Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dib tiredly pushes open the front door and walks into highskool with the crowd of other kids trying to smooth out his messy bed head hair, oddly, zim is nowhere to be seen.

"Good, that's one less thing I have to deal with." He mutters, feeling relieved as he walks to class, sighing as he enters the room sits down in his usual seat, boredly playing with an eraser.

"I cant believe miss bitters is still teaching, stupid budget cuts." he mumbles, glaring down at his desk.

When the last bell rings signaling the start of class, the still tiny, disguised green alien rushes in and dib sighs loudly in response, "great, just what I needed."

Miss bitters hisses "that's another late mark for you zim, two more and you get detention."

Zim growls in frustration "I was not late! Class hasn't even started yet!"

Miss bitters snarls and gives him a death glare even worse than her usual scowl "zim. Shut up and take your seat, now." She pushes the emphasis on her words enough for zim to know he should listen unless he wants something horrible to happen to him.

Zim pales a bit and walks quickly to his desk "yes ma'am."

Dib chuckles lightly as zim walks by, and zim shoots him a glare, however, dib ignores it and starts tuning out the teacher as she drones on about the universe's eventual distruction, in favor of his own  thoughts.

During class zim throws several notes at dib, until the teacher yell at zim and threatens to give him another mark, dib reads and ignores each one, most are just insults or asking why dib has been ignoring zim lately, dib doesn't care, he just wants to go home, and is tired of being pestered by zim.

When the last bell of the day rings and skool finally gets out, dib is walking down the hallway, so ready to go home and back to bed,
when three big, annoying, dumb bullies walk up, the leader being torque smacky, who was significantly bigger and taller now, who begins mocking dib, who really isn't in the mood.

"Hey dipshit, you still have that dumb hairstyle?"

Dib rolls his eyes "what do you want torque?"

Torque glares at dib "getting cocky are we? Maybe I'll just have to knock you down a peg." He growls menacingly

Dib however, honestly isnt really phased by this, he was used to this stupid act, and really didn't give a shit.

"Can we just get this over with, I just wanna go home."

He smirks "then I'll make this as long and excruciating as possible."

Dib sighs 'I just had to open my big mouth didn't I? I have to learn to keep things to myself' he thinks

He grabs dib's wrist and starts dragging him towards the door and the other two follow, chuckling like idiots, "good one torque!"

"Can't we do this inside, like usual?" He says not wanting zim to see.

"We're going outside so the janitor doesn't complain about the blood like last time."

"Oh, wonderful." Dib says sarcastically

The bullies take turns punching him and dib barely fights back, though he winces in pain every time he's struck, so it clearly still hurts.

Zim is headinb outside, trying to find dib in the crowd of students so he can annoy him more, when he notices torque and his friends beating him up.

Zim  watches them for a few minutes, taking an odd sort of pleasure watching him get beaten, 'the dib is getting put back in his place, and I dont even have to get my hands dirty.' he thinks in a satisfied way, although part of him would rather fight dib himself, dib was his enemy after all, another small part of him knew that was partly because zim could control how much dib got hurt... because he wants to keep him alive! No other reasons! he shakes his head trying to forget that train of thought. 'just focus on enjoying the dib's pain, that's what an irken would do.' He tells himself.

After a few more punches dib's nose started bleeding and zim decided that he had enough, something inside him pushing him to intervene, something about watching him bleed made him realize maybe this is too much.

Zim struts over to the bullies with his usual confidence "that's enough human stink, the dib is my rival not yours, and he has had enough of your abuse for the day."

Torque steps forward with a sneer on his face "hey boys, tiny over here thinks he can tell us what to do! Isnt that funny?!"

Zim glares at him for the "tiny" comment before looking around to make sure no one was watching, and then looking back at them with a smirk on his face, as he slowly pulls his wig and contacts off and delight in their expressions, a mix of horror and shock as their jaws drop and then continues by slithering his long tongue out and begins hissing at them in English with irken mixed in, making the words sound foreign and strange, but still understandable.

"you filthy earth sssscum know not who you insult! I am invader zzzim, greatest irken to ever live! You have 5 seconds to get out of my sight before i ssslice you open, pull out your guts, and do things so unspeakable to you that you will wish i had simply ended your lives here and now!" He snarls with hisses clicks, and deep growls mixed in in a truly alien way.

Well, dib was definitely going to have nightmares tonight.

dib pulls out of their grip as they start backing up in fear "what the fuck are you freak?!" Torque shrieks, before they scramble away as pale as ghosts. Zim chuckles to himself, a huge satisfied and mischievous grin on his face, before slipping his disguise back on.

Dib chuckles at that but is interrupted by Zim throwing a cloth in dib's face

"wipe the blood off your face dib-human, zim has a bone to pick with you as the humans say, you didn't try to interfere with zim's last plan, so I've come up with a more brilliant one." if zim didn't know better, he might think something wrong with you dib-stink.

Dib shakes his head "there's nothing wrong zim, don't worry about it." He says feeling a bit annoyed, he knew how this would go.

Zim smirks "well good, because my latest plan is exploding robot gophers!!!"

Dib tucks his hands in his pockets "yeah?"

He pulls out a small remote "and this is the detonator!"

Dib rolls his eyes "and?"

"And I'm going to explode them! All over your precious city, potentially killing innocent humans!" He says starting to sound a bit frustrated

"Um, yeah I figured."

He dangles the remote in front of dibs face,
"And this is where you try to take it from me and ruin my plan!" He says visibly irritated.  "You know to save your precious earth? the stupid humans you care so much about?"

Dib sighs "you know what? You can destroy the earth, I honestly dont care anymore."

Zim gets fed up, throwing the remote at the ground and grabs dibs wrist, his claws digging in.

"What the hell is wrong with you dib-shit?!
Is this like the time you tried to focus on real science?!"
He pauses "no this is different, you seem different this time..." he mutters mostly to himself

Dib pulls his hand away, accidentally scratching himself on zims claws "stop trying to figure me out! Just mind your own fucking business, alien freak!" He shouts feeling cornered

"No! I want to know why my nemesis refuses to fight me!" He says grabbing his wrist again, his claws like a vice.

Dib glares "just let go of me!" Dib kicks him in the leg and zim
hisses in pain,  letting go of his wrist momentarily,
but when dib tries to run away zim jumps on top of him and claws dib's face, "tell me!"

To which dib responds by pulling out a box of cigarettes, chucking them at zim's face without thinking twice, zim however is distracted by this, and picks up the box, opening it out of curiosity, pulling one of them out, and then looking up at dib accusingly.

"Didn't we have an assembly about not using these? Why is the dib poisoning himself with these nicotine sticks?"

He sighs "just leave me alone zim." He was so tired now, he could probably pass out right here.

"Not until you answer me." Zim says firmly

"They make me feel better ok? Can I get up now?"

"Fine." zim says getting up "but I'm keeping these, I won't have you poisoning yourself." He says putting the box into his pak

Dib scowls "I paid for those!" Then pauses before sighing "whatever, I'll just buy more."

"Zim will have to deal with that later then." He says calmly

Dib rolls his eyes again and walks off, even more desperate to got home them before, if that was even possible.

Zim watches him leave with a concerned look on his face, before looking back and noticing that a few kids that were watching the scene.

"What are you looking at earth monkeys?!" He snarls with a sharp tone.

The spectators quickly walk away, not wanting to start a fight with  zim as well, and zim starts walking off the school grounds towards his house, lost in his thoughts.

Chapter Text

Zim enters the base, angrily slamming the door "computer!"

The computer sighs "whaaattt?"

Zim throws the box of cigarettes against the wall "the dib is using these-" he points at the box "to make himself "feel better," the dib is poisoning himself, why is he doing this? He seems different than usual, how do i make him stop?"

The computer pauses "different how?"

"He completely ignored zim's threats, he said he didn't care anymore, he didn't even really fight back."

"He sounds depressed."

"What is "depressed?""

"Remember when you found out the tallest weren't coming to earth? Thats depressed."

Zim blinks "why does the dib feel like that?"

"I dont know, ask him yourself."

"He won't talk to me."

"Then ask his sister."

Zim pauses for a moment "computer, call the gaz-sisters number!"

If the computer had eyes, they would have rolled them fiiiine, the computer say half heartedly

Theres a dialing sound and then gaz picks up

"who is it now?!" She growls

"Whats wrong with the dib?" Zim demands

"Oh its you" she says annoyedly

"Answer the question."

Theres a lot of things wrong with him, which one are you talking about?"

"The one that makes him smoke the poison sticks."

"Oh, that one."