A/N:
DISCLAIMER: We do not own Invader Zim or JtHM or any other lovely things like that. However, we do own the plot. You should have figured that out by now.
Anywho, yeah, we know our updates are slow. justmacy's computer is kaput and I've got school (lots of school) so we're kind of playing the waiting game and trying to prioritize. Please bear with us, darlings. Here's a chapter for being so lovely to us.
"Dib-stink! You will answer Zim's questions and you will answer them now." The alien sat down on top of my cafeteria table and propped his booted feet on a chair. He'd effectively interrupted my internal gloating. I'd totally owned the underclassmen in Slaughter Ball. Most of them were probably limping, if not suffering internal bleeding. I was a proud, proud man.
Sweet angry Jesus he looks different when he's not green! He really is kind of cute. …And his voice is a little lower! How the hell did that happen? Do Irkens go through puberty? I though he was really old…
"Shut up," I muttered then added to Zim, "Can't this wait? I'm kind of busy scowling at people and trying to blow their heads up using the powers of my mind. Actually, could you just please leave? You're sort of ruining the scary-goth-kid image by talking to me."
"Zim will not leave! He does not care about your pathetic image! How did you recognize me? Tell me now!"
Yeah, that whole referencing himself in third person thing is still annoying. What the hell, Dib? You were so not missing out on much in these last five years.
"Its still pretty obvious that you aren't human, Zim." I stared at him like his IQ was 55 and plummeting fast. I didn't go into details because lies are best when they're simple. Man, this morning's was the luckiest attack of paranoia ever. "I mean really, Zim, do you think I'm stupid? Bear in mind that, should you answer that question with anything other than a solid "No", I will personally drag your scrawny ass outside and throw you into the barrel of used cooking oil. Do not accuse me of lying. I know that barrel all too well! I suffered full-body acne my sophomore year because they threw me in that fucking thing so much! Trust me, you do not know the meaning of pain until you've had pimples on your ass."
The alien's mouth snapped shut and he shook his head. I shuddered at the bad memories. I briefly considered mentioning that I'd only recently been able to get the stench of rotting-fried-food-grease out of my favorite trench coat but decided against it. That might be too much information.
"So," I took the chance to change the subject, "how'd the whole quest for power plan go once you go back home?"
He grabbed a hold of my hair and pulled me to eye-level. Sitting on the table as he was this resulted in a rather unpleasant hunched-standing-trying-twist-get-away sort of position. "How did you know about that?"
"Uh, Zim, I know you're kind of busy scalping me, but in case you haven't noticed, you're scalping me! Would you mind not doing that?"
Oh relax. You know you like the abuse. You deserve it.
I was about to tell myself to shut up when his hand tightened in my hair. The sound that came out of my mouth was more of a hiss-whimper than the snarl I'd hoped for. My God he really was going to rip the flesh from my skull. "You really suck, you know that? This plan, like all your others, was really easy to figure out. How'd you manage to grow, like, two feet that one summer anyway?"
At long last he released my hair and I collapsed onto the table. Though I wasn't bleeding my scalp felt cold and moist. He must have ripped the skin away from my skull internally without actually tearing it. That had to be the answer. Fuck, my head hurt.
At least all of your hair is still there. Bald spots would suck.
"I surgically lengthened my legs and spine."
I lifted my head. "You did what?"
Despite the humanoid skin he wore I could see his cheeks turning teal. "You heard me."
Oh my God! He's blushing! He's embarrassed! This is the point where you laugh! Why aren't you laughing damn it? It's funny!
"Th- that must have really hurt."
"Pain is unimportant," he spat out.
"Well did it work? Did the Tallest finally show you some respect? Sure, you were a failure as an Invader, but no one could accuse you of lacking ideas or enthusiasm, only poor timing."
Why do you care? Irkens have a stupid ass-backwards political system! Their lives revolve around snacks. Stop caring. It's a waste of energy.
While I spent a few seconds spaced out and listening to my conscience- was it supposed to be so bitchy?- Zim left my table. I sighed. Okay, fine, this was how it was going to be. …Even if I had no idea what that meant yet.
Where was I? Oh, yes, he's got a nice ass. A little skinny but I'm sure you could do much worse.
"Shut up!" I hit my head against the table a few times for good measure. Silence resumed (inside my head, that is- outside of it there was still plenty of teenaged verbal vomit in the cafeteria) and I set about finishing my lunch. I felt like I was suddenly on autopilot- I was the spectator of an empty shell. No lights were on- no one was home. Where'd my brain go?
My hands were shaking and my heart was racing. Hyperventilation was looking blike a good option. Someone was watching me. I could feel their eyes on my back but they were so well hidden in the throng that I couldn't find them when I turned around. They were always behind me. They were waiting. Waiting for what? For me to screw up? I didn't know. I was going to cry. My chest hurt.
Why didn't you have enough sense to shoot yourself in the head?
God damn it! My heart was trying to stab its way through my ribcage and out into the world where, once free or my body, it would laugh at me and possibly kill me.
No "possibly" about it, dude. That thing will kill you. Why do you think I told you to fucking shoot it when you had the chance? Now there's nothing you can do. It's going to kill you for sure this time.
I realized that I was moving when I walked straight into a cheerleader. She spilled her cherry red brain freezy down the front of her white uniform. It looked like blood. She showed off her colorful and unladylike vocabulary as I kept walking past her. I don't feel like repeating her nastiness here.
I still say that you should saw that whore's legs off. She doesn't deserve to have legs that nice.
"Please be quiet." I whimpered and curled up in the hai skool's courtyard. It was starting to rain. The light drizzle made me feel less feverish. "The last time you had that idea I got into really big trouble. Don't you remember? Please be quiet now. They're after me and they can hear you."
Who's after you?
"I don't know!"
No one was around to hear me scream at myself because lunch was over and because the thunder had drowned out my voice. The thunder was getting louder and louder. Lightening lit up the sky. The summer rain was warm and I was shivering with cold. I was freezing to death.
Footsteps. The footsteps of giants, of monsters.
They were coming to get me.
I hugged my knees tight against my chest. The bullet wound throbbed steadily under the hard pounding of my heart.
More lights. Light. Searchlights because they couldn't see in the murk of the rain.
They were looking for me.
They were going to take me and I didn't know if I'd come back this time. I couldn't come back this were going to kill me and people don't come back from that.
Oh dear God please help me they're here.
xXxXx
It was really bright. The sun must have been switched back on. Then why was I still cold? I couldn't move, either.
You're such an idiot!
Some one was screaming. Was it I? Well, yeah, but I wasn't the only one. My conscience was in on it, too. This was bad. My conscience never ever got scared.
You need to get the hell out of here! They've got you they're going to kill you they'll make me go away!
The whole "being-restrained" thing became less of an oddity and more of a panic-inducer the harder my heart started beating. I attempted thrashing but I couldn't even move my head. Not cool at all. So not cool. Being unable to move became being unable to breathe properly. I resorted to screaming.
"Let me go! Do you hear me! Do you know who the fuck I am!"
"Of course-"
"My father is looking for me! He'll have the whole army after you! My sister will impale you and eat your liver for lunch! Let me go!"
"Silence!" The report from the slap was louder than that of a gun. Of all people I should be the one to know that.
I started crying. "Sobbing" is actually a better word, with lots of tears, snot gushing from my nose and plenty of highly unattractive sounds. Never a pretty sight, really.
Yes, that's right, you sniveling baby! Cry for your mommy to come save you like the pathetic-
"I'm not pathetic… please, please let me go. I-I'll do anything you want… just please don't hurt me anymore."
"Anymore! I have done nothing to hurt you yet!"
The yelling scared me and being scared made me wail even louder. This was not a nice thing to be doing. I wanted to be in school. I wanted to have Gaz threaten me with various forms of mutilation if I didn't eat. I wanted to go home and curl up with Devi and my encyclopedia set. I was going to die before I finished the "H" section! This wasn't fair!
"...I can see I'm going to get nowhere with you in this state. Filthy human…"
My left arm got stabbed rather unceremoniously and the central vein in it burned.
"You fucking bastard! You said you wouldn't fucking hurt me! I will kick your ass to Timbuktu and back! God damn you! I will kill you! I'll rip out your fucking liver through your nostrils!"
"Computer, note that swearing appears to be the beloved crutch of the… intellectually deviant. …As for you, Dib, I said I hadn't hurt you yet. It was perfectly acceptable for me to hurt you from that point on. Don't you think it's sad that I have a better grasp on your own language that you do?" There was a pause. "Now, are you coherent?"
I sniffled. My muscles still felt all shaky and I was disoriented as fuck, but that didn't last too long. After about a minute I figured out that I was strapped to a table and Zim was standing over me, not some nightmare. The light wasn't so blinding anymore. We were in a neater, updated version of Zim's base.
"What did you do to me?" My voice trembled. What was with that? Again: not cool.
He snorted and began unbuckling the straps that held me down. (For those of you that are interested: two for each of my limbs and one each for my head and torso). " I did absolutely nothing to harm you, if that's what you're thinking. In fact you could say that I helped you which isn't fair at all, considering."
" Considering what?" I sat up and started rubbing the feeling back into my cold fingers and toes. My hair was dry which meant I'd been here for a while. My pants were still on- a very good sign. Where'd my shirt go, though?
Zim faced me full on. Most of the right side of his face was one nasty purple bruise. "You're lucky I didn't kill you," he replied to my stunned face, "It would have been a dishonorable thing to do however. You were "stark raving mad". I believe that is how you humans put it. It would have been an easy fight and that just wouldn't have been fun."
"I did not do that do you."
His eyes narrowed. In this harsh light they were the color of the blood that was dried to my bedroom wall. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"N-no."
"Then it stands to reason that you would also not remember pounding my head into the pavement! Now be silent! I need to make sure you won't start convulsing."
I expected to hear some commentary on the alien's remarkable display of calm self-control but there was only silence. "The voice is gone."
Zim grabbed my chin and flashed a light in my eyes repeatedly, seeing if it would induce a seizure. It was more annoying than anything. My eyes watered. "Yes, yes it should be," he said, "The things you humans give your defectives are-"
"Inferior," I finished for him, agreeing with the sentiment for the first time in my life. Where was the post-dose depression? The fuzzy feeling that I was more out of control than normal? The complacency? The nausea? The general unpleasantries that come along with anti-psychotic drugs?
"Yes, admire the wondrous achievements or Irken medicine. You won't need another injection for about a week."
"Are you serious?"
"Is Zim laughing?" He moved a pen around in front of my face to make sure that my eyes would follow it properly.
"A whole week?"
"Are you deaf? A whole week! Though if you wait 167 hours and 15 minutes between injections then you may begin hallucinating again and you might start bleeding into your lungs. I suggest you only wait six days, not seven. What is it called, this confusion of human brain-meats that you suffer from?"
I rubbed the injection site on my arm self-consciously. A bruise was forming in the crook of my elbow. "Its called schizophrenia. Um… you've seen the symptoms. Paranoia is a huge part of it, too, especially with me. Really its just the tip of the proverbial iceberg."
"That means that you have more illness, right?" He stepped back and looked me over. "What else is there?"
That was strange. He sounded like he had trouble believing in my semi-permanent state of being: totally FUBAR. (Translation from Marine-speak: "Fucked Up Beyond All Reason"). Okay, I really would have appreciated a stop the shaky-blushing-nervousness right then and there. Naturally, that didn't happen.
"I also have anorexia nervosa and depression. Anorexia means that you don't eat because you think you're fat. The doctors tell me that I'm not but my conscience tells- told- me that I am. Gaz forces me to eat, which my therapist says is a really good thing. I don't know. I still think I could stand to lose a few pounds."
Zim stood and listened to my neurotic ramblings without the slightest hint of condescension, disbelief or fear. My explanations were accepted with calm silence. It was kind of nice. After a moment I went on, "Anyway, depression… it's like being sad but ten times worse. Its apathy and anger and self-loathing and sadness all balled up into one giant mass of inescapable muck. It… isn't fun."
He nodded and stepped closer to the table again. He gently placed one long gloved finger on the scar on my chest. The cool material was comforting. "Is that why you did that?"
The urge to overanalyze his abnormally soft tone was scary and almost kept me from answering. "Medically, yeah, it is."
He frowned and removed his finger from my chest. I missed it. "If it is a disease then how can there be a non-medical reason?"
"It's complicated, Zim. …Mental illness is all brain chemistry for the most part, right? Well, the chemicals in a human brain equate to emotions and what not and its really just one huge vicious circle. Most suicides cite emotional reasons because it's all the same thing. Chemicals are emotions are chemicals and the shit that's supposed to balance the emotions and chemicals are all equivalent when you're the "sick" one and you usually end up hating all of it."
"Then what was your emotional reason?"
I gulped. "I was lonely, Zim, very, very lonely." Wow. I'd said everything to Zim that I'd said in therapy but talking to another person- someone who (I thought) was my own age, even if that someone was an alien invader- felt like a total release. I'd have to find a way to tell Doctor Morrison about this without sounding, well, crazy. "Hey, Zim?"
"What?"
"Where're my shirt and my boots? I kind of want to go home now."
He blinked in a few times before he realized what I was talking about. "The shirt got ripped while I was dragging you back here. I gave it to GIR. He probably ate it. Your boots are under the table. I have freakish ape clothes if you need them."
"Just a shirt Zim, thanks."
He grunted at me and went off to- I assumed- fetch a shirt for me. I sighed and grabbed my boots. As I laced them up I wasn't too sure what to think. For the moment I wasn't hallucinating. Sure, I'd had a psychotic break from reality earlier that day and I had no idea what had triggered it, but right then I felt… okay. What a strange and wonderful thing to feel.
A/N:
Whoot! Yay for psychotic breaks from reality! (justmacy: And superior Irken technology!)
In case you haven't guess, I (Invader Nae!) have been taking over the writing duties. A few responses to this would help me TONS in the production of future chapters. I don't care if you praise me or not. I do care, however, about what you think of the story, character development, plot development, where you'd love to see this go (don't say ZaDR- I guessed that much), etc. Okay? We absolutely LOVE hearing from you. We love constructive criticism even more.
Thanks a million, dearest readers. Any of you who read that paragraph above get cupcakes in the review response. The kind with lots of sprinkles and edible glitter.
~ Invader Nae & justmacy