Chapter Text
Professor Membrane was at work when he got the call.
He was close to a breakthrough, when one of his assistants tried to hand him the work phone he kept at his desk as he was flitting about his lab. He refused her at first, waving her away with a, “I’m busy, tell them to call back later.” She was insistent, however, and once the scientist finally looked up from his work to berate her, he was given pause at how spooked she looked. Obviously this wasn’t just yet another company asking for the use of his inventions, or some charity asking for a donation. This was something else.
Membrane conceded and took the phone from his assistant’s trembling hand. He reluctantly brought it up to his ear, watching as the assistant hurriedly scurried from the room, looking pale and shaky.
“Hello? Who is this?” He asked, though something told him that he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Hello, Dr. Membrane, this is Detective Anderson with the city police department.” Came a deep, gruff voice over the line.
Membrane frowned and tried to think of anything he’d done that could warrant the police getting involved. “Is this about the cyborg bees? They’ve all been deactivated, I assure you.”
“No, this is a more serious matter, Professor.” Said Detective Anderson. He sounded grave.
Dread slowly crept up Membrane’s spine, chilling his blood. “O-Oh? May I ask what that matter is?”
The detective sighed, his breath crackling over the receiver. “I’m very sorry, but we need you to come down to the station on twenty-fifth. We need you to identify a body we believe to be your son, Dib Membrane.”
The phone fell to the desk with an earth-shaking clatter, and for the first time in many, many years, Professor Membrane left the lab in the middle of the work day with no given explanation.
Hope wasn’t scientific. Wishes weren’t scientific. But for once in his life, Membrane was wishing with his whole being, hoping against hope, that what he’d heard over the phone wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He rushed into the police station, repeating a mantra in his head that it wasn’t real, it wasn’t going to be Dib. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be Dib.
Professor Membrane was good at being ignorant. It might as well be considered one of his many talents. He tended to ignore sound science and facts when they didn’t coincide with his rigid worldview, often to the detriment of others, most notably his children. He’d managed to convince himself that they’d be fine without a reliable parental figure despite the hundreds of studies that told him otherwise. They were smart kids. They could take care of themselves! Though at this very moment, as he stood over the still, lifeless body of his son covered in a white sheet on a cold steel table, all he could think was, what did I get Dib for his last birthday? Was I even there for it? ...Has he always been so small?
Membrane reached out with a trembling hand to touch his son’s pale face. The officer in the room stepped closer, as if to stop him, but decided against it and instead watched silently. Membrane’s fingers brushed through Dib’s hair, while his palm made contact with the boy’s cheek, still soft and round with youth, but cold to the touch even through his thick gloves. People always said that the dead looked like they were only sleeping, and oh, how Membrane wished that were true. Even when resting, Dib was never motionless. He tossed and turned and talked in his sleep, but this… thing on the table wasn’t moving. At all.
This couldn’t be his son. His boundless, energetic son could never be so still . It wasn’t Dib.
But it was .
The moment the reality of the situation hit him full force, Membrane’s head goes quiet. It was unsettling. His brain was always a cacophony of ideas and equations at all hours of the day and often into the night. Now though, everything is silent and fuzzy, like the space between his ears is stuffed with cotton. He vaguely remembered a pair of officers ask him to confirm that body on the table was in fact Dib Membrane. He might have answered them, but he wasn’t sure. Then, he suddenly found himself sitting on a hard chair with a cup of something warm in his gloved hands. He wasn’t in the morgue anymore. He didn’t remember how he got here.
There was someone quietly talking to him, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Membrane tried to tune in at some point, but the moment he heard the word ‘impaled’ and the subsequent image that forced upon his mind, he blocked them right back out. His ears were ringing. Suddenly, a phone was brought into his line of sight, obscuring his view of the cup in his hands. It took him a few seconds to recognize the scratched, dirty thing as Dib’s phone. He finally forced himself to pay attention to what is being said as he numbly took the phone from the officer.
“We found this near the body. It was recording.” Says a young officer. The older gentleman who had led him into the morgue and stayed there with him was nowhere to be found.
Membrane turned the battered device over in his hand, and numbly took in the various torn and peeling stickers that decorated the back. Aliens and ufos and blue eyes. He feels sick.
”We watched the footage, but we can’t make heads or tails of it. We thought- since you’re the world’s leading scientist and the boy’s father- you might know just what it was that he recorded.”
Membrane didn’t want to watch the recording. How could they ask this of him? It had to be unprofessional, against some policy, to ask a grieving father to watch footage of his son’s last moments.
he really didn’t want to watch. He didn’t. He can’t .
The officer pressed play, taking his continued silence as assent. He didn’t look away.
The footage is dark, shaky. He can hear Dib’s heavy breathing, the crunch of gravel under small shoes as his son runs for his life. There’s the sound of something else, something that’s on more than two legs skittering behind him. The camera jerks suddenly, and Dib lets out a strangled gasp as the phone falls to the ground. There’s a terrible thump as Dib’s body presumably lands beside the fallen phone. He’s making desperate, choked noises- not quite sobs- and each one physically tears at Membrane’s very soul. There’s a scrabbling sound, and suddenly the phone is being lifted and turned toward the sky, illuminated by the moon and nothing else. There’s a figure backlit by the meager light. Long, spindly limbs that snake across the sky, and big, glowing red eyes.
For a moment the camera is still, and the thing in the footage just looms there, over his son. His small, young- so painfully young- son. The only sound is that of Dib’s trembling breaths, waiting for something to break the oppressive silence.
Then, there’s a flash of something thin, sharp and metallic. There’s a horrible, sickening sound like tearing- Membrane quickly dropped the phone, and the officer yelped something about preserving evidence but he wasn’t listening.
The professor reached up with a trembling gloved hand and ripped down the collar of his coat, scattering buttons across the room as he made a desperate lunge for the nearest trash can. The room was dead quiet again and the officers watched the once stoic, revered scientist lose his lunch into the tiny waste bin on the floor. His goggles are thrown against the wall a moment later to make way for the tears that are now spilling from his eyes.
He’s seen that figure. He’s seen that thing before. Blurry pictures tacked to Dib’s wall. Grainy footage the boy had shown him proudly on the rare moments he was home. It was real. It was all real. And he’d done nothing to prevent this unbearable outcome.
No, that wasn’t quite true. He didn’t do nothing. He did much worse. He ignored it all. Buried his head in the sand. belittled his own son at every turn, at every desperate cry for attention.
And that’s what it all was. Cries for attention. Desperate pleas for him to listen , to believe in Dib not through facts and evidence, but because he was his son , he was Membrane’s own child and parents were supposed to support their children no matter what. They were supposed to hold them up and encourage them to follow their dreams in healthy, constructive ways. But Dib was gone now. He couldn’t do that the next time the boy came to him with a new theory, a new photo, because he was gone. His son was gone . He’d died alone and scared and believing that his own father thought he was insane.
Membrane had only a vague recollection of how he got home after that. After his stomach had stopped heaving, he stood up and all but ran from the police station. A few officers tried to stop him, shouting something about more questions, but he was much bigger than they were. Though it was a bit fuzzy, he was sure that he used more force than necessary to push past them. Membrane didn’t feel bad about it. He didn’t feel much of anything.
It seemed as though time had broken, because the next thing the man knew, he was stumbling down the walkway toward his home with no knowledge of how he managed to get there. His legs felt numb. Nothing felt real as he just went through the motions of unlocking the front door and stepping inside.
The moment he passed the threshold, Gaz was there to meet him, leaning against the kitchen table. She looked worried. Membrane’s heart dropped to his stomach. What was he going to tell her? How could he break it to his little girl that Dib was dead? They didn’t show it much, but his children loved each other very deeply. They relied on each other when he wasn’t around, which he was now realizing was nearly all the time. How could he possibly break it to Gaz that the one person she could lean on was just suddenly gone ? Before he could even try to speak, Gaz beat him to it and started talking.
“Dib didn’t come home last night.”
That gave Membrane pause. Last night? It was well into the afternoon now. Did it really happen that long ago? Did he really not know where one of his children was for that long? Of course he didn’t. He wasn’t home. Not this morning, not last night, not the day before. He was never home.
Gaz opened her mouth to continue when he didn’t respond, but stopped and closed it. She studied her father with narrowed eyes, taking in his disheveled appearance. She scrutinized his missing goggles, torn collar, bloodshot eyes with slowly dawning horror and understanding. Gaz closed her eyes and her whole body slumped as if it suddenly carried the weight of the world.
“He’s gone... isn’t he?” She whispered brokenly.
Tears glimmered at the corners of the girl’s tightly shut eyes and she gave a heart-wrenching little sob. Membrane made a choked sound of shock and took a step forward, as if to run to his usually stoic daughter’s side and pull her close, but then she opened her eyes again and pinned him with a look so cold that he froze in his tracks.
“I told him. I told him that he’d get himself killed going after all those goddamn monsters. I told him that it wasn’t worth it. I TOLD HIM!” Gaz screamed, hands balled up into shaking fists at her sides. She looked away, and Membrane was spared the burns her gaze inflicted on his soul. “I told him that it wouldn’t work. No matter what he discovered, what he collected, IT WOULDN’T WORK!”
Membrane’s heart was pounding. Ice was filling his veins. Gaz pinned him once again with a cold glare.
“He never stopped. He said he’d never stop until-“ Her words choked off in a tiny sob that tore at Membrane’s very being. Gaz sucked in a shaking breath, her eyes practically blazing. “You know what he told me? You know what he said, dad ?” She hissed venomously.
“Gaz... don’t.” The professor whispered, voice trembling.
He didn’t want to hear this, but Gaz looked him in the eye and showed him no mercy.
“He said... maybe he’ll believe me when I’m dead .”
Silence filled the kitchen for a few beats that felt like an eternity. Gaz’s words rang in Membrane’s ears, undeniable. He couldn’t bury his head in the sand this time. This was his reality. The ice in his veins crept toward his heart, and the physical pain he felt was unbearable.
Unflinching in the wake of his anguish, Gaz continued, “And even now, you probably still think he was insane-“
“No! ” Membrane shouted, voice choked and cracking with emotion. “No, don’t say that. I don’t think that! H-He was right! I believe him- I do! ” He sounded desperate for her to believe him. The irony wasn’t lost on either Membrane.
Gaz was silent for a moment, just gazing at her father with teary eyes that glinted with cold steel. “It's a little late for that now though, isn’t it, dad?” She was trembling with rage and grief, fists clenched at her sides and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her breaths hitched just slightly with suppressed sobs, and Membrane was suddenly painfully aware of how young his daughter was.
God, his kids were so young. Gaz was just a little girl, no matter how tough and grown up she tried to act, and Dib was only twelve. He was just a small child who felt as though he had to go out and put himself in grave danger just to prove himself to his only parent. And it got him killed. He wasn’t even a teen. He was twelve fucking years old.
“You… you’re right, Gaz…” Membrane whispered quietly. The man gave a broken, watery sob and reached up to cover his eyes with one hand while the other balled into a shaking fist, gloves creaking at the strain. “It’s too late. I should have listened. I should have supported him. I should have been there for you both. Maybe if I had- maybe if I just listened, then… then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. It’s all my fault.” The man made an awful keening sound, like his very soul was escaping along with his tears. He clutched his hands over his face as if he could hide from the harsh reality he found himself in. His knees buckled, and he only barely caught himself with one arm against the kitchen floor. His broad shoulders quaked with the weight of his grief and emotional agony.
“This is all my fault!” The man screamed into his palm, his anguished voice only slightly muffled by the rubbery material, already slick with tears. “He’s gone, Gaz! M-My little boy, my son… He’s fucking gone!”
Gaz’s eyes widened and she took a step back away from her hysterical father in shock. She didn’t expect him to break down like that. The girl instantly felt guilty for throwing so much into her dad’s face. He was hurting just as much as she was. She just didn't know how to handle the situation emotionally. She was in so much pain, and she needed someone to lash out at, and it just so happened that her dad was a convenient outlet.
“Dad…” Gaz murmured softly, breath hitching with a little hiccup-sob. She quietly stepped closer to her crying parent. Even kneeling hunched over on the floor, he was taller than her. He always seemed larger than life to Gaz. He was unflappable, invulnerable to her, but seeing him now, crying on the kitchen floor, she knew that she couldn’t hold him to those standards. Not now.
“Dad-“ Gaz’s tears came faster now, and her trembling grew more pronounced. She dropped to her knees and shuffled close to her father. The little girl ducked under the man’s arms and burrowed her way to his chest where she curled up, digging her fingers into his lab coat.
“I didn’t mean it, dad! I’m- I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!” Gaz wailed into Membrane’s chest. Her tiny body shook with her cries as she clutched desperately to her father.
Membrane wrapped his arms around his daughter and held her tight. he pressed his face into her purple hair, uncaring if his tears saturated the soft locks. In that moment, she was his lifeline. His rock amidst a typhoon, keeping him from being swept away in his grief and anguish. He dearly hoped that he was grounding her to earth as well, for he had no words of comfort to offer her.
The two last remaining Membranes stayed like that for a long time, clinging to one another until the tears ran out, and even for a long while after. They found the slightest bit of comfort in the presence of the other, but the awareness that one was missing loomed over them like a reaper. Silence reigned, stifling and cold.
“...do you remember when I convinced Dib that the bathroom was haunted?” Gaz suddenly said softly, breaking the oppressive quiet.
Membrane gave a sad, watery little chuckle. “He spent the night in the bathtub, didn’t he?”
Gaz nodded against her dad’s chest. “Yeah. It was hilarious. He practically dragged his whole bed into the tub. He sat up all night with that dumb EMF reader he made himself.”
The professor chuckled again, just a little more genuine this time. “He was so mad at you when he found out that you lied. He didn’t talk to you for a week.”
Gaz smiled a little and nodded, sniffling. She heaved a sad sigh and snuggled closer to her dad, who gave her a little comforting squeeze. They were quiet again for a few moments.
“So, do they know what… did him in?” She asked in a quiet, scared voice.
Membrane hesitated in answering. Should he saddle his young daughter with such knowledge? It was bad enough that she knew Dib was dead, but that was unavoidable. This, however, she didn’t have to know. Though, knowing Gaz, she’d find out one way or another. She wouldn’t appreciate being lied to.
The man moved one hand to rest on the girl’s upper back where he began to rub soothing circles. “I think… I think it was that… alien. Zim, I think its name was.” Membrane felt a pang in his heart and his eyes stung anew. Dib had told him countless things about the alien, and yet he was unsure what its name was. Was he really that inattentive? Could he really remember so little from his son’s passionate reports? Oh, what he wouldn’t give to hear his boy ramble on about ghosts and cryptids one more time.
Membrane was pulled from his depressing musings by Gaz, who startled and pulled slightly out of his embrace so she could look up at him. Her bloodshot eyes were wide and confused.
“Z-Zim? But, that can’t be true! Dib and Zim had a truce! How can you be sure?” She asked, voice shaking the slightest bit.
Membrane was surprised to hear that. A truce? But Dib had spoken of Zim with such hatred before. That he could remember.
“The police found his phone, and it was recording a video. I’m sure that’s who I saw in it. Dib has pictures of Zim all over his room. The thing in the video had big red eyes and spider-like legs. I’m sure that’s who did it.”
Gaz’s brows furrowed. She looked frustrated and angry. “But- Zim was here this morning. He showed up and asked if Dib was home. He left as soon as I said he wasn’t home yet. Why would he do that?” She turned her eyes up at her father as if he would have the answer. He didn’t.
Membrane clenched his jaw and gripped Gaz just a bit tighter, furious at the thought that the thing that took his son from him was at his house, talking to his daughter. What if he’d lost both of his children to that monster? The very idea was unbearable. He was torn from his dark thoughts when Gaz began trembling again. He looked down and saw her pressed close to his chest again, tears glimmering at the corners of her tightly closed eyes.
“I-it doesn’t make sense. Zim- Zim wouldn’t- he wouldn’t go that far! Why would he- how could he do this? I don’t understand, I thought he was getting better!” Gaz gasped, clutching tight to her father’s coat as she began to cry again.
Membrane’s heart hurt at seeing his daughter so upset. He gathered her close and rocked her back and forth gently. “Shhh, honey. He won’t get away with it. I won’t let him.” He told her, voice taking on a hard edge. “Now, I need you to be strong for a moment, Gaz. I need you to do something for me.”
Gaz shakily nodded her head, but didn’t move from her curled position against him. Membrane began rubbing soothing circles into her back again and braced himself for what he was about to ask of his daughter.
“I need you to tell me about Zim.” The professor said, voice steely as he glared across the kitchen, out the window where he could see the sun setting over the neighborhood. Out there, the monster that killed his son continued to breathe. He’d have to rectify that.
“Tell me everything .”