Chapter Text
Walking away from Zim’s house after that endeavor, Dib finds himself lost in thought. Part of his brain tells him he should feel victorious; sure he didn’t do anything, but Zim certainly isn’t happy, and apparently no longer so dead-set on taking over the planet. But he doesn’t feel like he’s won anything; quite the opposite really. He never thought he would find himself feeling bad for Zim, a goddamned alien he’s sworn to expose and destroy at all costs, but he can’t ignore a dull sadness scraping at his heart, something that feels almost familiar to him. He scoffs.
“That’s ridiculous. Zim and I are nothing alike,” he tells himself, dragging his boots on the concrete. “In fact I can’t imagine someone more opposite to me! He’s trying to take over the very planet I’m trying to save.” He kicks a rock down the sidewalk. It skips and hops, falling into the street, just to be run over by a passing car. “I have no reason to feel bad for him.”
He rolls his eyes at the very thought and continues along the familiar path back to his house.
“This would be the best time to expose him, actually,” he mumbles to himself as he opens the door. “Just have to catch him when he’s not—“
“Are you talking to yourself again?”
Dib looks up to see a figure hunched over in a familiar spot on the couch, eyes glued to a Game Slave 2 like always. “Hi Gaz.”
She doesn’t look up from her game but for a second, and just to scowl at him before returning to the soul-sucking realm of Piggy Slayer 2.
Dib just shakes his head and heads to the kitchen to get himself something to eat. He finds his dad hovering over the kitchen counter, making a sandwich. Dib’s grown a couple inches over the past few months, but he still has to look up to talk to him.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Don’t mind your sister,” he says, absentmindedly patting Dib on the head as he walks by. “She’ll grow out of this mean phase of hers.”
Dib sits down at the table, leaning on an elbow. “I think you’ve been saying that since she was born.”
The professor laughs, a sound Dib notes he doesn’t hear often enough these days. He brings his plate to the table and sits across from him, not even bothering to take off his gloves or his goggles as he sits down to have his lunch. It really felt like they were part of him at this point. “So where were you this morning, son?”
Dib gets up to fix himself a glass of water and sighs. “Zim’s house. I borrowed some of your stuff from the lab. Hope that’s okay.”
“That’s fine, son. I’m just happy to see you spending time with your little friend.”
Dib coughs and nearly chokes on his water. “What?!” He puts the glass down to avoid further damage. His dad has put down his sandwich to look at him. “Dad, Zim and I are not friends. He’s an alien! I’ve told you—“
“A million times, yes.” The professor sighs. He sounds tired, but he stands up and pushes in his chair. “Well,” he says, sounding almost disappointed as he grabs his plate, “I’ve got to get back to the lab.”
As he walks down the stairs, Dib feels the usual sinking feeling that he scared him away. He pushes that from his mind though, and returns to Zim. What was he going to do if he was stuck here? Dib fixes his own lunch and brings it up the stairs to his room. He stops in the doorway and finds himself looking around his room, at his posters and magazine clippings and and has to wonder how much better his relationship could be with his dad if he wasn’t so… obsessed with the paranormal. With a sigh, he logs into the Swollen Eyeball network, and reads up on the latest sightings of Bigfoot and Nessie and whatever phony creature somebody found in the woods that week. After debunking a couple of the more ridiculously terrible photoshop jobs, he starts to prepare a post on Zim, how he had an alien so close, so vulnerable, but no matter how many times he tries to compose it, he finds himself backspacing it over and over again. It feels private, somehow, like something he shouldn’t be sharing. Since when does he care about Zim’s feelings?
He doesn’t realize how much time has passed until Gaz calls him down for dinner. He enters the living room just to see her still sitting in front of the TV with a couple of boxes of pizza.
“Where’s Dad?”
She doesn’t turn around. “He had to go back to work. You know, if you’d come out of your room sometimes, you’d know what was going on.”
Dib scoffs. Like either of them want him out of his room. “I’m not the one who spends all my time on a Game Slave.”
“I’m not the one who obsesses over a bunch of fake monsters and pretends the people who talk about them online are my friends,” Gaz says, impressively through a mouthful of pizza. Really about a typical Gaz level of ouch, but all Dib can find himself getting out is a mumbled “They’re not fake” as he goes to open the pizza box on top.
“Mine,” says Gaz, putting a hand over it and pointing to the other box. “Yours.”
Dib opens it, hungry at this point, and is disappointed to see just...cheese.
“You didn’t get pineapple?” He asks, sounding hurt. He closes the box and looks at her.
Gaz gags. “No one likes pineapple on their pizza.”
“I do! You know that!”
“No one who matters, anyway.”
He stands there with his mouth open and pizza in hand. There’s just no dealing with Gaz.
“I’m… just not going to talk to you anymore,” he says, taking the box to the kitchen to eat in peace.
“Thanks,” she calls over the back of the couch, before turning back to yet another stupid Bloaty’s commercial.
As Dib crawled into bed that night, he began to feel that same dull ache he got when he left Zim’s house.
Maybe they did have something in common after all.
—-
After tossing and turning all night long, Dib had finally come up with a plan, and now he was on his way to execute it.
The summer heat was downright oppressive as it beat down on him on his walk to Zim’s house, and much to his chagrin, he had to leave his coat at home. His arms happily absorb the sunlight they’ve been so long denied, and he’s grateful he’s going to be inside all day, or he knows he would burn.
He goes over the plan over and over again in his mind. He always finds himself stuck at the same part: Zim’s reaction. But how bad could it be? Zim didn’t seem very capable of much of anything, recently.
Before he even realizes it, he’s at Zim’s door. He brings his arm up to wipe the sweat beading on his forehead, and before he knocks, he has a fleeting thought wondering whether or not Irkens sweat. Hopefully he’ll have the answer soon enough.
“Here goes nothing,” he mumbles. He raps his fist on the door three times and has to stop himself from putting his ear to the door to assess the situation. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, not sure how this is going to go. He’s beginning to plan every word he’s going to say when the door opens to a crack.
“Hellooooo…?” comes a tiny voice from inside. Zim’s robot thing is peeking through the gap. He’s in his hideously inaccurate green dog disguise.
Dib clears his throat. “Hi, um... Gir, right?” He’s talking to a robot dog. He’s talking to a robot dog.
“Yeeess…?” He says in the same comically quizzical tone, cocking his head to the side. It’s hard not to laugh. His face breaks into a smile anyway.
“Is Zim home?”
Gir looks over his shoulder. Dib tries to follow his gaze into the house, but Gir turns back around before he can see anything.
“My master’s doin’ nothin’. He’s been doin’ that a lot!” He smiles and puts his little tongue out. Dib has no idea how he was ever supposed to look like a dog.
Finally, Dib hears Zim’s voice from inside.
“Who’s at the door, Gir?” His words are flat, like he doesn’t really care either way.
“Nooobody,” says Gir, metallic voice squeaking. “I gotta go, bye!” He starts to close the door.
Dib throws his arm at the crack, trying to keep it open. “No, wait! I need to talk to Zim!”
Gir looks back to Zim again. Dib still can’t see him, but he hears him again. “Is Dib back?” Gir nods. Zim sighs.
“Well, let him in then, I guess.”
Gir steps back from the door and opens it wider to reveal more of Zim’s weird imitation-human home. As Dib walks in he lets himself get a good look around, and this place still gives him the creeps. From the weird pipes in the ceiling, and the toilet in the kitchen, to the creepy monkey picture on the wall, everything is just so…fake. He’s completely lost in thought until Zim coughs and he snaps back to reality. Zim is laying on his couch, squinting at him with his freaky ruby red eyes. Dib would laugh at the juxtaposition of such a foreign life form flopped in what was such a normal, human position, but even though he had been in this house more times that he could count, he found himself too unsettled. Instead he stood where he was, Gir shutting the door behind him and joining Zim on the couch. He sits up a little when Dib doesn’t do anything.
“Did you want something or not, human?” Mild annoyance comes through his voice, but it’s incredibly shallow.
“Oh. Right.” Dib straightens, fixing his eyes on Zim. “So…” He shuffles a little, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’m, um…” His stomach turns at the thought of apologizing to the creature he’s called his enemy for so long, but as he searches his eyes he feels another pang of sympathy. He just looks so...sad. “About the other day…”
“Get on with it.”
“Yeah, okay.” He shakes his head and remembers what he has so carefully planned for this meeting. He knows exactly where he’s going, just needs to get it out. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
Zim’s mouth twists into a frown. “I don’t want an apology from you.” The disgust in his voice bites.
“Not for anything I did,” he says, shutting that implication down hurriedly. “I helped you out, Zim. I’m sorry about the fact that you couldn’t contact your leaders. That you’re, you know. Stuck here.”
Zim shifts, visibly uncomfortable. His eyes narrow, making his bright red irises all the more menacing. “I don’t need your pity, either.”
Dib puts his hands up in a form of surrender. “No pity. I just empathize.” Somehow, he finds himself being honest.
Zim laughs, and it’s a loud, hollow sound. “As if you could understand.” He turns the TV off and Gir whines in disappointment before heading into the kitchen. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want something from me. Now what is it.”
“I want to make a deal with you.”
“Make a deal with you ?!” He snarls, lip curling.
“Come on, Zim. I did you a favor, didn’t I?” Dib takes a step forward, and Zim sinks back into the couch. “So you can do one for me. And this has something in it for both of us.”
Zim crosses his arms. “Zim works with no one,” he spits. “Especially not a pitiful, inferior, dis gusting —“
“You do this every time!” Dib throws his arms in the air, and tries to ignore Zim’s chuckle when his voice cracks. “Any time I ask you for something, you ignore that fact that we’ve worked together multiple times —“
“I have never willingly worked with you!”
“Okay,” Dib rolls his eyes. “But when we had to, we did fine, right?” Zim looks away and doesn’t answer. “Right. I tied you to an autopsy table yesterday and managed to not kill you. You at least owe it to me to hear me out.”
Zim gives nothing of an affirmative, but folds his little gloved hands in his lap. He’s listening.
“You’ve been on this planet for coming up on two years and you still don’t know shit about earth or the human race.” Zim opens his mouth to argue and Dib cuts him off. “Zim, what’s a heart for?”
He looks mildly offended. “Breathing, of course.”
“Why does it rain?
“There’s… too much water in your atmosphere.” He gestures vaguely, his confidence waning. “It. Falls.”
“What’s a vegetable?”
Zim groans and throws his hands up in defeat. “Okay, stink-boy. But I’ll have you know I’ve gathered a lot of intelligence about you humans,” he spits the last word, disgust slicing every enunciated syllable. “There’s just only so much I care to learn about your filthy way of life.”
“I get it. But if you’re going to be living here,” Dib gestures around the room, beginning to remember the words he’s rehearsed, “why not do it right?”
Zim’s teeth remain bared in an eternal grimace. “Now tell me what you want, human.”
Dib takes a deep breath, trying to prepare for whatever Zim’s about to throw at him.
“In exchange for me teaching you about Earth, you have to teach me about your home planet.”
Zim looks surprised for only a moment, before his eyes narrow to a dangerous-looking squint.
“Not interested.”
“C’mon, Zim. What else are you gonna do??”
He snaps up and fixes Dib with a different angry look, one of pure fury. He winces and suddenly sees that maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say.
But then Zim sighs, and sinks back into the couch.
“As much as I despise with all of my powerful being to say this… I think you’re right.”
A smile begins to creep its way into Dib’s face. “Hey, don’t look so down about it,” he says to Zim, whose eyes are stuck to the floor. “Think of it as like… a promotion!”
“A promotion.” Zim repeats dryly.
“Yeah.”
“You have no understanding whatsoever of the expectations for an Irken invader.”
“So tell me.”
Dib fixes Zim with a little smile and nervous shrug. Zim hops off the couch and walks out of the room, calling Gir. Dib watches cluelessly as they approach the trashcan elevator.
“Well, are you coming, human?”
Dib bolts after them, a newfound spring in his step.