well. "But since you're having a little memory lapse right now, I'll refresh your memory." Using his free hand, he pulled up the right side of his shirt, letting his arm slide out and every scar on that side fall under the scrutiny of the world. There was a set to Jendai's antennae that was familiar, yet hadn't been seen on Earth in years. "Remember me now? You gave me these! You gave me my scars! Each goddamn scar I have is YOUR fault!" He was breathing heavily now, trembling with the wrath his soul yearned to vent. His face was morphed into a twisted, insane mask graced with a horrific snarl, filled with the dangerous glint of zipper teeth. Even Merana backed away. "Everything is your fault! Everything! You almost killed Kas! You almost killed me with your idiotic drones' lust for harming the innocent! You made Leeri do what she did to me! You are responsible for everything that happened to me on Irk! It's your fault I'm here! Your fault I'm a paralyzed bastard whose only will to survive comes from a Djemy!"
Des was silent. He was too terrified to speak anything in his defense.
With a bestial cry of torment held in for far too long, Jendai dropped him, kneeling to move in with fists flying. He knew nothing of what he was doing, blind to the pain he was causing, and deaf to the cries his revenge was creating. Jendai laughed. Similar to the laugh ripped from him in his voot runner so long ago, this one was almost triumphant, dark and sounded like someone who should have never been freed from the padded walls or confining jackets of an institution for those who were misunderstood by humanity. Faster and harder his fists slammed into the Invader's body. He couldn't stop, his mind was too frayed by the sight of his old enemy and the years of toll on both planets. "How does it feel, Des?" Jendai sneered. "How does it feel to be beat by someone taller than you only because you're vulnerable and short!?" His voice raised in volume, swelling to encompass the whole field with its misery.
"HOW THE HELL DOES IT FEEL TO BE ME!?"
"Jendai! Stop! You're killing him!"
A slight hand on his arm finally stopped insanity's fury. He froze, one hand in the act of impacting with Des's skull. He stared at what had been an Irken and was now a mess of blood and bruises created from his hands. Revolted suddenly, he fell backwards, trembling from the release. Tears were streaming down his face, tears he didn't even know were being shed. His gloves... his gloves were... his gloves were covered in... in blood. The realization almost made him retch. Merana's hand was firmly on his arm, her nails almost digging into his olive-green skin. "Please... Dai just stop," she whimpered through her own tears. "You're only looking for someone to blame! Des isn't the one you should be focusing on. Dai... you're just being what he was to you! You're the one giving him the scars!" Her amber eyes were large in the flickering flames from the destroyed voot cruiser. "You're becoming him."
Now he did retch. Turning his head under the van, he was met with his dinner from hours ago. Then his lunch. He was shaking; shaking so bad his antennae wavered in the air. Despite his need, he found himself unable to breathe. Suddenly, there were arms around his waist, secure, peaceful arms that brought him back from the brink into reality. They anchored him in who he was once more. "Oh god..." was all he could manage to say. Merana held him tighter, preventing him from returning to his madness. "It's okay," she whispered into his shirt. "Jendai, I'm here. I'm here. Come back... I'm here. It's okay now. I promise it's okay now. I'm here."
Des lay forgotten behind the back wheel of the van. The two were oblivious to his presence, each engulfed in the desperate want to comfort the other. He would still be there when sanity returned further. His injuries were too insignificant compared to Jendai's mental torment to be dealt with at the current moment.
It felt good, her arms around him. At the back of his mind, through the psychosis and cloud of confusion and hate, an impulse and a melody came to him. He reached down and pulled her close to him. He didn't know all the words, or what was happening to him. He just knew he needed her to hold him and needed to hold her in return. How long this peace would last was something he refused to dwell on right now.
...All I can taste is this moment
and all I can breathe is your love
But sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight...
Jendai's body shook with sobs he couldn't control. He'd come so close to being everything he'd hated, more than once. He could barely take it. If anyone had seen him in that moment, the minute he'd lost it, he didn't know what he would have done. They would have tried to make him stop forcefully, not realizing what he needed. Everyone... everyone but Merana Sali. She wanted to know him even better than Kas, Leeri, or even Daske did. At the moment, he wanted her to. Even if it were just so she wouldn't remember his maniac side. He didn't know how long he'd be with her, how long she would protect him from the shadows, the darkness, the abyss. It wouldn't be forever. Nothing was forever.
...And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know
Who I am...
She tightened her arms around him in response to his sobs. "It's all right, Jendai. You need this. Go ahead," Merana Sali whispered. Her head leaned against his chest. Jendai felt himself shake, not with the release, but with something else. By the mother of Irk, he wished he could let himself tell her... but tell her what? That he needed her to love him? That he needed her to hold him always? For all she knew, he was just like Des. Someone who needed no one and nothing. Someone who knew nothing of any other emotion save aggression, hate, or allegiance to their leader. He had to tell her one of these days... had to stop fighting what he knew now. But how could he? Such a thing seemed in violation of Leeri's memory. But when he thought of her now, holding the little Djemy tightly in his arms against her own fear and for his consolation, she actually seemed truly dead for the first time since her execution.
...You cannot fight the tears
that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in
Your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know
You're alive...
"Please, Jendai. Tell me you're going to be all right now?" one of her hands lay against his chest as she said this, feeling his pulse beneath the muscle and scar tissue. He suppressed the urge to purr. Everything about this moment reassured him, made him feel safer than he'd felt in all his days on Earth. It also sent pleasurable chills through his worn body. It felt so right... more right than anything. "Jendai?" The hand now brushed the tears from his blue eyes. "Jendai, please talk to me. You're safe now, Des won't hurt you ever again. I'm going to send him back to Irk as soon as I can. You'll never have to deal with another Soldier again... oh god, Dai, I swear you won't!" Tears now filled her own eyes. "I'm so sorry everything turned out this way. I never should... have subjected you to this..."
...And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that
They'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know
Who I am...
He looked down at her. The contented purr finally escaped him. Merana blinked, then leaned into his chest, crying harder with her joy. She knew what that sound meant. And he was glad of it. "I'll be okay," he promised softly, holding her close. Mother of Irk... her hair was the softest thing he'd ever felt. "I'll be okay..."
...I just want you to know
Who I am...
He'd be just fine, now that he had something to live for again.
Well, that was sappy! "Shackles" is by Vertical Horizon and "Iris" is by the Goo-Goo Dolls.
Chapter Seven
"Sitting in my room now, hiding thoughts
just hoping one day I'll get out
I hear a voice call out my name, breaking trance
So silent so I can stay the same."
-Creed, "My Own Prison"
"And that's how I met Mer..."
"Interesting meeting," Zim smiled faintly. He noticed the weariness in Jendai's voice, as well as the scratchy tones it was developing. The other Irken looked close to stopping his tale. If he stopped, he would end it. Now, though, Zim didn't really blame him. He'd had an idea these things had gone on back home. He had never taken part in the beatings, although he admitted inwardly that he'd almost wanted to at times. The tallest Soldiers in the barracks always went out to do so on their free hours. It was almost a rite of passage; a rite Zim had never been a part of due to his height. He had to keep Jendai talking. Maybe if the mechanic's mouth were kept busy, his mind would forget its purpose of carrying out the ultimate solution. "Did the Soldier named Des ever come to this planet?" he asked.
Jendai looked up sharply. His eyes narrowed. "How did you know about that?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet. When Zim hesitated to reply, he sighed, shoulders heaving with the force of the exhalation. "Don't bother explaining. You read that book, eh?" He smiled wanly. "Should have figured. Suppose you don't need to know anything else if you read that... Anyway, Des was lost, crashed here, got the shit beat out of him by yours truly for everything he did to me and Kas, and then was sent on his way again by Merana." The gloved fingers-mangled and normal-flexed, the knuckles cracking almost impatiently. "Where'd you put the blaster, Zim?"
"You don't sound afraid." What would it take to halt his demise? Zim chewed his lip thoughtfully. He couldn't let another Irken die, as the death of their own kind went against everything programmed into Irken minds as much as the thought of committing the act itself. "Have you tried this before?" he asked, deciding it was better not to divulge how much of Jendai's journal he'd actually read.
"It didn't work. I had Mer then though..." Sorrow filled his face again. "This is hard, Zim..." he muttered. "You're the only other Irken alive to hear about this... heh, it's kind of embarrassing actually..."
Zim settled back, pleased with his work. Perhaps if Jendai got this story all the way out, he would reconsider his death. Then, his little side mission would be accomplished. "Go on, Jendai. You have plenty of time."
~ ~ ~
He sat gloomily beside the window, hands folded into a pyramidal shape, the fingers touching at their gloved tips, one pair resting remorsefully on his temple as blue eyes stared forlornly into the rain patterns. There were dark circles engraved deeply under the azure jewels, showing, without any other outward sign, the severity of his depression and the serious lack of slumber. At times, pain filled them, pain both inner and physical. The marks from the rescue were gone, the holes sewed up and the wounds healed.
The wounds you could see, anyway.
Emotional wounds took far longer to heal, and paralysis took a literal eternity. He would never walk on his own physical power again. Now, he was forced to rely on the power Irken technology had given him at birth, he had to rely on the robotic legs from that night until the day he died. He sighed, staring out at the wet world. Long ago, he'd learned the dangers of earth. Humans tried to kill you, water burned your skin, most foods tasted like poison... Not that he was ever hungry anymore anyway. He just felt sick. Sick, weak, helpless... The pills he was forced to take-to make him sleep, and to chase away the physical pain-did little to ease this sickness. He fingered recent burns on his bare arms. Water. Stupid, useless stuff. A book was opened across his lap, as he was supposed to have been practicing writing and reading the human language. What use did he have for the stuff? All he needed to know were curses, that was enough for him. The past haunted him. It tore at his sanity, breaking him more than any Soldier beating ever had.
Ah yes, breaking. What was the point of being unbreakable now? Two months of this horror, or this hell as humans said. Two months of being trapped on earth with another alien, probably the only thing keeping him sane now. Two months of paralyzed legs had finally done what no Soldier had ever come close to doing. Two short months... sixty long, trying days, had broken his spirit. There was nothing left to live for now. He already had it planned out. How he was going to carry out the deed, what he would say in the journal he'd started keeping recently, how he would prepare his mind.
Human poison. So many uses for it! So many uses for a simple, perfect thing... There was the obvious one, then some did things for cars, cleaned things and destroyed pests. The only one he had access to was one known as "antifreeze." Supposedly, it destroyed the organs, providing for a slow, very agonizing death. A sardonic smile, soft and fragile, slunk onto his tired face. It didn't matter anymore. There had been so much pain already, so much suffering, what did a few hours more matter? A bottle waited for him under the kitchen sink. Waited until the cover of night freed him from the pain, the scars, from the past that haunted him. Damn this rain. It only sunk him deeper into depression. His hands slid further up his face, hiding his mournful gaze from the world.
"How are you doing, Jendai?" a soft, feminine voice asked from behind him. The Djemy again. She seemed to have an obsession with him. He wished she would just leave him alone in peace... her constant attention made it hard to do what he intended.
"Fine," he snapped, hiding the blank pages from her amber gaze. Her name was Merana Sali. What did that matter to him? He rarely spoke to her anyway. Rarely spoke at all, for that matter. He knew almost everything about her, her purpose, her ambition, her cause... and in return all she knew was that he was an Irken mechanic who had been banished and had far too many scars. "Do you need something?"
He heard a slight sniff of indignant tone from her. A delicate hand came to rest on his shoulder. The Irken shuddered at the touch, even the thought of another female touching him brought too many demons back to life. The hand vanished. "Something's bothering you," Merana said simply. "Your antennae are against your head. Your species only does that when something's eating at them."
His eyes narrowed. "Nothing," Jendai mumbled, keeping his eyes fixated on the outside world. "Just leave me alone. I need to be alone." She hesitated. "Leave me alone, Djemy."
"I just want to help you." Damn, she was persistent. "Please, tell me what's wrong. Maybe it's something I can help ease."
"You can't do anything else for me," he growled, turning his head slightly to look at her. His head hurt. It always did around this time of day. "Now, all you can do is leave me alone." He turned back to the window, telling her the subject was closed. He heard her finally walk off, muttering to herself. The fragile smile returned.
Nothing would stop him from committing himself to the deed now.
Everything was settled.
Long fingered hands placed the human music disk into the player, selecting the correct song. Music flooded the darkness of the kitchen. Every few moments, lightning flashed, illuminating a weary Irken face. Showing a bottle in his gloved hand. He stood in the center of the room, watching the rain continue to fall outside the huge kitchen windows.
"I feel the cold wind blowing beneath my wings
It always leads me back to suffering
But I will soar until the wind whips me down
Leaves me beaten on unholy ground again."
Human music was strangely pleasing to his Irken senses. Especially this song. It personified his emotions and his decision perfectly. He slowly unscrewed the top of the bottle, reading the warning in halting fragments. Hah, he didn't need to know this. Poison was exactly what he wanted. He was tired of it all. Tired of the twisted irony of life. What he wanted now was for death to release him. To finally free him from his toil. To break the cycle of trying to live. It was pointless now...
"So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance before you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time."
Even if Merana were to come now, it would be too late for him. He was so deep in his resolve to die that he doubted he would notice if Leeri herself walked into the room. Leeri... He would see her again soon. He would see Leeri and he would see Daske. They would keep him safe from the Soldiers again. He could finally be happy. He wondered faintly if his passing would affect Kasden in any way. It wasn't important now anyway. There was nothing the Tallest could do about it now, or would do for that matter. He couldn't let such thoughts stop him.
"'Cause my shackles
You won't be
And my rapture
You won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me."
He raised the bottle to his pale lips and took a long, shuddering swallow, almost gagging at the bitter taste. It was like a mix of ahki and soap. His body convulsed suddenly, sending his back pod attachments spasing out of control. The motion threw against the cupboards violently. A slight grin was on his face, even as pains wracked his abdomen. Apparently this poison affected Irkens worse and faster than humans. His vision blurred. Through the haze he could hear Merana calling him. Someone stroked his antennae soothingly. "Hold on," she whispered. "Please, Dai, I'll do all I can."
"So here I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seams
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive."
Anger filled him. "No," he rasped out. "I want... to die! Leave... mee... lone..." It was hard to speak. "Go... way!" He wished he could explain his reasoning to her, wished he could tell her all that had happened to him. All the troubles, the pain, the suffering. Why he had to do this. His mind refused to relay the information to his mouth. "I... 'ave... oo."
"I know now what trouble can be
And why it follows me so easily
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you shut me down
Again
Let me introduce you to the end."
His breathing grew shallow, coming in ragged gasps from a heaving chest. He turned his head to the side, throwing up everything he'd forced down his throat. More pain wracked his beaten body, causing him to convulse on the cold linoleum. The hands of the Djemy were all that prevented his neck from snapping off his shoulders as the rest of him shook violently.
"Though you know you care
my shackles
You won't be
And my rapture
You won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
And my laughter
You won't hear
The faster
I disappear
And time will burn your eyes to tears..."
Jendai's already utterly exhausted body gave one last, desperate convulsion before his blue eyes fluttered closed.
Sometime later, the cobalt jewels slid open again, staring into amber pools. The eyes he looked into were wet with tears that were rapidly falling onto his chest. "Hello," she murmured. "You're alive."
The statement was almost enough to send him into another fit of despair. Yet, something stopped him. "You... you saved me?" Jendai whispered, shocked at how hoarse his tenor voice had become since the incident. He tried to move, then discovered he was far too weak to do much more than speak or blink. The pain was gone now, replaced by only a nauseated feeling and a heat in his face that wouldn't go away. His head still ached. "Why? I wanted to die, Merana Sali. I have nothing left, on Irk, or on this hellhole."
"Jendai..." something cool was pressed to his head. It was a frozen washcloth. No water, just a cloth that had been sitting in the freezer. He shivered once, then visibly relaxed. "I saved your life... again, because..." The amber eyes looked indecisive. "I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I worked so hard to save you the first time. I don't like to let hard work go to waste." Her free hand stroked his antenna lightly, more of a comforting gesture than anything else. Jendai, unashamedly, relished the touch. In a deepening haze, his mind turned the Djemy's image into Daske's. He smiled wanly. "Go to sleep, Jendai Kaalae. You need your rest. I'll be here with you the whole while."
And she was. The moment his eyes opened, they locked with hers. Judging from the light coming from the windows, it was sometime in the late afternoon or early evening. She'd moved a chair beside the bed; added more blankets over his shaking body, and hadn't changed clothes. The weakness in his upper body was slowly fading, while the sickness persisted stronger than ever.
"How are you?" she asked softly. There were black circles under her eyes that stood out in contrast with her pale, pink-toned skin. Her fingers were cool against his face. They uncurled to reveal new pills that he'd never seen before. He was too weak to resist when she put them in his mouth and watched him swallow them. "Those were called antidepressants; they'll help you so you'll have to take them from now on." Her eyes look wet. "Are you any better? Worse? Can you talk?"
The Irken nodded faintly. "Feels same," he mumbled. "Cept, doesn't hurt."
Her cool hands stroked his antennae again. "Poor thing..." A frown creased Merana's delicate face. "I was able to fix what you did to your body, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have to live with being sick for a while." The hands froze when an involuntary purr formed in Jendai's throat, building with relief and pleasure. "What?" she asked, genuinely surprised at his reaction.
"Irken sweet spot," he breathed. It had been so long since he'd felt that touch he longed for. Too long, in fact. "Keep goin'. Please."
"Oh." She resumed the act. "I see." Pale, perfect lips pursed in a small frown. "I did all I could for you," the Djemy explained quietly. "Your body will function normally as soon as we can get you well again." She paused once more. "Why?" The simple question was the thing he'd been dreading the most. "Why did you do it, Jendai Kalae?"
He coughed. "Kaalae," Jendai offhandedly corrected. "An' I dunno..."
"Yes you do," she insisted. "You know, otherwise you wouldn't have done it. Tell me. Please?" There was something in her eyes that forced him to explain. He looked away before telling her. He told her everything, starting from as early as he could remember, up until this moment. She waited patiently through the parts where his voice broke, where the tears threatened to boil over, where emotion halted the parts that haunted him the most. Sometimes, she would murmur in surprise, but for the most part, Merana was quiet, as Kas had been, simply listening. As the story ended, he was stunned to see small tears at the corners of the Djemy's own eyes. "So, that's where all those scars came from," she whispered. "You poor, little thing..."
Jendai turned his head away from her as best he could. This nausea was returning with all the memories of the past. "I don't want sympathy," the mechanic snapped. "Like Kas said, what Leeri did was awful, but nothing anybody says or does can change what happened to me." His eyelids drooped. "Now you know, Merana Sali, why I wanted to die."
"Is that still what you want, Jendai Kaalae? After all you've lived through, everything you've beaten, do you still want to end it?"
Her hand gently, firmly, grasped his chin, turning his head to look directly at her. Jendai stared into her face. In that moment, the Djemy struck him as beautiful, even more so than Leeri. Her face, in fact her whole body, had such a delicate structure to it, looking as if you could break her by simply holding her too tightly. The amber and white orbs, so fascinating to him now, bore into him, compelling him to tell her the truth. Silver-blonde hair, a color Jendai had never seen before, hung down past her shoulders, flowing over her body. Her hair was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. Now, he imagined running it through his fingers, just playing with it in general. He wondered how she would react, was her hair like a Djemy version of antennae...? And then he shook the thought off. What was wrong with him? Leeri still haunted his mind, and he shouldn't abandon her memory this quickly. Yet, something changing... something was forming inside him he didn't think could ever happen again. Careful not to break her, his hand slowly reached up to grab her wrist. "No," he murmured, finally breaking the silence. "You're right... I can't do it. Not with..." His hand went limp, falling back to the bed, not even rustling the blankets.
"Shh, shh," Merana smiled, pulling the blankets up around his shoulders. "I know you won't. Go back to sleep. You need rest."
He almost said no. Then her fingers brushed his antennae once more, slowly stroking them, and he was forced into the most peaceful sleep he'd had since the day his voot runner had smashed into the pavement outside her house.
"Keep them closed," Mer lectured, steering him into some room. "If you peek, you don't get the surprise!"
"I'm not looking," Jendai laughed. He was seated in what was called a wheelchair, as Merana felt he wasn't strong enough yet to move even with the use of his robotic legs. It was a less dignified position than he'd liked to have around the house, but Mer's orders weren't challenged. He kept his eyes tightly shut, laughing at the absurdity of all this. This was so funny, being pushed around the house by a tiny humanoid because he'd been stupid enough to think he could die in a house with someone who could heal with a touch. "I swear!" he said, still laughing. This was the first time in a very long time he'd laughed this freely. He thought he sounded like Min.
Mer pushed him forward for a moment, then stopped the chair and moved away from it. "Okay," he could almost hear her smiling. "You can open them now."
The first thing that met his eyes was the scarred, battered hull of a blue voot runner, lying on the cement floor of a square room. For a long time, he stared at it, laughter dead. After a moment, he took in the rest of the room. It was lit by evenly placed, overhead lights that hummed pleasantly with their fluorescent glow. Along one wall, windows let in sunlight from just below the ceiling. The walls were painted blue, running down into a black, cement floor. There were tables and shelves that were filled with materials and odd tools of human origin. The only thing he recognized was a small, plain box of Irken make, placed carefully on its own, private shelf. He blinked, stunned. "Blue and black, your colors, right 'Dai?" Mer asked, coming around to kneel at his level on his right. One of her hands rested gently on his. "You're a mechanic too. I figured this would be heaven for you."
He slowly wheeled his chair forward. His free hand-Mer didn't let go of his other hand-gingerly touched the voot's broken side, the glove snagging on a jagged edge. "Hey," he swallowed heavily. "Good to see you again..." Students loved their voot runners almost like living things, as they were one of the few things that would never be taken away if things got bad. If they lost their job, they could lose everything except their voot runner and their back pod. Jendai was no exception to this love. It was hard for him to see his voot in such a dismal condition. Feeling choked up, he turned away, slowly looking over every inch of the room. It passed his inspection. "Thank you," he whispered to Merana, returning to her. "This... this is amazing. I... I don't know what to say."
"You're welcome," she smiled, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tight. For a moment, he sat tense, resisting the feeling that was coming over him. No. This wasn't right. He couldn't... not this soon... he couldn't let her go this fast... His body relaxed out of its own accord, letting the pleasure sensation rise up to his mind. Involuntarily, Jendai hugged her back, gaining enough control of his body to keep his hands from running up and down her spine, noting the absence of the back pod. That fact was a little unnerving, but... he'd learned to cope with her other, more obvious differences.
"Is there anything you need me to work on?" he asked, breaking away. Her hands lingered in his own, pulling slowly away. "Like toasters or anything?"
She laughed. "How'd you know the toaster broke?"
"Thing was smoking like hell when I tried to toast something," Jendai explained, shrugging. His vocabulary of Earth curses had become almost as vast as a human's... he was quite proud of it. "Figured something needed tweaking but didn't know what I should do..."
Merana shot him a warm smile. "I'll go get it for you, 'Dai."
He watched her go with a soft, equally warm smile on his face.
Time passed, turning eventually into ten years that somehow seemed shorter than he would have guessed. He healed, emotional wounds even beginning to patch themselves up. Yet, one refused to even begin to heal, continuing to fester and tweak at his mind. It never left him alone, especially in sleep. During the day it was easier to shake it off. But when night came...
In time, the major hurts lessened, fading back into nothingness as he tried desperately to remain who he had been. To keep his mind busy, Jendai would hole up in his workshop for days, slaving away on projects or things that had broken. At these times, he was inapproachable, surly and almost in a different place all together. Merana learned quickly how to deal with him in these instances. Personally, Jendai didn't like the Irken he was becoming. More and more he found himself lashing out at inanimate objects in a blind rage. Curses were frequent from his mouth and he had little idea how to stop the flow once it began. On the other side, sometimes, he would sink so deeply into a period of depression that he caught himself thinking about diving off the edge once more. At these times, he again holed up in his workshop, weak and vulnerable rather than angry and aggressive. Merana also learned how he needed her at these times. How much he needed to know that there was still something around him who cared for his life... how much he needed her to touch and reassure him.
In order to focus his new aggression at something living, he'd learned how to drive a human vehicle. Merana had explained her duty on the planet, and had asked him to accompany her, to aid in her various rescues. He hated it. The other drivers had no consideration for him, an attitude he was all too familiar with in beings. Other than his annoyances, he was quite good at aiding her, driving her and keeping any onlookers quiet... a task which he grimly enjoyed at times.
It was on one of these rescues that his sanity frayed almost to the breaking point.
"Just a few more miles to the site, Jendai," the Djemy said from the passenger side of their white van. "It's a fairly recent crash, so there shouldn't be any gawk-ers."
He barely nodded his head, so intent was he on the road. "What race?" he asked curtly. "Do you know?"
There was a long silence. "Irken..." Merana said finally. "Irken craft..." More silence. "I'm sorry, Dai... You, you don't have to come with me if you don't want to. It wasn't right of me to ask you..."
"I'm coming with you," Jendai retorted. "They can't hurt me any more than they have, and they won't have a bunch of Soldier bastards around to help them..." His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He turned off into a large field of grass at her insistence, eyes alert for anything.
It was hard to miss. A voot cruiser, smashed into the ground, smoke rising from its hull and outer skin. There was no sign of movement Jendai pulled up, a fact he noted with slight satisfaction, no sign of life. He stopped ten feet from the wreck. Merana slowly climbed out, advancing cautiously. For once, she didn't wait for him to collect himself, to sort out his thoughts and retrain the memories. Resting his head in his hands, elbows braced on the steering wheel, Jendai took a few long, relaxing breaths before ducking out into the chill night. No matter what he saw, no matter what he remembered, he would control himself. He promised himself to do so. With a sudden swell of courage, he started over to where Merana stood over a semi-conscious body...
And stopped dead.
All resolve melted as he stared into that face. A face unchanged by years of beating up on the innocent. A face he knew better than his own, and loathed with every ounce of his soul. A face he longed for years to beat in, to break its fragile bones...
The face he now looked into was the face of Des, unaltered by time.
He fell back against the van, startled at how near it suddenly seemed. His breath came in rushing, hissing, gasps as he fought to stop himself from seeing the gleaming red of Des's half-open eyes and ripped uniform. Beneath his gloves, the muscles of his hands bunched, tensing for battle. Why now? Why this? He felt his eyes narrowing into furious slits. And felt his pulse pound in his veins, ordering him to destroy without mercy, without discrimination, and with a thirst for vengeance. Unwillingly, his robotic legs took a few wavering steps forward. Merana said something to him, something drowned out in his seething rage. Not even her slender hands grasping his wrists made him halt in seizing Des's green throat. The Soldier's eyes flew open the moment he was touched by Student hands. Des paled to a pasty white in recognition. He uttered a few, frightened, indiscernible words, kicking feebly in an attempt to escape Jendai's crazed grip. The SIR who normally would have protected its master lay inactive on the ground, its head severed from its pencil-thin neck.
Effortlessly, Des was lifted from the ground by the one whom he had tormented, and was slammed into the side of the van. "You!" Jendai snarled. His voice dripped with scorn, hate, contempt and, above all, raw rage. "You sorry, goddamned, piece of shit bastard Solider!" The word "Soldier" was belittling in his transformed manner, where in others it would have been honorific.
"I... I don't know you... You can't know m-me!" Des managed to choke out, his eyes huge from terror. "I... I... I... am Invader Des-" he was cut off, gasping when Jendai's fingers dug into his tender throat.
"I know exactly who you are, you lying sonofabitch!" the Mechanic fairly screamed. He had no control over his words or over his actions at this point. He was too far-gone into the abyss. "And you know exactly who I am. Otherwise you wouldn't be pissing yourself right now!" Des yelped. Oh, he knew. He knew all too well. "But since you're having a little memory lapse right now, I'll refresh your memory." Using his free hand, he pulled up the right side of his shirt, letting his arm slide out and every scar on that side fall under the scrutiny of the world. There was a set to Jendai's antennae that was familiar, yet hadn't been seen on Earth in years. "Remember me now? You gave me these! You gave me my scars! Each goddamn scar I have is YOUR fault!" He was breathing heavily now, trembling with the wrath his soul yearned to vent. His face was morphed into a twisted, insane mask graced with a horrific snarl, filled with the dangerous glint of zipper teeth. Even Merana backed away. "Everything is your fault! Everything! You almost killed Kas! You almost killed me with your idiotic drones' lust for harming the innocent! You made Leeri do what she did to me! You are responsible for everything that happened to me on Irk! It's your fault I'm here! Your fault I'm a paralyzed bastard whose only will to survive comes from a Djemy!"
Des was silent. He was too terrified to speak anything in his defense.
With a bestial cry of torment held in for far too long, Jendai dropped him, kneeling to move in with fists flying. He knew nothing of what he was doing, blind to the pain he was causing, and deaf to the cries his revenge was creating. Jendai laughed. Similar to the laugh ripped from him in his voot runner so long ago, this one was almost triumphant, dark and sounded like someone who should have never been freed from the padded walls or confining jackets of an institution for those who were misunderstood by humanity. Faster and harder his fists slammed into the Invader's body. He couldn't stop, his mind was too frayed by the sight of his old enemy and the years of toll on both planets. "How does it feel, Des?" Jendai sneered. "How does it feel to be beat by someone taller than you only because you're vulnerable and short!?" His voice raised in volume, swelling to encompass the whole field with its misery.
"HOW THE HELL DOES IT FEEL TO BE ME!?"
"Jendai! Stop! You're killing him!"
A slight hand on his arm finally stopped insanity's fury. He froze, one hand in the act of impacting with Des's skull. He stared at what had been an Irken and was now a mess of blood and bruises created from his hands. Revolted suddenly, he fell backwards, trembling from the release. Tears were streaming down his face, tears he didn't even know were being shed. His gloves... his gloves were... his gloves were covered in... in blood. The realization almost made him retch. Merana's hand was firmly on his arm, her nails almost digging into his olive-green skin. "Please... Dai just stop," she whimpered through her own tears. "You're only looking for someone to blame! Des isn't the one you should be focusing on. Dai... you're just being what he was to you! You're the one giving him the scars!" Her amber eyes were large in the flickering flames from the destroyed voot cruiser. "You're becoming him."
Now he did retch. Turning his head under the van, he was met with his dinner from hours ago. Then his lunch. He was shaking; shaking so bad his antennae wavered in the air. Despite his need, he found himself unable to breathe. Suddenly, there were arms around his waist, secure, peaceful arms that brought him back from the brink into reality. They anchored him in who he was once more. "Oh god..." was all he could manage to say. Merana held him tighter, preventing him from returning to his madness. "It's okay," she whispered into his shirt. "Jendai, I'm here. I'm here. Come back... I'm here. It's okay now. I promise it's okay now. I'm here."
Des lay forgotten behind the back wheel of the van. The two were oblivious to his presence, each engulfed in the desperate want to comfort the other. He would still be there when sanity returned further. His injuries were too insignificant compared to Jendai's mental torment to be dealt with at the current moment.
It felt good, her arms around him. At the back of his mind, through the psychosis and cloud of confusion and hate, an impulse and a melody came to him. He reached down and pulled her close to him. He didn't know all the words, or what was happening to him. He just knew he needed her to hold him and needed to hold her in return. How long this peace would last was something he refused to dwell on right now.
...All I can taste is this moment
and all I can breathe is your love
But sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight...
Jendai's body shook with sobs he couldn't control. He'd come so close to being everything he'd hated, more than once. He could barely take it. If anyone had seen him in that moment, the minute he'd lost it, he didn't know what he would have done. They would have tried to make him stop forcefully, not realizing what he needed. Everyone... everyone but Merana Sali. She wanted to know him even better than Kas, Leeri, or even Daske did. At the moment, he wanted her to. Even if it were just so she wouldn't remember his maniac side. He didn't know how long he'd be with her, how long she would protect him from the shadows, the darkness, the abyss. It wouldn't be forever. Nothing was forever.
...And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know
Who I am...
She tightened her arms around him in response to his sobs. "It's all right, Jendai. You need this. Go ahead," Merana Sali whispered. Her head leaned against his chest. Jendai felt himself shake, not with the release, but with something else. By the mother of Irk, he wished he could let himself tell her... but tell her what? That he needed her to love him? That he needed her to hold him always? For all she knew, he was just like Des. Someone who needed no one and nothing. Someone who knew nothing of any other emotion save aggression, hate, or allegiance to their leader. He had to tell her one of these days... had to stop fighting what he knew now. But how could he? Such a thing seemed in violation of Leeri's memory. But when he thought of her now, holding the little Djemy tightly in his arms against her own fear and for his consolation, she actually seemed truly dead for the first time since her execution.
...You cannot fight the tears
that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in
Your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know
You're alive...
"Please, Jendai. Tell me you're going to be all right now?" one of her hands lay against his chest as she said this, feeling his pulse beneath the muscle and scar tissue. He suppressed the urge to purr. Everything about this moment reassured him, made him feel safer than he'd felt in all his days on Earth. It also sent pleasurable chills through his worn body. It felt so right... more right than anything. "Jendai?" The hand now brushed the tears from his blue eyes. "Jendai, please talk to me. You're safe now, Des won't hurt you ever again. I'm going to send him back to Irk as soon as I can. You'll never have to deal with another Soldier again... oh god, Dai, I swear you won't!" Tears now filled her own eyes. "I'm so sorry everything turned out this way. I never should... have subjected you to this..."
...And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that
They'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know
Who I am...
He looked down at her. The contented purr finally escaped him. Merana blinked, then leaned into his chest, crying harder with her joy. She knew what that sound meant. And he was glad of it. "I'll be okay," he promised softly, holding her close. Mother of Irk... her hair was the softest thing he'd ever felt. "I'll be okay..."
...I just want you to know
Who I am...
He'd be just fine, now that he had something to live for again.
Well, that was sappy! "Shackles" is by Vertical Horizon and "Iris" is by the Goo-Goo Dolls.