I am bored as hell. I've been at the base for almost two full weeks and Zim still isn't letting me do anything. Even going to sit in the living room has to be planned and he insists on helping me get there and back to bed. There's no tv in here either so the first couple of days were even less entertaining. I've only been able to stream some shows on my computer since my things finally arrived from Skoodge. I don't even know when Zim had him send it all, but everything is there. Even the journal I was keeping while I was there. I haven't been able to look through that just yet as I'm not really emotionally prepared, but I am happy to have it back. Gaz calls a lot, in between visits of course and sometimes my dad calls too but I'm mostly just idle. And what makes it worse is that the only interaction I get from Zim is when he's… I don't know… tending to me I guess? And sure this is probably something I thought I wanted while I was in the hospital… Missing him… but this is… I don't know what this is. He made up this whole schedule and we follow it to the very last detail. I have a scheduled shower time! Which is only because he upgraded his bathroom shower down the hall to include a water setting for me. Let's not talk about the rash I had a few days ago from completely forgetting to switch over to water before getting in once. Whatever that chalk stuff is that he bathes in did not agree with my skin. And now he insists on starting the showers for me. And don't let me take longer than the scheduled 20 to 30 minutes- oh no. He will barge right in to check and see if I'm still alive, no matter how many times I call out saying I'm fine.
As expected, he's got me on a diet. But it's not just any diet, of course. It's not simply eating three times a day. The food schedule is so meticulous, I have no idea how he even came up with it. He's in here with breakfast every morning at 7AM and not a minute later. Then lunch at noon and dinner at six. And he isn't making me weird alien food. He isn't making me anything that's so loaded with sugar, I can't even feel my tongue. The things he's making are much, much worse. Breakfast is always, and I DO mean always, this green 'smoothie' that I cannot believe has absolutely no sugar in it. It's like… kale, arugula, broccoli, celery and spinach. I think the only decent source of sugar in it is what little pineapple he adds but other than that, it's plain yogurt and water. Then lunch is usually some kind of salad. I'll give him that, he does switch it up and I admit, the Cobb salad today was pretty good. Compared to the green salad I had to eat yesterday. If anyone is ever curious about what it would taste like to have a bite out of a tree, I can now tell them- not preferable.
Then dinner is always a sandwich and a meal replacement. And I wish I could say that was it but it isn't. Every night at 10PM, I have to drink another smoothie! And this one, while it should taste much better based on what he said is in it, tastes like complete EARWAX! I don't taste the apples, pineapples or the bananas. There's turmeric in it, ginger, flax seeds, but none of the flavors actually come though because he's been including something else he said he made specifically to help speed up my healing process. Whatever it is, I could have gone my entire life without having to taste it.
I wish I could say that the strict schedule or the super strict diet is the worst part, but… It really isn't. He just isn't spending any time with me at all. He doesn't even have conversations with me. I know he doesn't want to explore the romantic aspect of our relationship anymore but jeez. Do we have to have a doctor patient one instead? This has to be the weirdest dynamic we have ever had and that's saying a lot. It's like, okay you clearly care about me and you want me to be okay but at the same exact time, you don't want anything to do with me? I swear, if we go through another dynamic shift, I'm going to lose what little sanity I have left.
I'm basically watching the wallpaper when I hear a knock on the door and I internally groan, expecting Zim to be walking in with that awful night time smoothie but when I look in the direction of the noise, I see the door opening and it's Gaz. She's still got her school bag on her back even though school has been out for hours by now.
"Oh hey! I thought you weren't coming today." I say, immediately perking up a bit at the realization that I've got some more time before I have to drink the earwax.
"Hey loser." She says, crossing the room to where I've become almost permanently rooted to this bed. She drops her bag down on the side of the bed and kicks off her sneakers, making herself comfortable beside me. "I'm just stopping by for a little bit since I was out late anyway."
"How was school?" I ask as she powers up her gameslave.
"Pfft. School was school." She says back. "I've been at the library ever since because of stupid midterms coming up."
"Oh. Well… before you know it, you'll be on vacation right?"
"For like a week, then as soon as we get back is the midterm!"
"And then you'll have almost a whole month out of school." I smile and she raises an eyebrow at me.
"Since when are you glass half full?" She asks and I shrug. I don't think I'm really optimistic. Maybe when it comes to others but not so much with my own day to day life. I'm very much aware that my existence is miserable. Sure I get breaks here and there but overall, I'd chalk all my experiences up to shitty.
"How are things with your housewife?" She asks, setting her gameslave down and leaning over to rummage through her book bag.
"Shhhh!" I insist, glancing at the door. " Please do not get me in trouble with him. He's been… Weird."
"Weird?! Zim?! Noooo!" She says back, feigning surprise.
"Not in the usual way. It's this weirder… way. I don't know how to explain it." I whisper and she sighs.
"Well…" she starts, retrieving a bag of spicy Doritos that immediately catches my attention. I haven't had snack food like that- junk food- in like a month! "Don't think too hard about it. I'd expect you both to be a little off after… That whole… thing."
"I guess." I sigh. "I just want things to go back to normal. Whatever our normal was. And I can't even say we took steps backwards because I have no idea where we are. It's like he's helping me but we aren't even friends…"
"Did you talk to him about it?"
"No. I can't because I've already told him that it's okay if we don't continue…" I start and her eyebrows knit together. "…unofficially dating. I can't keep telling him that things are okay but then complaining about it."
"Exactly. So how many times do I have to tell you to just take things one day at a time?" She says, popping open the bag of chips and crossing her ankles.
"Right." I mumble, readjusting my glasses on my face. One day at a time. That's been the motto forever with him, it was one day at a time back when I was trying to deal with my secret feelings. Then it was one day at a time trying to deal with him hating me and kicking me out of his life. Then it was one day at a time trying to navigate romance with him. Now it's one day at a time trying to act like we were never romantically involved to begin with. But when does one day at a time even out to become something better? When does it turn into consistency? When is it satisfactory? And my goodness, why do those chips smell SO good? "I just wish I knew what he was thinking."
"I already know what he's thinking." She shrugs, popping a chip into her mouth and I roll my eyes.
"Gaz, I swear-"
"No, I seriously do. I've talked to him." She says. I just stare at her in confusion for a moment. Talked to him? Good Lord, what has she done?
"You?"
"Mhm."
"Talked to Zim?"
"Yep." She nods and I scoff.
"Bologna." I say back. "Was this before or after you physically attacked him?"
"After." She says. She gives me a funny look for some reason but I choose to ignore it. "It was while you were in the hospital…"
"I… I don't remember that…" I admit and she furrows her brows.
"I guess there was a lot going on and you were really tired." She shrugs.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What did you guys talk about?"
"Eh. Something or another. Point is, if you really want to know what he's thinking, just ask him like I did." She says, continuing to enjoy those delicious looking chips right in front of me.
"I've tried, though."
"Then try harder." She says flippantly. "I honestly cannot believe how emotionally stunted you both are. How am I the one who's 17? You've got so much to say to each other and you've been under the same roof all alone for weeks yet you're both tiptoeing around it all."
"I'm just… I can only think of two reasons he'd be acting like this. Either he thinks I'm too fragile and he doesn't like that part of me… the side that I guess is too human, or whatever… Or…"
"Or…?" She prompts when I take too long to continue. My face warms up and I look away before I start speaking again.
"What if this was all just way too much for him? And everything he's been doing to make sure I'm okay… Just kind of turned him off from the whole idea of being with me in that way? I mean… it's all been far from pretty."
"Are you feeling insecure right now because you're injured?" She asks and even though the tone of her voice makes me feel like I'm being silly, it doesn't convince me that it isn't true.
"He hasn't talked to me about it but… It was just the two of us on that ship for almost a week. I was unconscious the entire time."
"Yeah?"
"Well I'm just thinking about everything the doctors and nurses had to do for me, even when I finally woke up… How did he handle that all by himself? I don't even know if I could do something like that for someone and still… I don't know. Maybe he's grossed out by me."
"Okay. Well. First of all, during that week on the ship, sure it probably wasn't easy but he chose to do that. Literally all five days, he kept choosing to do it. And then after the hospital, did you ask to come here or is it what he wanted?"
"Yeah but that's just because he feels like he's responsible for all of this and he wants to make sure I get better. For all I know, he could be planning to immediately cut ties with me the moment I have a clean bill of health."
"Yup. I guess he's just nursing you back to health so he can release you back into the wild." She says, unamused.
"Gaz, seriously."
"I'm being serious."
"He told me… He said he loved me. At the hospital…"
"He did?" She asks quietly and I glance at the door before continuing.
"Yeah. But that was weeks ago. He hasn't said it since and he's made it very clear that that entire aspect is over with..." I say back and she nods thoughtfully.
"I think you should focus on your recovery just like he's focusing on it. That's what's important right now."
"Not to me-"
"Well it obviously is to him. And it's not because of some weird obligatory feelings he's got. It's because whatever he said to you in the hospital couldn't have changed in just a couple of weeks." She says.
"Right… okay… Hey, why is it that when you give advice, it sounds like you've been happily married for 25 years?" I ask and she snorts out a laugh.
"Because I don't care about dating and relationships. So I can see them for what they are." She says, munching away and I feel my mouth watering just from looking into the bag of Doritos.
"Can I please have one of those?" I ask. She leans the bag towards me. As quickly as possible, I try to reach in and take a chip.
"Don't you dare." I hear from the doorway and my hand freezes, as I turn to see Zim there with his arms crossed.
"Busted." Gaz says, going right back to eating. Zim walks over and takes the chip away from me, tossing it into a corner where it's immediately sucked through the house's garbage system along with a shattered remnant of my heart.
"One chip isn't going to hurt." I protest but he ignores me, walking over to where my ankle is being held up in an overhead sling he put up. He lowers it down slowly until it's resting on the bed and then walks over to me.
"I started your shower." He says, opening the bedside drawer and retrieving one of the clear plastic bags and the roll of tape.
"Gaz, help me out here. Tell him I can eat chips!"
"Oh goodness no! You need to be very very careful not to ingest all these toxins! They'll hinder your recovery process!" She says back and I huff out an irritated breath. Zim doesn't seem to appreciate her sarcasm either as depicted in his glaring at her while he walks back over to my ankle. "Oh hold on, hold on." Gaz says quickly. She gets up from the bed, sliding her sneakers back on and picking up her book bag. She pulls a purple marker from the front pocket before placing the bag on her shoulders and walking over to where Zim is. He steps aside and she pulls the cap off with her mouth, leaning over to write on my cast for the millionth time. She keeps glancing between me and Zim as she's writing whatever the word of the day is. Since I've been at Zim's base, she started this routine where each time she visits me, she writes one less than desirable word on the blue material.. So far, there's crackpot, loon, nutjob, weirdo, loser, freak, oddball, dork, weenie, nitwit, nerd, and dweeb. Once she's finished, she clips the marker closed and grabs her bag of chips. "Later." She calls over her shoulder as she leaves the room.
"See you." I call after her. When I look over at Zim, he's squinting, head tilted to the left in confusion.
"I don't know this word." He says, antennas twitching in confusion.
"Yeah, unfortunately she's got a pretty colorful vocabulary." I say back, looking over to the area she was writing in. "Oh…'
"What does it mean?" He asks.
"It's… I have no idea." I shrug, trying to sound as aloof about it as possible. I swear, Gaz's favorite thing to do is embarrass me. Now for the next two months, I'll be walking around with the word 'Zimp' being broadcast to everyone. It's not even a word! I don't even know when she made that up!
He just blinks at me a couple of times. "Alright." He says, starting to wrap the cast in plastic. After it's secured with the tape, he pulls the wheelchair closer to the bed and starts to help me up.
"You know, I can get into the chair without putting pressure on my ankle. You don't have to help me with that." I say for what is probably the millionth time. At this point, he probably expected to hear me say it again and he's used to it so he doesn't even acknowledge it.
When we get down the hall to the bathroom, he stops outside and pulls the door shut. I'm just kind of sitting there for a few minutes. I probably shouldn't use my time like this but it's just so difficult to do everything now. Not just physically difficult but I just feel so exhausted, mentally and emotionally. I look over to the folded up gray sweatpants and blue t-shirt on the edge of the sink then finally start changing out of my clothes. The ankle cast is mostly just cumbersome but it doesn't hurt so much anymore. It's more of a dull pain like I stretched it too much or it fell asleep and is waking up as the blood starts to circulate again. Either way, I'm almost at the halfway point of getting it removed and I cannot wait. There's a seat in the shower and there are strategically placed bars for me to use as I pull myself up from the wheelchair. That's usually the difficult part as my upper body is still hurting much more than my ankle. I take pain medication for that but it's wearing off now. I'd have to say that my least favorite part of showering is all the attention I have to pay to my body. It's being reminded of how absolutely mangled I look right now and I guess I wouldn't really be attracted to me either at this point. Scars, scabs, and stitches. That's all I am.
Once I get out and pull my clothes on, I toss the plastic bag that was on my ankle into the trash. While sitting in the wheelchair, toweling off my hair some more, I'm wondering what exactly Gaz talked to Zim about. I mean… If she even talked to him at all. That could just be her trying to convince me that it's not that difficult. I don't imagine he really wants to speak to her at all after what happened but… He does allow her in the base to see me. I really just have absolutely no idea where his head is at and that's literally where he's been living. There's no one else here for him to talk to aside from maybe Minimoose and if Zim is not holding conversations with me, he's likely not really talking to him either.
I can't see in the mirror but I could definitely use a shape up for my hair. I'm growing it out again, sure, but this is just downright unruly. I hang my towel on one of the metal bars before grabbing my toothbrush and toothpaste off the sink. A few seconds later, my wrist communicator is ringing. I hurry up and rinse my mouth before connecting the video chat and a projection of my dad pops up.
"Hi, dad."
"Son! I'm checking in! So tell me, how are things going?"
"Ah… They're certainly going…I was just showering and getting ready for bed." I say back with a shrug of one shoulder.
"Well how are you feeling?" He asks.
"Okay. There's a lot less pain but I don't know if that's because of the medication or if things really are just getting better…"
"Likely both." He nods. "How did you sleep last night?"
"Um…" I say back, eyes searching the ceiling. I don't really want to confirm the obvious but I haven't had a good sleep in weeks. In the hospital, I kept waking up feeling exhausted and confused. And here at the base… If I'm able to fall asleep at all, I definitely can't stay asleep. And if by some miracle I do… There are things that pop up in my dreams that I would rather not see.
I look back at the screen and he's just watching me but I don't offer up any more of an explanation. Still, I'm absolutely sure he doesn't need one to know that I'm not sleeping.
"Where is Zim?" He asks.
"If I know him? Standing right outside of the bathroom door."
"I see." He laughs.
"Are you still at work?" I ask, noticing the background definitely doesn't look like the hotel room he's been staying in.
"Yes but I've been here all day. I'll be leaving soon. Actually, I plan to be leaving the conference soon. The most significant parts are done and others have started to leave as well. Additionally, there are a few things I need to take care of at home."
"Oh okay."
"You finish up getting ready for bed, don't forget to take your evening medication, and I'll call you in the morning."
"Okay, night."
"Good night." He says back and then the call is disconnected. I finally pull the door open and Zim is standing on the other side of the hallway, against the wall directly in front of the bathroom. I look at him momentarily before turning to head back for the bedroom and he of course decides to push me instead. When we get there, he helps me back into bed and even though it's annoying because I don't really want to be babied like this it's appreciated because when those pain meds wear off- they wear off. And I go back to feeling like there are a dozen pin needles just placed in random parts of my body. I try to keep it under wraps but he's like a freaking robot or something the way he always senses the slightest wince or other depiction of discomfort. I sit on the edge of the bed for a few seconds and take a couple of breaths while he waits.
"So." I start, finally adjusting myself so I'm leaning against the pillows again and he starts arranging my ankle in the sling. "Any chance I get to skip that night smoothie?"
"No."
"Of course not…" I sigh. He's double checking that the sling is secured when his communicator starts ringing and he looks confused by the noise but he recovers from it quickly and activates his disguise before clicking the button. He tells the person to hold on a moment as he leaves the room and I'm sitting in my own confused silence. For all I know, it could be Gaz calling to say some more embarrassing stuff. I doubt it though, it's pretty late and with all the studying she's been doing, she's probably already home and asleep.
I've actually been missing GIR a lot these days. At least if he were around, there'd be more going on. I just want something to take my mind off of everything I've been feeling. The time has been passing by so painfully slowly that all I can focus on is the fact that I'm taking too long to recover. That on top of the fact that Zim has been on another planet since we got back to the base. I could really go for answering some of GIR's random and nonsensical questions during a few episodes of Mysterious Mysteries. Even just the thought sends waves of guilt rippling through me as Zim hasn't told me what happened to him. He outright refuses to tell me but whatever it was, it happened because I brought him with me to the Massive. Minimoose comes in here sometimes and he'll just sit on the bed but I still don't really understand anything he 'says' so if he's given me any top secret information, I certainly didn't understand it.
When Zim comes back into the room, he isn't wearing his disguise anymore.
"Who was that on the phone?" I ask.
"Your father."
"My- What, so now everyone in my family gets to talk to you more than I do?!" I ask and he squints at me, looking puzzled. "Sorry. That was… I'm…"
"You need to take your medication and I'll go get your smoothie." He says, holding his fist out. I roll my eyes but still hold my hand open. Instead of the usual three, there are four.
"Uh… What is this?" I ask, pointing to the deep blue, almost opaque pill.
"Just take it and drink the water."
"I'm not taking that unless you tell me what it is."
"Irk, Dib, why must you be so difficult?!" He asks, exasperated. Although it surprises me, I don't mind it at all. It's the most emotion I've seen from him in the past two weeks. He even looks like he noticed it and wants to take it back but I count it as a victory. Even if he's annoyed with me, at least that's normal. It would be closer to how things used to be compared to whatever we've got going on now. He sighs and it looks like he's inwardly composing himself before speaking again. "It's a sleep aid."
"No."
'Dib-"
"No."
"I knew you'd react this way but-"
"Then I applaud you for trying anyway." I say back, moving to pick up the glass of water. He picks it up before I can though.
"Your parental unit insists-"
"You know I don't do sleeping pills. You both know that!" I snap. I'm not sure what it is but I've just been way more irritated these days. I have no patience for anything. It could be the medication, it could be the overload of emotions, maybe it's the concussion, I don't know. But the way he's acting is too much and it's just putting the whole situation over the top for me.
"It's just one pill." He says back but I ignore him. "You've been taking all the others just fine."
"Because it's that specific one that I want nothing to do with." I say back, dropping the blue pill onto the bed and proceeding to take the others, almost choking as I dry swallow them all at once. He makes a growling noise but when I look over at him, his face is totally straight.
"Alright, fine." He says, picking up the sleeping pill and tossing it into the trash corner. He puts the water back down next to me, then leaves the room without another word and I almost feel bad for giving him a hard time. He's trying to help me, I get that. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just can't take another second of this weirdness. I can't deal with living in limbo anymore. He needs to talk to me and explain everything to me. He needs to tell me what happened on Irk, and everything that happened on the way back to Earth. He needs to be clear about where we're going to go from here- if we're even going to be friends at all because I am over all these guessing games.
He comes back into the room and holds that awful smoothie out to me but I just turn the other way. Does a very very small part of me feel bad for what I'm doing? Of course. But I've never had a least favorite Zim, not until now. I decidedly DON'T like robo-Zim.
"You have to be kidding me." He says as I continue to pretend he isn't trying to hand me the drink. "You're testing my patience, human."
"You're testing mine." I say back and for a moment he reaches a hand out which I admittedly flinch at but he freezes, dropping it back at his side and taking a breath.
"Just drink the smoothie." He hisses, holding it closer. My resolve to be difficult wavers a bit when I turn to him because it gives me this weird flashback of being on Irk, in the Bunker. His eyes were so dull and lacking in color… The thought turns my stomach but I finally take the drink from his hand, then he's immediately heading for the door.
"Is it impossible for you to sit in here with me for longer than 60 seconds?" I ask and he turns back to me.
"I'm working in the lab." He sighs.
"Working on what?"
"Multiple things."
"Like…?" I prompt, finally bracing myself as I start drinking from the tall glass. Yup. Horrible as usual.
"Regular maintenance of my technology which was neglected for weeks."
"Is there anything I can help with?"
"No." He says back,
"Can you at least make something up for me to work on?! I mean, I sat in the bunker, I sat in the hospital, now I'm sitting here. I want to do stuff and things, I want to feel useful." I say and he huffs out a loud breath.
"I'm finishing up a new water protectant I created."
"That's cool! How does it work?" I ask. He just stares at me for a few seconds, it almost feels like he's looking through me until he blinks a few times and comes to sit down next to me, on the edge of the bed. I try to conceal the smile I failed to force down by raising the glass to my face again.
"Zim perfected the long lasting paste protectant… kind of… however, bathing in paste is tedious and I tend to forget. So I've used the composition in a slow release oral tablet that when absorbed by my body, my cells will each be covered for a period of time."
"So how long does it last?"
"Not very. Just over 72 hours." He shrugs.
"So you'd just have to take it like twice a week, then."
"Yeah until I can figure out how to make it last longer than that. Permanent resistance would be ideal." He says and I nod.
"Are you… I mean… What about GIR?"
"I haven't started working on him yet." He says back.
"I kind of miss him…" I say, finally draining the rest of my smoothie and setting the glass down on the table.
"I know. You ask about him almost everyday."
"Well if not him, what else are you working on?" I ask.
"You have just as many questions as ever."
"Why wouldn't I?" I ask but he doesn't respond. I know it's probably close to the 'bedtime' portion of the schedule but for once, I'm not really complaining. It's been exhausting trying to figure out what's going on with him plus trying to understand everything that's happened with me. And I haven't gotten any decent sleep so it would be really nice if I could. The painkillers are kicking in which is helping me feel much more relaxed but I'm trying to stave off the feeling since Zim is finally -willingly- sitting and holding a conversation with me. "I want to go outside. And get some air."
"Right now?" He asks, perplexed. I start rubbing my eyes under my glasses and shake my head.
"No but at some point." I say back. "And I want pizza."
"O…kay?" He says back. I know he's probably confused, hell, I'm the one talking and I'm confused. They're just random thoughts popping into my head and I want to keep talking but wow I'm tired. I do want pizza though. Or a burrito. Something UNHEALTHY. I'm still rubbing my eyes when I feel him pull my glasses away from my face. "Stop that." He says, lowering my hands. Now when I open my eyes he's super blurry, setting my glasses down on the table.
"Can I hang out in the lab? I won't get in your way-"
"You can go to sleep."
"I'm not sleepy."
"Yes you are."
"Okay but… I like talking to you. You don't talk to me anymore."
"I know."
"Why?"
"I don't know what to say." He replies. I'm shocked at the honesty and starting to wonder if I fell asleep during our talk because everything is so fuzzy and the bed is feeling extra comfortable.
"Say everything you want to." I say back, forcing my eyes to stay open. He stares at me and it looks like he's about to take me up on the offer but then he looks away again.
"Another time… Maybe, after you get approximately seven to eight hours of sleep."
"I literally never get that much sleep." I say back.
"You will tonight." He says, standing from the bed and of course it clicks. I'm such an idiot.
"You didn't." I shake my head, looking between him and the glass I had my smoothie out of. He picks up the empty glass and starts for the door.
"Of course I did."
"You drugged me."
"I've been drugging you for weeks."
"Zim, I specifically said-"
"And I heard you. I just ignored you."
"You can't just-"
"Yes I can." He says, turning to look at me again right before opening the room door. "Because this is my house. These are my rules and you're… You um…" He takes a breath. "I said I would see to it that you'd make a full recovery and that is what Zim is doing."
"But-"
"Now go to sleep." He says, pulling the door open and leaving the room. I feel like I'm angry. I definitely want to be but maybe I can just angrily shut my eyes for a few minutes… There will definitely be time to read him the riot act later on. But for now, I think I'll slip away…
My dreams feel like a dark abyss and they're so jumbled up. I can't focus on anything, they all drift by before I can even really understand what's taking place. At some point throughout the night, they shift from dark, fuzzy, mundanity into something more sinister. I really only recall seeing Ro and Hex on Zim's computer monitor, during the transmission. But in this dream, one of them is clear as day, snarling in my face with teeth intimidatingly large and sharp. I can't feel any part of my body and then suddenly she's hurling me across the room and as I see the wall coming at me, I feel like I'm actually falling. It feels so real that I jolt awake and quickly sit up in bed. My heart is racing and I'm sweating profusely so I throw the blankets off of me, trying to catch my breath and quell the shaking in my hands. I'm also so disoriented, in the darkness of the room I can't even remember where I am. Home? The ship? The Bunker?
The Bunker.
Even thinking about it makes my head swim. I feel adrenaline rush through me and I immediately try to jump out of bed, I don't know why and I don't know where I'm trying to go but I don't get far because I immediately face-plant and it HURTS.
"Ah! Gosh fucking dammit, what the hell!" I exclaim, biting down on my lip and trying to wait for all the pain to subside. My entire body is screaming and when I look up, it looks like I got my ankle twisted up in the sling. The sling!
That's when it all starts to come back to me, I'm at Zim's base. I was just in bed, asleep. I'm letting it all come back to me when I see light appear on the bedroom floor. When I turn to look, I see Zim's shadow outline in the doorway.
"What- what are you doing?! What happened?!" He asks, observing what's got to be the most embarrassing scene I've created for myself in a while.
"I… I don't know. I- I forgot…" I say back. He walks over to where my ankle is caught up and removes it, lowering it down to the floor.
"Forgot?!"
"I was just… It…" I say shaking my head but I don't know how to explain it. How do I explain that I forgot where I was?
"Where were you going?!"
"I don't know!" I exclaim. Even though he looks confused, he kneels down and starts to help me up. When I'm settled back in bed he looks like he's about to leave. "Wait, don't leave, don't leave! Can you please stay in here for a few minutes?"
"I have something I need to-"
"Zim, please."
"Alright…" He says. He comes back over and sits down while I'm still steadying my breathing. I'm sure he can see me clearly in the dark but I can only see his silhouette watching me while I'm trying to get it together. "It's been weeks. How did you forget where you were?"
"I was… I don't know." I shrug, avoiding talking about that dream. I don't even want to think about it. I hate this though. I hate that we're so dishonest with each other. It feels like we were more open with each other back before we even realized we had become friends. Things were so much easier and I can't help but feel like I caused this huge complication that neither of us are capable of simplifying. Neither of us knows what the other needs and we're not even asking. It's just tense, awkward, robotic interactions that make me want to slam my already concussed head into a wall. But I can't tell him about these dreams and I definitely won't tell him that they aren't new. That one was just… slightly more disorienting than all the others. I don't even know what they mean. They feel like pieces of an incomplete movie but I don't know if I'm making things up subconsciously as a way to understand the huge memory gaps or if they really are the missing memories. He's made it clear that he isn't going to help me fill in the blanks either so telling him that this is happening is just going to make him even more militant with me. And he's being dishonest with me too, by default! All this omission on his part just adds to the stiltedness of it all. The most normal I ever get to see him is when I get on his nerves. Other than that, he just seems like whatever he's thinking about is eating him alive but he won't talk to me about it.
"Perhaps it would be best to install bed restraints…" he says thoughtfully and my eyes blow open. Good Lord, he's serious.
"That's…" Kinky as hell. "Not necessary. I was just a little confused, that's all." He's thoughtful for a moment before sighing.
"Okay… If you say so. But if it happens again-"
"I got it." I say back quickly. "And I'm actually still sleepy since you drugged me. But can you not leave until after I fall asleep?"
"Very well. Go to sleep then." He says, starting to mess with his wrist communicator. I watch him for as long as I can, wishing we could just go back to our easy conversation on board the ship. I know I had a good reason for what I did, so why does it feel like I did something wrong? It feels like I messed up all of our progress and I shouldn't feel that way but it's like he was finally opening up and becoming comfortable with me in a different way. Now he's even more closed off than he was when this whole situation started.
I'll figure it out, though. Whatever I have to do, I'll get us back on track. Even if we aren't dating, he could at least stop acting like he's been replaced by a mindless drone.
As I'm falling back into a haze, I'm trying to think about this whole mess. He thinks the relationship we were trying to establish was toxic. I don't know if it was or not, but I'm also not, nor was I ever concerned with that. I think it was going pretty well, actually… Aside from maybe… my slight and not at all concerning need to possess him at some points. It's not like it isn't something I can keep in check, though. And I'm sure he hasn't always had the best thoughts about me, either.
I just don't understand why we can never communicate the right way. It's almost like he doesn't even speak English! But there is no way I'm going to be staying in his house and we're not going to get back to where we should be. I'll make sure of it with or without his help… I guess I just need to figure out how.