I HAVE THE DVD'S! My dad went to Las Vegas on a business meeting and he brought IZ back with him. It's cheaper in America of course and he didn't have to pay P&P as he would have had to have done if we'd bought it over the internet so… voila! I am sooooo happy!
Sorry (once again) for the long delay! The internet has been screwing me around and college seems determined to pile as much coursework on me as possible. I hope you all had a good Christmas, I did :)
CHAPTER 4- TAINTED LOVE
Dib awoke to the sound of rain pattering on the roof. For a few moments there was blissful peace as he listened to the rhythmic pounding and then his brain kicked in and horrible memories of the previous night flooded back. He screwed his face up in mental pain and tried to forget making such a hideous mistake. How could he have been so stupid as to think that Zim was trying to seduce him? Mind games… the only mind games were the ones his overactive imagination was inventing. He had a sinking feeling that he had simply invented Zim's Evil Seductive Plan to disguise his own warped fantasies. He felt sick with humiliation, dread and something like fear. It was wrong to feel this way about an alien! Especially one whose mind was bent on world domination, and he wanted to destroy mankind, for God's sake! That funny little voice at the back of Dib's brain whispered, so what? They deserve it…
"Shut up!" Dib muttered and forced himself to sit up. He hated that knowledgeable part of himself. The part that told him humanity deserved to die, that he was crazy to keep trying to prove things people didn't want to know or didn't care about. It told him he was in denial about his feelings for Zim, that he obsessed over him too much for it to be professional interest… it was horribly rational. And Dib knew it was right but he wasn't ready to admit it. Yet. He thought back to the "final battle," the battle that had started it all. He had felt so secure, so comfortable resting on Zim. He had breathed in that strange alien scent; it was so comforting and at the same time unbearably intoxicating. He hated Zim. Hated him so much for wrong desires he made him feel. Dib stumbled out of bed and decided that food might make him feel better.
Shuffling downstairs and into the kitchen he didn't feel much better. His hair was a mess, still tousled from sleep and he knew he looked pale with dark shadows under his eyes that contrasted horribly with his pallor.
"You look sick," Gaz told him. He sighed and slumped into a chair and began to eat the cereal. It tasted like cardboard. Nothing abnormal about that though. Membrane's head floated above them on screen he glanced down at Dib and the screen wobbled as he shook his head.
"Son! Your sister is right! You should go back to bed."
Dib mumbled a reply and glared at the milky gloop in his bowl. He hated Zim for making him felt his way. So confused and so damn miserable. Dib was used to being humiliated the kids in skool but, somehow, when it was Zim, it was ten times worse. He told himself it was because he didn't like looking weak in front of his enemy. The voice whispered that it was because he wanted Zim's respect and Zim wouldn't respect an idiotic pushover. Dib pushed his breakfast away and trudged back upstairs but instead of going back to bed he switched on his computer and opened all the files he had containing information about Zim. There was so much. Picture after picture flashed before him; one of Zim without his disguise on (only the camera lens had been cracked in a fight a few minutes before so his face was too distorted to tell.) Zim's silhouette against the moon as he stood on the roof laughing triumphantly, a close up of Zim's undisguised face hidden in shadow, eyes like slits burning deep and red in the dark…
Dib wanted to scream and tear out his hair but he didn't have the energy to do so. He made do by sighing instead. He mentally cringed at the thought of how Zim would probably have interpreted the previous night's events. He stared miserably at the image on the screen. Those eyes, so passionate, narrowed in anger, hate and some other strange intensity that Dib couldn't work out. As he stared the despair and humiliation began to harden and form into something new. The raging hate was back but this time he couldn't deny that it was different. He didn't hate Zim because he wanted to destroy Earth, he hated him because of the way he made Dib want him and all the while he frantically wished he didn't. Dib shuddered at the thought of facing him again and dreaded skool the next day. To take his mind off these dark thoughts Dib sat and thought even darker ones. He plotted ways of exposing Zim before the skool in such ways that they had no choice but to believe.
He imagined the FBI marching in and dragging Zim away, kicking and screaming. Zim lying tied down on an autopsy table and Dib standing over him looking down as Zim's eyes narrowed in hate and Dib would know that those eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life but he wouldn't care. He would raise the scalpel and Zim wouldn't scream, he wouldn't betray even a flicker of fear and those fierce eyes would make Dib freeze. Then a metallic spider leg would break free from his PAK and Dib would drop the scalpel and back towards the door. But Zim would cut him off, ripping himself free of the restraining straps. And Dib would run, clamber onto the table and Zim would follow, slowly, deliberately until Dib's blood ran cold for fear. And then Zim would pin him down so he couldn't move look, fix him with those burning eyes, look down into the eyes of his nemesis and Dib's eyes would stare back up at him, afraid and tortured. On body fire, blood run cold. Take me now.
Dib's eyes snapped open and he shook himself to his senses. He shuddered and the twisted fantasy melted away. Dib shut down his computer and waited for peaceful quiet as the whirring hard drive fell silent. God, he hated that alien.
x x x
Zim paced the kitchen thoughtfully, every now and then glancing at the table where Dib had cowered before his mighty rage. Zim's eyes then flicked to the toilet where Dib had followed him down to his base. Then he replayed the strange events in his mind's eye. The Dib had crept up behind him and then done something strange and horribly pleasant. Unpleasant. He meant unpleasant. God it was a HORRIBLE experience! Zim coughed and scowled and scrubbed the back of his neck vigorously with one hand. He wondered what the Dib had meant by "messing with his mind" before deciding that it didn't matter. Zim hadn't been doing anything of the sort but he would start playing these mind games. Oh, what mind games he would play…! The results would be most interesting... his train of thought was interrupted by GIR demanding tacos. Zim pointed to a random cupboard and carried on thinking about his evil plan.
He needed to make the human feel confused and puzzled. Rather like Zim did about his reaction to Dib licking his neck. He shouldn't have enjoyed it at all… filthy human germs... Suddenly Zim's eyes narrowed and (what he thought was realisation) struck. So that was it! The Dib was trying to mess with Zim's mind!
"Oh, that HORRIBLE human!" He yelled. "Trying to confuse Zim with his pathetic mind games! Well, nice try Dib… but you failed! I guessed your evil plan!" and he began to laugh triumphantly.
"He can't hear you, you know," Zim's computer pointed out.
"Silence!" and he continued laughing. After a while he decided the computer had a point so Zim decided that he would wait until skool tomorrow to gloat.
x x x
Dib was late. Zim kept glancing anxiously at his desk. If the Dib wasn't in how could he rave about his triumph? When eventually Dib appeared he muttered an apology to Ms Bitters and scuttled to his seat. He looked as if he were trying to make himself as small and as unnoticeable as possible. Zim didn't like this change in his enemy's attitude and he studied the human intently all the time Ms Bitters was talking. He watched in confusion as Dib's pale face transformed from miserable to shocked to horrified to traumatised and then twisted into a strange expression that seemed to convey the whole lot all at once. Zim wondered why the horrible, twisted faces Dib was pulling were so strangely disturbing but when he actually registered what the disgusting scary educator-thing was saying Zim found he had every reason to feel as disturbed as Dib.
"The skool board has announced that due to a recent drop in the marriage rate that you are to be taught about love in skool so you recognise it as soon as possible when you experience its hideous nature later on in your horrible lives. I am not going to teach you about the kind of love that involves romance and flowers and chocolates because they all inevitably end in doom. So you are going to learn about the nastier forms, as you read from your horrible textbooks."
The class looked rather disturbed and Zita actually started crying.
"Sadists and obsessive compulsives," Ms Bitters announced, "turn to page 19762. Everyone else do the same. Now read."
Zim, who did not normally pay attention or do any work, found himself automatically opening the book and obeyed.
Sadism (he read)- sexual pleasure obtained from watching or inflicting pain upon the subject of desire. Are you a sadistic lover? Take the quiz below and find out!
Zim re-read this last sentence and after being absolutely sure he had read and understood it right, he decided to read on.
Do you enjoy watching/participating in fights and violence?
Do you like inflicting pain on the subject, regardless of how they feel about it?
Do you crave power/like to feel powerful?
Do you like to dominate/control the subject?
Do you like making the subject afraid of you?
Do you believe yourself superior to others?
Do you enjoy being challenged?
WHAT DID YOU SCORE?
Add up all the questions you answered 'yes' to.
If you scored more than 0,you are a sadist! Congratulations!
Zim blinked a few times at this but it wasn't until he read on that he realised why Dib was looking so horrified.
Obsessive love- being unable to stop thinking/talking about subject of desire. Are you an obsessive compulsive lover? Take the quiz below and find out!
Is there someone you cannot stop thinking/talking about?
Do you keep interfering/ making yourself noticeable in their lives?
Have you ever stalked/considered stalking them?
Do you have hundreds of thousands of notes/pictures of the subject that you look at everyday?
Do you try to find out every single fact about the subject that you can?
Do you stare at the subject for hours on end?
Have you ever considered/actually installed surveillance in their home?
WHAT DID YOU SCORE?
Add up all the questions you answered 'yes' to.
If you scored more than 0, then you are an obsessive compulsive lover! Congratulations!
"Ms Bitters?"
Ms Bitters glared at the pupil who had dared to speak. Torque, who had not understood any of what he had just read, carried on speaking anyway.
"What is an obsessive compulsive?"
Ms Bitters looked horribly thoughtful. Then she pointed at the still traumatised-looking Dib.
"Dib is a good example. He gets ideas into his head and gets obsessed with them. Like that Zim is an alien, Bigfoot was in his garage and ghosts exist."
"So…" Torque screwed up his face in the effort of thinking, "Dib is obsessed with Zim?"
"Yes," Ms Bitters replied.
"So that means…that Dib is in love with Zim?" Zita asked, looking slightly shocked.
"Yes," said Ms Bitters.
"Where's the logic in that?"asked the Letter M.
"It says right here," Zita pointed at the text book and read out the Obsessive Lover quiz.
At this point Dib ran out of the classroom screaming and tearing at his hair. Zim felt enlightened. Of course the Dib was in love with him! Why not? It was obvious Zim was amazing! He wouldn't be surprised if everyone acknowledged his superiority and was in love with him! Zim chuckled to himself. The Dib hadn't been trying to mess with his mind after all, he had simply interpreted Zim's attacks as form of sadistic love and- Zim stopped laughing and the gleeful look was replaced with one of complete and utter horror. Sadistic love…
And, because I was feeling very inspired, I wrote another chapter so this wouldn't end on a cliffhanger. Aren't I lovely?