Well…here it is…the last chapter of BT ever. It's kinda weird how this whole thing turned out. The idea came to me while sitting on a couch eating chicken korma and was started at something like half 12 at night, now it's like my hallmark piece of fiction.

Like I said in the very first chapter of EA, "I'll be remembered for all time!" What a self important person I am…

But still, I can boast that this fic is pretty original, as I fully intended it to be. In the summery I made a promise to include 'Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.' Well, lets see if I kept my promise. Sex? Yup. Drugs? Oh yes. Rock n' roll? Well, I had a Velvet Underground songfic chapter and you can't get much more rock n' roll then that. So yes, in all, I think I filled my promise.

Thanks to: Sanoon (For being MEGA helpful and a comrade), Wallflower-chan (for also being ULTRA helpful, and of course the fan-arting!), Invader Spyder, Gir ate my tacos, SpeakingThroughWrittenWords, onlytomriddle, HeCallsMeHisChild, DemonSurfer, andromedacblack, Invader-Katz (for more fanart!), PAN THE KITSUNE (also for fanart!) and all those people who only reviewed once or I forgot to mention.

A HUGE thanks to Deyinel who took the nice time out to beta-read and edit every chapter. Without her assistance, this humble writer would be dead on the first word.

Sneere suggested that I should go and make a third part, involving Dibs descent in insanity (it's the boots I tell ya!), but it wouldn't work. I mean, this is all from Zim's view and so telling a story of Dibs insanity from Zims view would nice, different, but far to hard for me to try...for now.

So...last chapter...(sniffle)...I'm gonna miss this fic. This was my ultimate ode to Invader Zim, the fic to truly show how much the show means, and influenced, me. But also this was a showcase for all the other things that influences my writing style. E.g. JTHM, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Trainspotting and such things.

So yea, this fic is my best. After this everyone can quit reading my stuff cos it's not going to get any better. That's it...the end of the road...capesh. Caput. Fin. It can only go downhill from here on out.

Who says I've got low self esteem?

Anyways, on with the prologue. I'll discuss the finer points, the metaphors and the shit like it at the end if you want to bother reading those.

Sanoon and Wallflower-chan may spot one or two in-jokes here…

So, on three hundred and sixty-five days exactly to the date that EA was first posted, posted at exactly (or damn close to) 12 at night, here is the ending.

Written to Metallica, Gogol Bordello, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. And, because I just downloaded it, The Vandals - I Want to be a Cowboy.

I don't own Zim. So sue me.

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"Assholes," Dib muttered as he and Zim walked past a couple who gave them a quick look then tittered to each other. Zim rolled his eyes; Dib had been like this for a good month. In fact, he'd probably been getting worse as the month went on.

Most of the snow had melted away, but some of it still remained, especially in areas still in shadows. Now, though, it was more like slush and hailstones. However, the ice remained in force. Despite winter being officially over, the chilling weather still persisted. The two were walking towards the nearest twenty-four seven in order to re-fill up on snacks. They had been having a three hour long game of 'Riff Master,' which had a guitar-like controller, and complaining about how they didn't have enough Dethklok songs. Well, Dib and Gaz did, Zim didn't really know much about earth music, so he didn't comment much.

Gaz had beaten the boys hands down. Zim complained that she was just lucky and his mighty Irken gaming powers could beat her any other day. At that point, she had threatened to kill them both with a rusty chainsaw unless they went and got some supplies right there and then.

Zim sighed as he ignored Dib's ranting about people who couldn't respect other people and just leave them alone.

Zim had found that he now spent far more time playing video games with the Membranes then he did before. It was Dib's advice, of course. While Zim had been busy withering in the pain of withdrawal for five days, something he still had the odd flashback about, the human had gone and researched into every aspect of how to deal with it. Including what came after. Dib knew that once the physical side of quitting was over, the next step would be the mental. The depression, the boredom, the sheer willpower to not walk out and get a fix just to cheer yourself up.

Dib had told Zim to keep as busy as possible, to use any distraction. Play games, watch movies, read books. Zim had taken the human's advice, if a bit grudgingly, on the knowledge that he was right. The Irken now had three different consoles and hundreds of games. He also had a large stock-pile of movies and a collection of books to keep him occupied.

Zim looked at the floor, but boredom cannot be held off forever. So many times he had felt the need to go and get a fix. Not out of drug hunger, he was past that now, but out of shear depression. He didn't realise how much aswermitus had filled his life until he finally came off. From the moment he woke up every moment was about acquiring the drug. He would spend all day waiting for that one blissful hit. Now he couldn't do that, he had nothing. Not that he was crying his eyes out; it wasn't that sort of depression. It was more of a…bored depression. He had no energy, no urge to go and challenge himself to go create new machines or improvements, or even repairs on his base.

Zim had even found himself envying the human ability to sleep; at least they could shut off any pain or worry for a while. He had to stay awake through it all, although he was thinking about perhaps experimenting on his PAK to fix that. After all, it was hardly illegal to mess with his PAK now.

The worst thing about it all was that nothing, not winning a game or watching people die onscreen or reading about humanity's demise, was as good as one hit of spike. Not that he regretted coming off aswermitus, quite the opposite, he was glad he'd beaten the drug. He had proven his superiority to himself and the humans. But still…it had not been an experience he found himself regretting…

Aswermitus was, and to Zim it was still, the ultimate hit. Nothing he'd ever known even touched on how great it was, the feeling of it was unbeatable; even remembering it made Zim feel better. Everything else just seemed, well, dull in comparison, which was probably why he felt so down.

He sighed again as the two turned a corner and looked at his human companion with annoyed eyes. Dib wasn't helping much either. Lately he had changed, he seemed to get annoyed at every little thing that went wrong and would fly into furious rants about them. The boy also seemed to be sleeping even less then he used to, often going for two weeks or more without it. Zim had even noticed that Dib would sometimes seem slightly distracted, as if he were hearing something that the Irken couldn't.

Gaz seemed to have noticed this too as she seemed to roll her eyes at Zim whenever Dib went off on one. She had been surprisingly helpful in easing Zim's boredom. She let him play her games, borrow her movies and read her books. She had even asked him if he would go watch a film next week. Dib had laughed and called it a date. Zim told him it was not a date, it was a film and a date was a horrible tasting fruit that burnt his tongue when he had tried to eat one.

Dib stopped his rant with a final hiss and then settled for a disgruntled look. He stuffed his hands into this trench coat pockets and looked at Zim, who was still looked down at the floor.

The boy's face softened, "Hey Zim."

"Mmm," Zim absently replied not really paying attention.

"What was it like?"

Zim looked at Dib suspiciously. "What was what like?"

Dib rolled his eyes. "You know, the drug. What was it like?"

Zim's eyes widened then assumed a suspicious look once more. "Why do you want to know, stink-beast?"

Dib shrugged and kicked a stray can. "I dunno. I just do."

Zim looked up and sighed. "Well...it's hard to describe. Even for someone as mighty as I. Humm..." Dib silently waited as Zim thought of an answer. Zim looked back down towards the floor. "Imagine if you had successfully exposed me, dissected my guts, become the most famous human on earth. Then you had somehow stopped the armada and defeated the entire Irken Empire on your own. Then imagine if the most attractive and rich of all your disgusting species decided to become your mate. Then pile all your dreams together and complete them with amazing, Zim-like success."

By now Dib's eyes were quite wide in surprise at Zim's description. Zim turned to look at Dib with a dry smile. "Then multiply that by about a thousand and you may be somewhere near it."

Dib's widened his eyes and he nodded slowly. "Oh...kay. That good eh?"

Zim looked ahead again. "Yes, it's that good."

The walk continued for another few minutes until Zim finally spotted the store and breathed a sigh of relief. A fat human passed them and cast a snide chuckle at the way the two of them looked.

"I swear," Dib said as they jogged across the road. "One day I'm gonna kill one of these people."

"Huh," Zim sneered. "I'd like to watch that."

Dib said nothing. As they walked up towards the automatic doors to the store there was a shout from behind them.

"Zim? ZIM!"

Zim looked around at his name being called, but what he saw made his squeedlyspooch drop. Standing, wearing the same clothes she always seemed to wear, was Lilith. The only difference to her appearance was that she seemed to have lost the bunny-ear pony tails and now put her hair back with a dull red hair band. Her eyes seemed to light up at the sight of Zim and a smile grew on her pale face.

Zim stood, speechless; he was hoping he'd never see her again. Dib stood at his side looking back and forth between to two.

Zim turned fully to face her, narrowing his eyes. "Go away, Dib."

"Who-"

"GO AWAY, DIB!" Zim yelled at him.

Dib stood for a second longer before raising his hands to his shoulders in surrender. "Fine. Whatever." He then turned and walked inside the twenty-four seven.

Lilith hopped over to Zim and held out her arms for a hug to which Zim didn't respond. After a second she looked down and wrapped her arms around herself. She then brushed a stray bang of hair away from her face and look away. "Wow...this is...wow."

Zim was emotionless apart from his angrily narrowed eyes. "What are you doing here?"

Lilith looked down and hugged her pitifully thin form once more. "You look different...you grew your hair back, I see."

Zim unconsciously ran a hand through his new wig. He had made this one better, it wouldn't come off quite so easily now, and instead of his old style it came down around his head. Dib called it an 'emo-cut,' but apparently that was the most normal style. Well, according to MTV it was, and Gir had said MTV knows everything about being normal. She was right though, he did look different.

Since he had quit the drug his skin had regained its healthy deep greenness again and he had gained back most the weight he had lost, although he was still pretty thin. The dark rings under his eyes had gone and the bruises on his arm and track lines along his veins had slowly vanished. He was, effectively, back to his old self.

There was a moment of silence, where a small wind blew across the gap between them, until Lilith finally said, "You've quit, haven't you?"

Zim nodded once. "About a month back."

She smiled. "Wow Zim, I'm so proud of you. I wish I could quit..."

Another pregnant moment passed. Zim knew she wanted to breach the subject, he did too, but at the same time he wanted to ignore the subject entirely.

Zim hated awkward moments.

"Look," She said quietly, "We need to talk about what happened."

Zim shook his head slowly. "No we don't. It was a mistake, that's the end of it. As far as I'm concerned, the moment never even happened."

Lilith looked hurt. "Zim...I mean...Ok, it was a mistake, but you can't just leave it at that. I knew you had that crush on me..."

Zim growled. "Yes, but that was then, this is now." Zim was actually wondering how he could have ever developed a crush on this human girl.

She was stick thin, unnaturally pale with greasy hair and huge dark rings under her eyes. However, it comforted him to know that inside there were none of the feelings he used to feel around her. No queasy squeedlyspooch, no reoccurring thoughtcrime, no fumbling speech. Now that he had lifted the veil of A from his eyes, he could pick out all the faults in the girl he once obsessed over. He didn't just not like this human, he was almost repulsed by her appearance. Did he really used to want this...junkie?

The female looked crushed; she looked down, then back up to Zim's cold eyes. "So that's it then."

Zim folded his arms. "Yep."

She sighed. "It's just that...well...I liked you Zim, more then the other guys. You hung around with me, you listened to me. I liked waking up and knowing you were next to me..."

Zim scoffed. "I don't care anymore. Maybe, if I was still on spike I would have, but I've changed. I got better and you..." he looked her up and down, "Are a filthy junkie."

She looked down and Zim heard her sniff back a tear. He had to hold back a snort of laughter, he really shouldn't be having this much fun.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked around.

Dib was looking slightly anxious and he spoke quickly. "We should go...now."

Zim raised an invisible eyebrow. "Why?"

Dib just tipped his head down a little. "We don't wanna anger Gaz..."

The excuse seemed stupid but Zim shrugged, he was tired of talking to this junkie girl anyway. Dib started walking ahead rather quickly and Zim turned to follow suit. He gave Lilith one last look. "Bye Lilith, hope you do...something." He grinned evilly and walked after Dib, who was already across the road.

However, when he took one last look back as they turned a corner, he still saw her standing there. But he also saw that the twenty-four seven seemed to have spilt red paint all over the windows.

He shrugged and ran to catch up with Dib.

Dib looked back hurriedly then, after a moment where he looked like he was listening to something, he relaxed. Zim stared at the boy's odd behaviour before looking in front of him. This was Dib after all.

Dib looked at the Irken. "Who was that?"

Zim sneered, "Oh, just a bad memory."

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WOOOP!

It's done!

All done!

YAY! Finished at 2:07 am on a Saturday. Practically year's worth of writing, all done. My ode, finished on what I think is a beautiful ending. Slightly OOC, but hey, last chapter n' all, leaving the whole Zim-cured thing in no doubt but also ending on the cliff-hanger of waste-lock Dib. Lilith, the wicked bunny girl witch of the west, is all CRUSHED…and everyone else is...erm…whatever.

So...yea. The idea I was aiming for was to not to totally re-create the 'Zim'-verse, but to bring it into a more serious, realist world. Maybe to the styles of I Feel Sick (But with more inclusion of world events and culture) in order of making the story seem more mature. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted the classic Zim wierdness and cynicism you see in all J.V's works, I just wanted adapt it to my own style and not be forced to obey 'those' rules (If you know what I mean).

I hope it worked...I think I achieved a kinda… Miller come Vasquez with a bit of Gilliam thrown in maybe. Or maybe I'm just a big headed fool…who knows!

The big theme here is the idea of everyone having his or her personal addiction to something. Zim has aswermitus, Dib self-harmed and now has killing and Gaz has smoking. Most characters, at least over a third of them, have something that they are addicted to. It wouldn't be a real fic about addictions if they weren't would it? I mean, you look at other fics that deal with drugs and they're all one character centralised. They all just focus on how bad and terrible and sad the chosen characters life is because their on drugs. PU-LEZE, someone give me a sick bag. We've heard it all before, mate, so shut it, yer?

That's one thing I never EVER wanted to do in this fic. There was NO WAY I was gonna make this into some depressive sob story. Only two chapters ever dealt on that issue, the rest was dedicated to life around the drug or experiences on it. I think that's one of the best points of this whole thing, the way it doesn't focus entirely on the addiction itself. Life continues to happen; drug abuse is just one part of it all.

I also didn't want to end it on too good of a good point, which is why the whole Dib waste-lock thing went down. But it was also something that I had been planning from the end of E.A. as a sort of tribute/joke hybrid thing.

Oh, just so everyone's clear on this fact, while I have no plans for a third part I still wouldn't mind making one. I have one or two buzzwords (like 'rehab clinic' for one) and mental images for one or two scenes (like a group therapy session) but no real ideas or anything, apart from some kind of…relapse of some kind. So suggestions, begging's and threats may spur me on somewhat.

It's what I and my fellow writer's in my little inner circle of writer pals like to refer to as 'the glue problem'. You get loads of cool ideas, but no good plot to 'glue' them all together…

But who knows? Maybe, one day, you'll sign into check on the 'Invader Zim – Just In' page to see a new Invader Sideos fic with the first words in the summery being 'Earthly Addictions Prequel'…

Well, that about wraps it up. Everything I got to say, I've said it.

So, leave big long in-depth reviews about this fics greatness. Or not, be mean and leave little tiny ones.

Thank you for your reading, your support and your reviews. You guys give me the reason to bother opening word documents and typing out my horrible little ideas.

The End.

Go home now.