Just sit down and write it.
Dib woke up at exactly 4AM, clinging to Davian like his life depended on it and thought that he should really go back to sleep.
But his body had decided it was done resting up for the night (as it normally did - nice to know that no matter what happened, insomnia still stayed the same) and instead he found himself digging through his closest for a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. After he put those things on, he headed downstairs to swallow a peice of toast and a glass of orange juice. Lacing up his tennis shoes, he thought that Davian should probably know where he was going. He doodled an avatar of himself running on a sticky note and stuck it to the demon's ear while he slept.
With that, he cranked up the volume on his MP3 player and escaped the house into the cool morning. He briefly enterained the idea of taking a different route, just to confuse everyone, but his stomach cramped at the thought of collapsing and no one being able to find him. So he dropped it and slowed down his pace. No need to push himself too hard today.
Running. Just one step in front of the other. Just breathing in and out. It required no thought, no talent, nothing. Other runners ran to keep in shape, to lose weight, because they loved the feeling of stopping. Everyone thought that Dib ran because he had to stay in shape so he could out run the Rebels. Or that he still ran out of a force of habit. Or that Zim pushed himm to do it in case another threat decided to rear it's ugly head.
Zim assumed the former because the first jog he had dragged Dib on, Dib couldn't keep up. They had to walk back and Dib had to catch his breath while making breakfast. The fact that he started running by himself, at his own pace, surprised everyone.
But it was that first run that solidfied everything for the hybrid.
He loved it.
It was blissfully mind-numbing, it was exhilarating, it was hard work, it was something no one could help you with, something you had to do yourself. It was painful. Dib, even now, could feel the burn in his chest. He could feel his energy slowly leak from his body. He could feel all the natural chemicals release and flood his mind. Maybe he was a masochist for loving it so much, but he never really cared enough to ponder over it.
He loved running almost as much as he loved fighting. But he was afraid of fighting. The Rebels had left him with that curse. Fighting meant violence. Violence led to blood. Blood meant death. Death was something Dib never wanted to see again, save his own.
But fighting held a different kind of high. While running required no thought, fighting required too much. Running calmed Dib down while fighting made him fidget and excited. Running brought out everything human while fighting brought out Dib's own personal monster.
His only consolation was that the moster was more interested in challenges than outright killing. It made his melees with Zim so much easier to live with.
Dib got back to the house much later than he was hoping, but he had taken a slower pace, so it was excepted. He took a shower to wash away the sweat and, after putting on some clean clothes, went downstairs to start breakfast.
His newly tangible friend was prowling around the small area, not looking happy to see his ward.
"Curses to you and your impuslive feet," Davian growled. "With your freed mind and renewed energy you have become restless and stupid."
Dib noted how short the sentence was compated to the sonnets he was spouting out the other day. Davian usually only dragged on his points when he was either nervous or trying to impress someone. Judging from how much he had been hovering and how quiet he was when not directly questioned, he had been nervous. Now he seemed to have calmed down. Dib was glad.
"I just went running. If I didn't, I would've exploded." To accompany that statement, Dib made soundeffects and hand gestures.
"Ha! Not so soon after your recovery would you have build up the pressure. It would require much more than a day of rest and a slice of bread to transform you into a threat of the neighborhood."
"I also had a glass of orange juice."
"Trivial matters, Theiving King."
"The only things I 'thieve' are the hearts of my adoring fans. And they throw those things at me anyway. What do you want for breakfast?" The hybrid opened to fridge to pull out the usual array of goods he used every morning: eggs, bacon, fruit, orange juice, milk, ham, cheese, and a variety of vegetables. He took out the gridle to start the bacon.
"The word theive is not a verb, as you so ignorantly use it. And I do not require food." Davian sauntered over to help.
Dib decided to ignore the first part of that retaliation. Best not get in an argument about English with an accomplished author. "Well, you're going to get food, whether you want it or not. Save your whining for later."
"Ward, you waste your living on me."
"Actually, it's more of Dad's living." After examining the demon for a second, Dib asked, "Why don't you ever call me by my name?"
"Dib is such a... common title. In addition, I would not call my King by his name, for a challenge I would seek. My scarlet flora would endure me great peril if I were to call her by her proper given name." He turned and looked Dib in the eye. "Names have power, mortal, remember that. To call a superior by their name is to invoke your will over them, to belittle their worth. You are only allowed your abilities of name-calling because you are less than a threat. Growing up ignorant of spell mastery, you invoke no power in names, only hostile intentions. It is much like your Japanese culture, I suppose."
Dib cocked his head at his friend and smiled. "Does Lina know that you call her 'red plant or bacteria life'?"
"Someday, ward, your words that cut into your enemies' tongues will slit your own throat." When Dib opened the package of back, Davian gently set it on the sizzling gridle. "Flora is also the name given to the Roman goddess of flowers." He shook his head to get his long hair out of his face.
Leaving the demon with the bacon, the hybrid washed his hands and went upstairs to grab a hair binder and a brush from the bathroom. He started to run back downstairs with the intention of tying back Davian's hair, but 3 steps down he suddenly smelled old blood and found himself in a cell. Blood covered everything, even him. The body ripped open before him was even still alive and gasping, though most of its organs were splattered across the walls and floor. Someone was screaming at him to eat up while he could.
Eat. He was starving - he hadn't eaten in at least 36 hours. The smell of blood and intestines was calling to him and making him salivate. The moster was telling him that survival was sometimes an unpleasant business. Before he could comment, someone behind him pushed him down and stuffed his nose in the barely alive mess.
"Eat."
He would have thrown up, but there was nothing in his stomach. The other experiments were already resigning themselves to their only meal. All of them expressionless.
The... the thing behind him pushed him down further. "Eat."
The monster was crying out in hunger.
Dib put his own hand in his mouth and bit down. Hard.
That shut them up.
OoOoOoO
Three months ago, Lynn had diagnosed him with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It was a week after Rasputin's execution and 3 days after the Experiments had tried to ban him from the gravesite with no avail. Dib had spent the week alternating between staring off into space and screaming. He started doing weird things like standing in the shower with all of his clothes on, staring at the showerhead and throwing up after meals, particularily those with red meat.
Gretchen had caught hims rubbing the skin off his own hands, claiming he was trying to get the blood off.
Zim had caught him overdosing on his depression medication, to prevent a relapse.
Alex had caught him shivering in the garage of his own house, whispering something about someone being there with him.
But, through it all, Davian had stood in front of him and said, "Stop it, Dib. Just stop." He couldn't get through until after the first month. Halfway through that month, Dib responded to Gretchen and Zim too. Then he responded to everyone else.
But that didn't stop the episodes. That didn't stop the flashbacks. And it certainly didn't stop the nightmares.
"He's sick," was what Experiment 173 told them when Dib had to visit the asylum for "group counseling." Experiment 173 was more commonly known as Jude. He was one for the few who accepted Experiment 264 as one of them. "He's sick like the rest of us. It... It isn't over. The master is going to come back. We can all feel it."
Despite his usual patience with Rasputin's victims, Zim growled. "He died. You all watched it. Rasputin is not coming back."
Jude shook his head. "He always comes back."
Dib got better, a little, but then they asked him about it a week before his and Davian's seperation, he said, in the same haunting voice, "It isn't over. He always comes back." His hand hovered over the shot wound that almost killed him. "It's just a matter of time."
Unbeknownst to anyone esle, Davian took Dib's hand and hissed, "If he does, then I will call upon the King myself to devour his soul. No mortal is to harm a demon and no body is to hurt mine or my own."
"Yeah," Dib muttered, "you try telling that to Rasputin."
"That message will be made very clear to him by the time his second and final demise consumes him."
OoOoOoO
Little did any living - and most nonliving - soul know was the Irken Goddess, Jahari, was present at Rasputin's Execution. She waited on the rooftop over his execution room patiently with her unlikely guest, Marckle. Marckle was, for once in his immortal life, excited about the events about to take place.
Marckle was what most demons refered to as a "sympathizer." He sympathized with anyone with demon blood, even if the were not full-blood demons. Especially if they were half-demons. In fact, he was responsible of taking care of all the half-breeds down in Hell. The reason was that he, like Dib, had dream foresight. He dreamed about half-demons.
If Dib knew how much Marckle has seen of his unfortunate experience with Rasputin, Dib would have been horrified.
If Dib knew how much screaming and crying Marckle had done for his part, Marckle would have been horrified.
The Irken Goddess had hired the full-blood for the specific reason of making sure dead psychomaniacs stayed dead. No resurrection, to rebirth, no haunting. Death would be very final for Rasputin. And wouldn't it be a very unpleasant surprise to find out that not only was Dib not the only one of his kind, but he was also one of the lesser beings? And that the more powerful ones could eat souls? And having your soul eaten was excrutiatingly painful?
So Marckle couldn't help but giggle when the Rebel leader's spirit came drifting through the roof, as stoic and and expressionless as it has always been. Jahari caught it. It glared at her. (Rasputin was a traditionalist down to the core, despite the fact he was not considered an Armian any more. Some upbringings always showed through, even through mental demetia.) She smiled back at it.
"Hello, Rasputin," she said pleasently. "I am Jahari, Goddess of Irk. You have been rejected by your god and so, bless my good nature, I have decided to deal with you myself." Her smile showed fangs. Jahari was the most vengeful of the planetary gods and goddesses. Rasputin had experimented on quite a few Irkens in his life time.
Marckle took that moment to introduce himself. He bowed. "Greetings, mortal. I am Marckle, the Sympathizer. I see the future of half-demons." It didn't matter he was breaking the rules, this guy would not exist in a moment anyway. "You have terrorized the half-demon Dib." He let that sink in. "I have endured through it as well, though you didn't know that, did you?"
Rasputin didn't say anything. But, unlike in his life, it wasn't because he simply had nothing to say to the unlikely duo - it was because he was speechless.
After a sunny sweet smile and a nod from Jahari, the demon took the unattatched soul and ate it. Very slowly.
No mortal could hear anything, which was good because most the mortals who would have heard were traumatized enough as it was.
When Rapsutin was consumed and Marckle had left, Jahari turned to the attatched soul of a person even the King of Demons wouldn't have been able to see if he were there. But the Irken goddess was very powerful. She smiled at the lone figure leaning against a large metal tube.
"Is that to your satisfactory, Davian?"
The demon nodded. "Thank you, Goddess of Irk, Mistress of Power." He bowed.
"I didn't do it for you or your... vessel. I did it for my child." She brished by the demon. "And if you touch my child, I will do much worse to you than you witnessed Marckle doing to that thing."
"I would not dream of it, my Mistress."
"Good." And she left the demon smiling after her. Demons are so weird, she thought.
OoOoOoO
"What happened to your hand?"
Dib's fork paused halfway to his mouth and he shared a very quick guily look with Davian.
"Um... I went running today. A lamppost jumped out an attacked me. Barely escaped with my life."
"Right," Zim mused, pointedly looking at Dib's veggie omlet and the untouched plate of bacon. "And I don't suppose this lamppost pressed on you to be a vegetarian, did it?"
"Only for today. It was very persistant."
Alex, very bravely, reached over and took a peice of bacon. She took a bite. Dib gave her a weak smile and went back to his omlet, trying really hard not to throw up. Eggs. tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, a distinct lack of meat...
After the boy had bitten himself, Davian snapped him out of his flashback. Dib had a bloody hand, the taste of blood in his mouth, and a bruised shoulder from falling down the rest of the stairs. After throwing up the contents of his stomach in the kitchen sink and bandaging up his hand, he finishe dmakinf breakfast with Davian handling the bacon and himself deciding to avoid eating meat for the day. Eggs were fine. Meat made his skin crawl at the moment.
Munching on a piece of toast, Gretchen was silent throughout the meal. She had takenone glimpse at Dib's hand then then gave him that look, like she had just found out that he had lied to her about something very important for a very long time. It was the same one that she was giving him right now and also the reason he wanted to fly over to Rasputin's grave site right now and kick down the gravestone yelling, "Get out of my life, you bastard! You've ruined it enough already!"
That look was also the same one that made him sign Rasputin's death sentence.
Dib secretly suspected that look would also be the one she gave him one day right before he proposed to her, but he was getting ahead of himself.
Alex took another peice of bacon and held it out to him. "You want to try again?" It was her own irritating way of trying to help him.
The bacon looked innocent. Dib stared at the forboding thing doubtfully. Davian gently took it from Alex's hand and held it closer to his ward. He took a deep breath. "This meat was not taken from tortured nor sentient creature. It's death was painless and swift." He leaned close. "Do not let that man ruin your life, Dib. You have paid your dues for your sins and you are free to live your life." He handed Dib the bacon.
Dib blinked, inhaling slowly as an invisible weight lifted off his shoulders with the demon's words. Yes, he was now free of the burden of the Rebels. No flashbacks should effect his lifestyle. And pigs were slaughtered in humane ways, right.
He took a bite and waited for the naseua to hit. It didn't.
"Wow," he said, "that was the fastest recovery I've ever had."
Davian suddenly got up and left the room. After a loud 'clang', he reentered and sat down, radiating frustration.
Everyone stared at him, and Zim even got up and walked out of the kitchen.
"You dented the Professor's lab door," his voice observed.
Dib turned to look at Davian. "What's wrong with you?"
"With my absense, you are no longer immune."
"Immune to what?"
He looked Dib in the eye. "To me."
OoOoOoO
When Dib went to check the mail, he only had one letter, written in nice curvy letters. "Saturday," was all it said. No name. Undoubtfully the King.
"Fuck," Dib muttered.
OoOoOoO
D: This calls for Part 4!