Ok, chapter five is here... but was it really worth the drama I had to endure to get it here...?

HELL YES IT WAS! Know ing I get under someone's skin and have so many loyal reviewers backing me up... it's like... it's an amazing feeling, like I have so much power over how people think! I-

I'm just going to shut up now...

Special thanks to Zion-chan, YazCrescent, The Smallest Invader, broken.melodies, Teya Yashitoda, and TaylorTheWeird for their wonderfully encourageing reviews, it's almost like they aren't doig it just to get me to update faster. XD I kid, I love you guys! -hugs and kisses-

Beta: The wonderful Tesgura

Warnings: Implied rape... and some blood, but you probably expected that one. Oh yeah, and someone drugs someone else... but that kinda goes along with the rape... Whatever.

In the week to follow Dib had become unbearably paranoid. It went so far that Dib did not come out of his room for three days at the risk of being seen through the windows.

And Dib's paranoia was wearing Zim's patience thin. Oh so thin.

Dib noticed this and forced himself to calm down, especially when Zim started acting strangely. He was losing his temper much easier now and was yelling at him for very simple things like leaving a knife on the counter after cutting an apple for himself or even cutting the apple the wrong way. His tempers were going from worried outbursts, that Zim had grown famous for, to just yelling.

There were also periods, like after two or three outbursts, when Zim would lean on a counter or table, exhausted, like he'd had a long day at work only to come home to an empty house.

Zim's appearance matched his attitude now too, he looked both tired and angry all the time like he wasn't sleeping well or something.

And truth was, he wasn't.

Irkens didn't really need sleep. They store energy in their paks from eating food and sleep was really just a luxury, but Earth food didn't cut it and he was all out of invader rations so sleep was becoming more and more needed to the point where he was sleeping as much as Dib.

Or at least that SHOULD have been how much sleep he was getting. But he wasn't.

He'd started having nightmares a night or two after the announcement of Dib's disappearance. Well more like little flashes of memory, each more gruesome than the last.

One night, Zim just couldn't keep himself awake anymore and he slowly slid down into the covers of his own bed, just across the hall from Dib's, and fell asleep.

Almost instantly a nightmare invaded his silent slumbering.

In the dream was Lard-Nar, standing over him with a comically wide grin spread across his face, and a water drenched cloth in hand. Of course it rained on planet Vort and they had water there. It seemed irkens were the only life forms that didn't need the acidic substance to live.

As luck would have it, Dib was walking down the hall with a glass of water when he heard the affects of Zim's nightmare on his sleeping form. Without even thinking of how this would look to the irken he walked into his room, glass of water still in hand.

"Zim?" He asked, sitting down next to the alien on the bed. "Zim wake up!"

Zim's eyes shot open and his mechanical spider-like legs shot out from his pak, threatening to pierce Dib if he came any closer. That when his eyes fell on the glass of water and narrowed.

Still in his half wake-half sleep state Zim couldn't tell that this was reality and that the dream was a long ago memory, resurfacing to haunt him, not real any longer. So he did the only thing he could think of and lashed out, striking Dib on the arm and tearing into pajama and flesh.

The water spilled every where as Dib fell to the floor, crying out. "Zim! What the hell!?"

"Thought you could sneak up on my huh!? Take me unawares in my own base!? I don't think so!" Zim shouted, backing up to a wall and lashing out again. It reminded Dib very much of how a scared animal would act in a crisis situation and he would have perhaps poked fun at Zim if it were not such a dire situation.

Thankfully Dib was out of reach as he cried, "Zim! I wasn't trying to hurt you, you were having a nightmare!"

"Nice try! But Zim is not stupid! You will not TOUCH my organs!" Zim had a deep haunted look in his eyes, like he wasn't Zim anymore but some hurt creature.

"Zim, I don't want your organs!" Dib tried to reason. He hadn't really wanted them for quite some time.

"That's not what you said LAST TIME, Lard-Nar!" Zim yelled, clutching at his stomach. "You told me you couldn't WAIT to see what was inside me!"

Dib's eyes widened. It all clicked now, Zim was hallucinating, Lard-Nar must have been the one to….

"Zim, I'm not Lard-Nar, it's ME, Dib!" He tried to reason with the hallucinating irken.

"YOU LIE!" Zim screamed, putting his hands over his antennae and squeezing his eyes shut and blindly lashing out with his spider-limbs. "Got AWAY! Go away or I SWEAR I'll kill you!"

So Dib did just that. He ran into his room and quickly threw on some cloths, making sure to take his new coat with him and he heard Zim pursuing him, still under the illusion that he was Lard-Nar and was still out to kill him. So he ran, taking the lift up to the first floor. But he soon discovered he wasn't safe there either as the house came alive, most likely by Zim's order and started attacking him. He cried out when a metal appendage stabbed into a calf and quickly bolted out the door, tears of fear and pain sliding down his face.

He limped around for about two days, using a part of his shirt to bandage his leg up. He didn't dare go back to Zim's, too scared the invader would have another episode. So he slept and basically lived in heavily shadowed areas so people wouldn't see him and recognize him from the news. He panicked when someone spotted him but when he ran, they chased him down.

"HEY! KID!" The man called out. He was fairly young and had a very 'Dwicky' feel to him, and he was apparently VERY fit as he caught up with Dib quickly, restraining him easily.

"LET ME GO!" Dib yelled, trying to wrench free from the man's grasp.

"No way, you're hurt, you need to be taken care of." The man said reasonably.

Dib stopped for a moment. The thought of getting care for his aching wounds was tempting, but what if this man just wanted to take him back to the mental hospital? Well that didn't make much sense considering the way the man chased him down even though the television warned about his 'fragile mental condition.' So Dib deemed it relatively safe and nodded, allowing the man to lead him by the hand to his apartment which wasn't that far off. The man looked vaguely familiar but Dib couldn't place where he knew him from.

"So what happened to you?" The man asked, cleaning the wound on Dib's leg first.

"Was stabbed," Dib answered simply and truthfully.

"Oh? By who?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Dib answered, looking down at the ground.

"Ok then. Well, your leg is all cleaned and bandaged. I'm James, by the way, who are you?"

Dib shook his head, saying, "I'm sorry, but it's not really smart to give your name away to strangers." He was still a bit cautious and besides, even children knew not to tell their names to strangers, no matter what. It just wasn't safe.

"Smart kid," James said, standing up and saying, "Now why don't I give you something to eat?"

"I guess," Dib said, he WAS really hungry. And what were the chances that this man would put drugs in the food? Most people didn't even have the drugs necessary to incapacitate him in their homes, much less their kitchen.

James nodded and said, "Alright, well I'll make us something and you can make yourself at home and watch TV, ok?"

Dib just nodded and James turned some cartoon channel on.

A meal was ready in less than a half on hour and it smelt SO good.

Dib ate hungrily, but still tried to be polite about it. The meal was simply frozen fish sticks an tator tots but it was still food and tasted pretty good. Dib even had seconds.

But then he started to feel odd. Kind of woozy. It reminded him of the side effects he first experienced when he was given the medication that trapped his mind in the nightmare world. That's when it hit him!

He felt he knew James from somewhere and this whole time it had been right under his nose! The rich apartment, clean cloths, and sterile smell.

This was James Arkham! Son of Henry Arkham, founder of the mental institution he was placed in and creator of the coma meds!

He put a hand to his forehead and moaned. This WASN'T good, and he knew he was in DEEP trouble when he heard James laugh in an evil sort of way.

"I know you know what's going on by now Dib, you're a smart boy, even if you are crazy. Don't worry, I didn't slip you a full dose of the meds, just enough to keep you completely immobile while I have my… fun." James said, walking over to Dib and picking him up bridal style.

Dib was carried into a bigger than necessary room and placed on the bed none-too-carefully. He was shaking by now, knowing exactly what was going to happen to him but not having enough strength now to do anything about it. Worse yet was he was so close to slipping once more into his nightmare world and that scared him more than anything Arkham could do.

But he was getting pretty damned scared when James started stripping both of them of their clothes.

-slaps self- Bad MEC, BAD! Stop being mean to the Dib-thing!

I CAN'T it's the only logical way to get Zim and DIb together! It's not my fault they hate each other!

Sure it is.

... shut up...

Five reviews and you get to see more Dib torture and some one get their ass handed to them for beating on ZIM's love pig!

GEEZE! You have to ruin EVERYTHING!

Oh please, like they couldn't see that coming?

SHUT UP!