Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Dib.” 

“Zim.” 

“Dib. ” 

“Zim.”

“DIB.”

“Yes, Zim?”

“Have you consumed your vile Earth medication today?” Zim leaned against Dib’s car, uniform shielding him from the sizzling of the metal. He stayed carefully out of range of the hose Dib was using to rinse the car of bird poop and dirt. Disgusting Earth travel. 

Dib sighed. “Yes. Do you really think I’d be out here washing the car if I hadn’t?”

Zim narrowed his eyes. 

“Okay, okay. But yeah. You know you don’t need to check, Dad already embedded a new med tracker…” He absently scratched at his wrist, the small monitor there peeking out from his sleeve. 

“I already agreed with the Gaz-sister to keep track of any more...behavioral aberrations. She suggested a shift system, as though the great Zim would deign to trust any other measure but his own eyes!” 

Dib twisted the knob to the hose and began winding it back in a tight coil by the garage door. “Alright, Nurse Zim,” he said, relishing the alien’s offended expression, “are you going to tell me why you’ve proposed this…alliance?” 

“Of course. But Zim will not discuss with you here in this filthy driveway.” 

“Hey! I literally just washed the whole thing.” 

“Yes,” Zim said grimly, shuddering at the rivulets of soapy water running into the street. “Precisely.” 

Even Dib had to admit it was easier to talk about this stuff out in the woods, wandering narrow trails through the spindly trees. Neutral ground. Not to mention no Gaz trying to surreptitiously eavesdrop or Gir spinning in nauseating circles at his feet. 

He bit his lip, waiting for Zim to explain his newest grand epiphany. Their battles had gotten less intense over the years since the Florpus, a simmering back-burner of petty arguments and, dare he admit it, almost comfortable bickering. Familiar. Maybe even...well. He was plenty curious about this proposition, whatever it was. But nervous. Their toned-down dynamic had worked for almost five years. He wasn’t sure he was in a rush to upend it. 

The Irken, it seemed, was past such qualms. He had shed his disguise in the empty forest, and his red eyes bore into the ground as they walked. His voice was quieter out here, quieter than every time he had blurted out a humanity-threatening plan in broad daylight, in populated city streets. 

“It has come to my attention that the Irken armada has alleviated me of my services.” 

Dib bit his tongue, but the look on his face must have given away what he was thinking. What, you just figured that out now?

“Don’t.” He didn’t say please, but it tinted his voice all the same. 

“I wasn’t.” 

“Now that I am...coming of age on this inferior planet, it has occurred to me that my previous methods of skirting the Tallest’s intentions may not, ah.” He took a long pause. “May not be so effective. Anymore.” 

Dib translated for him. “Everyone in our class is—I am—moving on, and you can’t keep avoiding it and annoying us in circles in the name of their universe takeover bullshit.” 

Zim huffed out a dark laugh. “Yes, I suppose that summary is adequate.”

“I...I’m sorry.” The words stuck in Dib’s throat, but he felt like he needed to say them anyway.

Predictably, Zim sniffed. 

“I did not ask for your human pity. Not all of our authority-units are so evolved as your father, to admit their mistakes.”

A small smile creeped onto Dib’s face. “You’re to that point, then. That they made a mistake.”

Zim waved off the heavy emotion that had seeped into the conversation. “Yes, yes, clearly. Any leader unable to acknowledge Zim’s greatness must obviously be at least a little compromised.” 

Dib slowed his pace to step in time with his rival, his friend, and kicked at a sharp rock in his path. It rattled down the trail ahead. “So? You still haven’t really told me what this has to do with me.” 

At this, Zim stopped short and turned to him, a devious grin lighting up his face. “For all my attempts to take over this planet, I haven’t actually seen much of it. I would like to believe that if I’m going to spend my future on this miserable rock, there has to be more of it than the dismal city we have both landed in. So,” he raised his eyes to meet Dib’s, “I’ll be making plans to explore more of its fascinating and horrifying crevices.”

Dib waited a beat for what was obviously, he hoped, coming next. 

Zim cleared his throat, antennae suddenly twitching. “And I was wondering. If you would want to come with me.”

“You just can’t stand to be away from me, huh?” Dib shoved his shoulder affectionately. 

Zim stiffened. “Silence! You know, I could have simply ordered you to. It was an act of great benevolence to measure your opinions on the matter first!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. I’ve been abducted before,” Dib reminded him. 

“What?” Zim looked around, a wild glint in his eyes. “Who’s been abducting you?!”

“You, idiot!”

Zim relaxed. “I see. I thought...well. No matter. We will need to start our preparations! The perplexing summer period approaches, and the child filth will be free from the schools.”

“...As will we.”

“Exactly! We must make our escape from this place soon!”

Dib finally let his excitement take over his face with a vibrant grin. “Alright then. Mission time, partner,” he said, holding out his hand to Zim. 

The alien’s gloved fingers tentatively gripped his. “Partner,” he sounded out slowly. “Yes.”

Chapter Text

The little rental car was packed to the brim, and Zim still didn’t have anything to wear. 

They would be departing this wretched city and driving up to the vast lands of Canada, the difference from their current region Zim could not really fathom based on internet research and photographs. His suitcases were overflowing with Gir’s slobbery nonsense and debris, various weapons, and all the things he thought humanity at large was too inept to provide: proper cleaning solutions, Pak maintenance supplies, comfortable pillows. 

But all the clothes he had were his Irken uniform and a handful of school clothes, selected to best blend in, out of haste and safety: worn jeans and bland t-shirts, gray sneakers. 

The longer he stared at the Irken Armada uniform, the more he hated it. 

Precisely because he didn’t hate it. 

The shoulder pads were striking and elegant. The pink and chrome were bold and arresting. The silhouette was sleek and intimidating. 

But no matter what he did, the outfit was steeped in memories and feelings he didn’t want clinging to him for the duration of the trip. Wearing it no longer made him feel commanding and dramatic, just small and inadequate, reminded of all the ways the Empire thought he would never be good enough. 

This was years in the making, of course, but he couldn’t deny it anymore, trying to shove the essential bits of his wardrobe and life into travel storage for the next several months. This uniform would no longer do. It didn’t suit him, or his purpose on Earth, and he needed to replace it. 

After his fourth attempt at ordering clothes on a wretched human website, Zim decided to admit defeat and ask one of his humans for assistance. No. Demand it.

The sizing was based, as far as he could tell, on either the most advanced and convoluted formula humans had ever devised, or absolutely nothing. The materials were unpredictable and low-quality. And the colors were never as bold as they promised to be. 

He shuddered. It was time to breach...the mall. 

“Dib!” he yelled, abruptly, interrupting his travel partner’s careful stocking of a large blue cooler. “My garments are not suited to this itinerary. I will require even more glorious clothes. We need to go shopping.” 

Dib stuck his head out from the cooler, cursing as the lid fell on top of his head. He had managed to shove enough Jello cups in there to last Gir a lifetime, or at least a particularly messy week. 

“Shopping? Not exactly my strong suit, but I think there’s a sale at CryptoTee…”

Zim narrowed his eyes. “This is the shop at which you procure your abhorrent shirts?” 

“Oh come on,” Dib defended, gesturing to his faded Mothman sweatshirt, “these are amazing!” 

Zim took in the entire sight of Dib with new, more critical eyes. Muddy work boots. Alien-themed shirt layered with the sweatshirt featuring a large flying creature with crimson eyes. That goddamn trench coat. 

Not that he’d admit it to his friend’s face, but the clothes did suit Dib. Nevertheless...perhaps he wasn’t the best mall companion. 

“Nevermind!” he announced, turning on his heel and striding into the house to bang on Gaz’s door. 

Zim and Gaz emerged from the horrible mall with a new wardrobe in tow, including several pairs of legging and comfortable pants (he was told they were “dance pants,” not that he intended to dance in them), several cropped shirts in acceptably bold colors, and two jackets. The first he’d been rather uncertain of— it was quite unlike Irken clothing, or anything he’d ever worn, a cream-colored cape coat that Gaz had settled dramatically on his shoulders without comment— but it was delightfully regal, striking, and he had, after all, wanted something new. The other was a dark red sweatshirt that read “100% Hu-man.” Something of a cover? Something of an inside joke?

He felt safer in it, somehow. And deep down, he was excited for Dib’s choked laughter when he saw it. 

Rental car, check. Trifold maps marked with paranormal activity notes, check. Gir’s car seat, check...wait. 

Dib dragged a hand down his face. The car seat had disappeared, along with its robot owner. Again.

He tried to make his voice as bright as possible as he called out, “I heard there’s some orange soda in it for the next robot to put the seatbelt back!”

“FANTA?” 

“Gotcha!” He trapped the robot in the (upgraded) seatbelt as Gir popped up from between the seats. 

“Awww, I’m a cargo.” 

“Yes,” he took a deep breath, “yes, you are.” 

Three microphones, two tape recorders, a mysterious briefcase, and several fat files stuffed with research later, the trunk was as packed as it could possibly be. The first leg of the trip was on the road, and they were taking advantage of all the extra space. 

“My Voot has superior traveling capacity,” Zim had sniffed, a few days before. 

“Hey, it was your idea to travel Earth. To learn about Earth. With Earth travel,” Dib reminded him.

Zim sighed. “Silence,” he’d admonished, stocking the glove compartment with spare disguises, but his heart wasn’t in it, a smile lurking at the edges of his mouth.

When he’d first seen the research equipment, Zim had stiffened. 

“This is our trip,” he said bluntly. 

Dib squinted at him. “...Yes?”

“Not Swollen Eyeball’s. Do your stupid alien research on your own time.” 

“This is my time, you tyrant. And this isn’t for them. It’s for...me. I’ve been thinking of doing my own research. You know, full creative control. And all.” He cleared his throat and awaited judgment. 

Zim peered at the stacks of research. When he was satisfied that none of it concerned him, he relaxed. “I applaud your authoritarian seizing of production, Dib-beast.” 

Finally. Finally it was time to go. Gir was practically shellacked into the car to keep him contained. The playlists were meticulously made, argued over, and remade. The white sedan was packed to bursting. Dib was prepared for anything. He was prepared for losing cell connection, for bear attacks, for any manner of cryptid or ghost, for running out of beef jerky and licorice strings, for Zim deciding mid-highway to return to terrorizing the planet. 

He was not prepared for the sight in front of him as Zim emerged from the truck with Gaz and slung his final bag into the passenger seat. 

Zim. In Earth clothes. 

No, that wasn’t right. Zim had worn plenty of human clothes. Plain, dependably shoddy and unobtrusive school outfits, blue jeans and hoodies. And hell, he’d seen Zim in the Irken Armada uniform, a flashy, form-fitting one piece. 

This was different. This was Zim in a crop top.

This was Zim, his friend, his travel buddy, his partner, in a not-school-approved and not-enemy-military outfit of flowy pants and a jewel-toned scoop neck top that cut off well above where his navel would be. 

“Are you ready to go, Dib-human?”

“Yep,” he choked out. If his voice cracked, he would never admit it. “Ready as ever.” 

Chapter Text

“You miserable little flesh sack. Zim cannot believe you would be so careless—”

“I’m not apologizing again, Zim. I’m cutting you off. I will give no more apologies. We are turning around, we are going to swing by Gaz and pick them up, it is fine. ”

“It is not fine! I have seen with my own superior eyes the results of you forgetting the little pill thingies! And now, ” Zim’s lip curled, “we must besmirch our journey with a detour to one of the most vile environments—”

Dib sighed. “It’s the pool, Zim. It’s not that bad.”

He absently turned up the radio in anticipation of Zim’s responding screech. 

He was met with his own dread, though, when he swung the car around into the public pool parking lot. God, why did Gaz have to work here, of all places? Somehow, though he hated to admit it, she had the ability to keep an eye out for drowning idiots and keep her high scores. At the same time. Unfortunately, in addition to the truck he was letting her use while he was gone, the lot was also packed with the cars of plenty of people he didn’t really want to run into. Like, ever again.

He made sure to activate the child locks to keep Gir safe in the car while Zim squinted at the entrance to the pool with a hilariously sour expression. Sure enough, when they stepped onto the hot, shiny cement of the pool deck, Gaz waved at them nonchalantly from the lifeguard tower.

Zim’s affronted gaze zeroed in on the puddles of chemical-smelling pool water that stood between him and where Gaz sat. Dib calculated for a moment, took a deep breath, and made a decision he might regret. Hoisting a squirming and protesting Zim over his shoulder, he could swear he caught a smirk from beneath Gaz’s sun visor. 

If he didn’t know better, he’d say she swiped the pill bottle from his bag.

“Well, if it isn’t my dumbass brother and his pet alien,” she called out in an uncharacteristically cheerful tone. 

Oh, she definitely orchestrated this on purpose. 

Zim stepped quickly away from Dib as soon as his feet hit the ground, almost careening into a striped umbrella. He made a show of brushing any stray contaminants off his clothes.

“Gaz-sister, we have come to obtain the medications, and then we will be on our way. As we should have been,” he said with a glare aimed at Dib, “approximately 24 Earth minutes ago.” 

Dib rolled his eyes. “Just toss me the bottle so we can go, yeah?”

Gaz shrugged noncommittally and grunted, but 17 years of experience told him she was up to something, even if her expression looked as uninterested as ever. 

“ Gaz. ” 

“What? It’s in my bag. I obviously can’t leave my station until shift change, so you nerds will just have to wait.” 

“Oh my god, just tell me where it is and I will get it and we can get out of here.”

He glanced at Zim to find his friend warily eyeing an unwelcome, if familiar, group of kids from their high school. Great. 

Gaz followed his gaze but said nothing. 

Dib groaned. “Please?” he mumbled. 

She rolled her eyes. “What am I, Dad-bot? And no, it’s in my locker and I’m not giving you the combination. Shift change is in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. Ten minutes was fine. Well, no, actually, ten minutes might be a little long to leave Gir in a hot car. Ten minutes might be enough time to…

He looked up. Shit. Enough time to lose Zim. In a filthy, crowded public location. Where the hell had he gone?

An obnoxious voice broke through his train of thought. “Lose your lizard boyfriend, Dib? You should keep him in a cage.” 

Ugh. Terrance was busy smushing the remains of a child’s ice cream sandwich under his toes. “I see you’re having a fully enriching post-graduate experience.” 

“Ew, whatever, Professor Junior,” his girlfriend piped up from behind him. “Anyway, you’re just as stuck here as the rest of us. Face it, your life is pathetic.” 

Dib sucked in a breath. He tried to remember what his therapist would tell him. Don’t engage. Let it roll off you like a...like a duck. God, that was dumb. But it was kind of working. 

They were still leering at him with knowing smirks, ready for his hysteria, his breakdown, the moment he cracked and started arguing back. 

This time, he wasn’t going to give it to them. 

“Actually, I’m on my way out of town. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Dib sidestepped the melted ice cream mess as neatly as he could and headed into the locker room to search for Zim. Maybe he’d tried to pry open Gaz’s locker, or something. 

He was not prepared for the scene he found when he stepped into the building. 

Zim was in a fighting stance, back to the wall of lockers and eyes locked on a target: a scrawny preteen boy brandishing a bright orange water gun. 

“Zim will not be cast into your prison pod, you little maggot! I have plans! Why does no one respect Zim’s schedule?!” he trailed off into disgruntled mumbling. 

“Jesus, I just want to get by without being attacked,” the kid grumbled. “All I asked was if you had any cool podcast recommendations.” He nodded some of the gear poking out of Zim’s Pak. “Thought you were listening to—”

“Silence!” Zim cut him off. “Stop looking at Zim! Take your horrifying water weapon and go.” 

The kid scurried back out to the pool, and Dib’s eyes landed on a stealthy figure lurking in the corner. The second he met her eyes, Gaz burst into laughter. 

He leveled a stare at her. “The pool, Gaz? Really? It had to be the pool.” 

“Priceless,” she told him, back to her usual monotone. “Now I believe I owe you some pretty little pills.” 

“Yes,” Zim hissed, “get your stupid pills and let’s get out of here. Gir is probably a liquid at this point. And let’s hope he hasn’t gotten into the cooler.” 

Dib shuddered. He caught the translucent orange bottle his sister tossed at him more gracefully than he expected to, and grinned. 

“Well, little sister, guess you got one last goodbye out of us.” 

Gaz scowled at him. “That is not what happened here."

“Isn’t it, though?”

He pulled her into a quick hug and began to herd Zim out the door in front of him, back towards the parking lot. 

“Just keep telling yourself that,” she grumbled, but returned his hug all the same.

Chapter Text

“That sign says to Seattle!”

“Yup,” Dib replied, popping the P with a smack he knew would annoy the crap out of Zim. 

Zim glared at him. “We are not going to a city full of,” he shuddered, “ rain and drip coffee ”. 

Dib couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore and snorted. 

“No, we’re just following the signs north, dummy.” He paused. “Bet you’d like the Space Needle, though.” 

“Hmm.” Zim aimed a thoughtful expression at the next blurred green sign. “I shall have to research and reconsider this Space Needle. It sounds...intriguing.” 

“Okay, but I’m not letting you try to wreck something with it. I really don’t want to get banned from Washington. There are so many cryptids there! Sasquatch, Batsquatch, some wild octopus things—”

“Enough! Zim gets the picture.”

Dib was trying very hard not to think of Zim’s wrinkled nose as adorable. He cleared his throat. 

“So. Ah. North. We’re driving north. To Canada. Up and then across, to the East Coast.”

“That’s the other end of this dismal land mass, yes?”

“Man, you really did not do well in geography, huh? Yeah. The Atlantic.”

Zim opened his mouth, and Dib cut him off before he could even start. 

“I promise, we are flying over the oceans. No boats, no drowning, no water. Just good old fashioned aircraft. Swear on my new camera.”

“I have destroyed many of your cameras.” 

“Okay, then, smartass, swear on Gaz.” 

“Zim finds this acceptable.” 

They drove a few more miles in comfortable silence before Dib spoke again.

“So, do you actually know anything about Canada?”

“Of course!” Zim thought for a few moments. “It is...cold. There are megafauna like Minimoose but much, much more powerful, which is of particular interest to me. And,” he perked up, “it is the homeplace of maple syrup!” 

Dib bit back a smile. “Okay, not as far off as I thought you’d be. It probably won’t be too cold in the summer, but it won’t be super hot, either. There...there, uh, are moose, but I doubt they’re as cool as Minimoose.” 

“Why must you dash my dreams?”

“Hey, listen, he’s a cool little dude. He’s hard to beat! Anyway, you’re spot on with the maple syrup.”

“I told you I knew things! You never listen to me!”

“I always listen to you! I just don’t always agree. Anyway, I’m impressed. You actually did your research.”

Zim beamed. “Of course. I would not allow my...you and Gir to travel into unknown territory unprepared.”

* * *

They’d been winding through the Oregon wilderness for a while when Dib decided to drop a ridiculous bomb in the middle of their pleasant journey. 

“So...I’ve been thinking, about the kid at the pool?”

Zim scoffed. “Why? He was a miserable little cretin armed with a water gun. A water gun, Dib.” 

“No, not that. He mentioned podcasts.” 

Zim chose his next words carefully. He would not appear uninformed, ignorant. But…

“I must admit I am not as familiar with this strange technology as I could be.” 

“You don’t know what a podcast is.”

“Silence! I am simply rusty and demand a refresher on the qualities of such a concept.” 

“Right. A podcast is a...it’s a show, but audio. Like radio except on the internet. They’re usually made by regular people, unlike TV, so like, anyone can talk about whatever their weird interests are. Birdwatching, cooking, serial killers…”

Zim could see, unfortunately, where this was going. “...paranormal activity,” he finished. 

Dib’s face flushed. “Well, yeah.” 

Zim tried to stop the nausea rising in his throat. “You want to broadcast it. This trip.”

Dib grinned, and it made Zim’s stomach clench. “Yeah! I thought it could be fun. You know, part travelogue, part documentary.”

Dib wasn’t understanding. What if...no, he wouldn’t do that. He’s just being stupid. Zim let some of the alarm seep into his voice. He’d been trying to be more accommodating, less...extreme, but suddenly this felt like a very extreme situation. 

“You want to broadcast this trip. To your gross research buddies. This trip.” 

Dib’s tone took on frustration as he glanced from the map on his phone to the road ahead. “Yes, Zim, that’s exactly what I just said, I would like to make a podcast of this trip.” 

Zim dragged a hand down his face and felt on the edge of hysteria. What if he’s doing exactly what you’re afraid he’s doing? No! Zim isn’t afraid!

His voice sounded unsteady as he tried to make his point one more time. “You want to make a record of this trip. For your alien-hunting friends. You want to put it on the…” he swallowed hard, “the internet, all your evidence, of this trip with me.” 

He turned to stare at his friend now. All at once, Dib’s face drained of color as he caught on. 

“Whoa. Whoa. Hold on.” The car swerved as he pulled over to the shoulder of the sleepy country highway. 

Dib twisted to face Zim as best he could from the driver’s seat.

“Okay, first of all, now that I’m realizing how that sounds, I want to say I’m actually really proud of you for not freaking out more.”

“Freaking out? Zim does not ‘freak out’!” Zim looked stubbornly at the knobs on the dashboard. This whole day was not going how he’d wanted. He’d wanted...what had he wanted?

Whatever it was, the concerned look on Dib’s face, like Zim was fragile or volatile, wasn’t it. He liked it when Dib looked at him like... what? That wasn’t the point. He scowled. 

“No, listen. Zim. I’m not trying to document you.” 

Zim kept his eyes trained on the speedometer and was startled by the cold of Dib’s fingers under his chin. Despite the conversation at hand, he didn’t flinch. 

“Look at me.” 

He forced himself to meet Dib’s eyes, and was startled by their warmth. Not the eyes of an enemy. The eyes of...of his best friend.

“I’m not trying to document you. I mean, I can’t promise I would never mention you, but I guess if you want me to not do that then I won’t. You’re right. This is our trip. I thought…” he took a deep breath and set his shoulders. “I thought this would give me an outlet for all my research bullshit so that I wouldn’t drive you nuts with it. And I thought your comments might be, I don’t know, a nice addition. Give some perspective. You’re funny, Zim. No one is going to want to listen to me ramble from here to the other side of the world about whatever we find. I…”

Zim felt the coldness in his chest thaw as his friend rambled on. This was the Dib he’d come to know and...respect. Tolerate. No, that wasn’t right. Choose. This was the Dib he’d chosen. 

“I want to do this for myself, and for who we’ve become. Not for Eyeball and some elitist hacks telling me I’m not living up to my potential as an agent. And not to prove my dad and everyone else wrong. Just for fun. For the investigation. And, you know, to document our trip. Together.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, and thought. 

“No cameras?”

“No cameras. Just audio.”

“Nothing about Zim being an alien.”

“Nothing.”

“And...you will value Zim’s input? Even when it...differs from your own?

Dib grinned at him. “Absolutely. Actually, I’m counting on it. Co-hosts are always better than one dude rambling. Especially if they don’t always agree.”

Zim nodded at him, slowly. “Alright, Dib-friend. We will make one of these so-called castpods.”

“Podcast.” 

“Whatever! Silence! I have agreed to your terms. We drive now.” 

Zim was pretty sure his face was flushed, and he wanted Dib’s eyes back on the road immediately. 

* * *

“How? How did he get out? I designed that latch myself!” Dib stumbled out of the car and shook out his legs. They were starting to fall asleep. 

“Hah! Even the most chaotic of Irken technology is superior to your security efforts!”

“Hey, you lost him at the last bathroom stop!”

Zim’s smug look fell a bit, but he shot back, “And you told me you could handle it.” 

Dib sighed. “Yeah, yeah, clearly I underestimated him. Again.”

Zim squinted into the tinted windows of a dusty hatchback parked next to them and shook his head. “You check inside the Quik Mart, and I will scan the woods over here.”

“Yep.” Dib saluted his friend as he stepped into the convenience store attached to the gas station. Might as well take his bathroom break while he was in here.

Unfortunately, Gir wasn’t hiding in the toilet. He also wasn’t racing up and down the snack aisles, assaulting the cashier, or hanging from the ceiling. Which was great for the integrity of the Quik Mart, and horrible for Dib and Zim. 

He pushed open the door and stepped back out into the muggy late afternoon. 

“No luck here!”

Zim frowned, retracting some sort of scanner into his Pak. “He isn’t in the woods, either.”

Zim leaned against the door of the car and shouted, his voice shrill. “GIR! Get back here!”

Nothing.

“I command it! As your master! You must report to me!”

They waited another moment. 

“Let me try a different tactic. GIR! I was just in the store and got some Gatorade!”

Somehow, the parking lot was even more silent and empty than it had been when they got here. 

“Damn. I thought for sure that’d work. He usually can’t resist the temptation of sticky sugary things.” 

Zim opened his eyes wide. “Wait a minute.”

“You know where he is?”

“Zim suspects…” he trailed off as he crouched to the ground and stuck his head under the car. 

“Gir! What are you doing under there?”

“I’m gonna check out the engine!” came a gleeful, if muffled voice from underneath the car.

Dib bent over and caught sight of a chrome appendage. “No, you aren’t!”

He had enough experience now to expect the powerful kicking and wailing that came in response. 

They had this down to a science, now. Zim grabbed the modified car seat with his Pak legs while he reached with his arms to clamp down on Gir’s mouth and muffle the screaming. Dib kept his grip on the robot’s body and shoved him quickly into the seat. He held him there as Zim’s Pak legs screwed the latch closed.

Dib leaned forward to inspect the seat. It had started out looking like a run of the mill toddler seat, but with every modification they made it began to look more and more like a tiny straitjacket. 

“Ah. There’s a loose bolt here.”

Zim wordlessly handed him the wrench that sat in the center console of the car, and he secured it so that Gir was tightly in place. Then, for good measure, he buckled the whole thing in with the seatbelt. 

He glanced up at Zim, lips quirking into a smile. For all the chaos, Zim looked remarkably relaxed. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, yes, Zim was ready 72 seconds ago! Get in and drive, slowpoke.” 

“At your service,” Dib said with mock seriousness, knocking his shoulder against Zim’s. 

* * *

“You know,” Zim said as Dib flicked his brights on to illuminate the endless highway darkness, “Zim knows a fair bit about, ah...what did you call it? Wasted potential. ” 

Dib glanced at him. “Oh?”

Zim fiddled with the air conditioning knob. “If you ever required someone to talk about it with. As I’m aware your feeble species often needs to process excess emotions. And it would be very inconvenient for me if you were to be at suboptimal functioning.”

Dib’s smile was just barely visible in the glow of the dashboard controls. “Aww, you care about me.” 

Zim straightened in his seat. “That is hardly news, Dib.” 

Dib laughed softly. “No, I guess not.” 

Zim cleared his throat. 

“Oh. Yeah. I mean...right now I’m kinda sleepy. But yeah, I might...we could...thanks, Zim.” 

“You are welcome.” You are always welcome. 

Chapter Text

“What was that sound?” Zim glanced around the car suspiciously. 

Dib cracked his neck again. “That sound?”

Zim stared at him. Beneath the expression of horror, Dib was pretty sure there was some concern written there. Well, or murder. Really, with Zim, who could tell the difference?

“I command you to never do that with your body again.” 

“It’s not something I can control!” Dib protested. “Well, sort of. Anyway, I’ve had a crick in my neck for the past—” he glanced at the dashboard, “—15 miles, or so?”

“How exactly do I make it go away so that that disgusting sound never assaults me again?”

“I’ll never give up my secrets!”

“You are driving me insane.”

“You’re already insane. Besides, that’s the best part.”

Dib cracked his neck again in the other direction, then stifled a yawn. “I should probably stop and sleep sometime, though. It’s pretty dark out here, anyway.”

“I told you, Zim can drive if your feeble human frame needs rest.” 

Dib thought back to the last time he’d seen Zim behind the wheel of the car. Driving the wrong way down his street, like a maniac, swerving in and out of lanes…

“Yeah, something tells me I’m not going to get much sleep if that happens. Let’s just find a motel or something.” 

* * *

The sign for the Evergreen Inn was faded and nearly falling off its post, and Dib was pretty sure if anyone touched it they would get a handful of splinters. Nevertheless, it advertised free wifi, looked relatively unhaunted, and had room vacancies without looking completely abandoned. 

It was perfect. 

As he swung the car around into the quiet lot, he realized just how much he wanted to collapse onto a creaky old mattress and get some rest. They’d been driving a long time, and even Gir had eventually conked out in the back seat, though Dib wasn’t sure exactly why or how.

He tossed Zim the keys—probably a grave mistake, but the risk assessment part of his brain had shut down several hours ago. Besides, he felt in his gut that Zim wouldn’t ditch him here. Things were...different, now. Something had shifted, slowly and permanently. They were in this together. 

“I’m gonna go get a room. There’s cash for the vending machine in the glove compartment.”

Zim had bolted for the machine, demanding it "release its sugary riches to him immediately, or else," before Dib could even ask his friend to grab him a soda. 

Whatever. Too late for caffeine, anyway. He stretched his arms above his head and headed into the small, shabby motel office. 

“‘Sup,” said the scrawny teenage cashier behind the desk. “Ya need a room?”

“Yep,” Dib replied, suddenly aware of how thick and bleary his voice sounded. “One’s good.” 

“Cash or card?”

Dib slid his debit card across the counter in reply. A moment later, he held the key to a room on the corner of the building. 

Not for the first time, he found himself jealous of Zim’s ability to go for days on end without rest. He crossed the lot, glancing around for his friend, but didn’t see him anywhere. Eh, he probably hadn’t gone far. He pushed open the heavy door and collapsed on the thin comforter of the bed. 

He waited a moment for sleep to take over. And another. And another. 

Of course, now that he was here, with a quiet room and a passable mattress, Dib couldn’t sleep. 

He sighed and picked up the remote, flicking on the ancient TV and idly clicking through channels. News, infomercial, bad zombie flick. Ugh, they always got the facts so wrong. He settled on the droning background noise of some shopping channel, hoping it would bore him to sleep in a few minutes. 

Creak. What was...was that the door opening? Dib shot up and tried in vain to look intimidating.

Zim held out a finger gun and imitated shooting him. “Bam. You’re dead.”

“Zim! What are you doing here?”

“I got bored in the car.”

“You don’t...I mean, you don’t sleep, right?”

“No, Dib-silly, I do not require the practice of becoming vulnerable and unconscious every day cycle. My Pak takes care of recalibration for me.”

“Right.” Dib had a feeling Zim hadn’t gotten to the point with his insults.

“But Zim does occasionally enjoy the well-deserved luxury of taking a break from tedious cognitive functions.”

Dib blinked slowly, taking a moment to comprehend. “You like naps.”

Zim’s nose wrinkled at the no-frills simplification, but he didn’t argue. 

“Well, I didn’t know that. So I only got one room. Sorry.”

“Why would you bother to spend your stupid Earth money on more than one rest cubicle?”

Dib stopped short. Zim was still standing in the doorway. “I mean, there’s only one bed in here.”

Zim looked at him, completely unperturbed. “So?”

Oh, this was one of those things. 

“Zim, usually people don’t share a bed unless they...I mean...like, you...I…” This wasn’t coming out the way he wanted. Actually, it wasn’t coming out at all. 

Zim’s red eyes, glowing faintly in the dim room, narrowed. “I thought we had established a level of trust. Have you been lying to me?”

“No, that’s not what this is...I don’t…” It was late. “Where’s Gir, anyway?”

He was pretty sure he couldn’t dodge this explanation forever, but the question did shift the conversation for the moment.

“I put him on standby mode for the time being. He was threatening to put car oil on a pizza. Neither of which we have.” 

“I mean, I sure hope we have one of those things.”

Abruptly, Zim tossed a bag into the room and closed the door behind him. “You forgot your sleep clothes.”

“Oh, uh, thanks. I was just gonna pass out. But...yeah.”

“What would you do without Zim?”

“Get some peace and quiet and sleep?”

“Nonsense. You would be dead.”

“I’m...too tired to even begin to unpack that.”

Zim nodded at him impatiently. “So, put on your sleep clothes and sleep.”

Dib snorted. “It doesn’t work that way. You don’t just...lay down and go to sleep. Voluntarily, I mean. At least, not for me.”

“That’s ridiculously inefficient.”

“I know, tell me about it.”

“Why would I tell you about it? I just told you.”

Dib rolled his eyes. Derogatorily. Not affectionately. No matter what his traitorous expression might be saying. Not that Zim would get the nuance. “Never mind.” 

He pulled a clean t-shirt and some boxers out of his duffel bag. “Alright, turn around.”

“Why would I turn around? Are you plotting something?”

“No, stupid, I need to change into my pajamas.”

“What does this have to do with Zim turning around?”

“Don’t be dense. You went to school for like eight years. People don’t change in front of each other unless it’s gym class, and that’s borderline torture. Or they’re like, family, I guess, but…”

“Zim knows of this stupid self-conscious tendency. What I meant was, we’ve been rivals for a long time. We’ve spied on each other for years. Why would I start this ridiculous modesty ritual now?”

Dib’s face was definitely turning red now. “You...wait…” He thought of all the times he’d sat outside Zim’s house with binoculars, seeing all kinds of unguarded moments. “You know what? Fair enough.” 

He was still hyper aware of Zim’s eyes on him as he yanked his shirt over his head. It wasn’t as uncomfortable a feeling as he thought it might be. 

* * *

Zim found himself unexpectedly relieved that Gaz had suggested he buy some kind of pajamas. Clad in a shiny dark red shirt with a collar and buttons, which hung past his knees, he felt strangely more equipped for the situation at hand. 

No. Of course. Zim was nothing if not prepared. Unfamiliar encounters were no threat to him!

The silky fabric swooshed around his legs as he climbed onto the mattress beside Dib.

“Nice nightgown.” 

“Is this one of those stupid insults about your weird human gender? Gaz assured me—”

“First of all, never trust Gaz. She might be right, but she doesn't give a shit if you get made fun of. Secondly, nah, it’s actually...um...it suits you.”

Zim made no attempt to hide his pride. “Of course it does!”

Dib glared at him.

“But uh, thank you.” 

His friend’s expression softened. 

Friend. It didn’t feel as strange as he thought it would, to finally call someone on this planet a friend. 

Well, not anyone on this planet. But this was Dib. It made more sense than he’d like to admit.

Zim glanced at the television. An older woman with too much blue eyeshadow was espousing the many merits of some kind of handheld whirring blade device. Hmm. It was an intriguing weapon. Though he wasn’t sure why her target of choice was a bowl of root vegetables. 

“Oh,” Dib said groggily, “I just had that on as background noise. We can watch something else. If you want.”

Zim looked at Dib. He really did look exhausted. That was unacceptable. 

“I thought you were going to get some rest.”

“I will! I mean, now you’re here, and I’m up, and…”

“You do not want to sleep while I am here?” Dib had alluded to this baffling idea earlier. 

“No, no, I just...I usually don’t sleep around anyone except Gaz. It’s weird.”

“If it eases your idiotic mind, Zim has watched you sleep many times before.”

“Zim!”

“What? I thought we were being honest with each other.”

Dib sighed. “That does not, in fact, make me feel better, but uh, thanks I guess?”

“I don’t understand what the problem is.”

Dib leaned against the pillow behind him. “There’s not a problem, exactly. It’s just a...another custom thing. Usually people only sleep in the same room or bed with someone they’re... very close with.”

“I am already very close. I am right here.”

“I know you know what I mean.” 

Zim thought about it. “Okay, okay. But...who else are you close to, if not Zim?”

“Jesus, what a question. Yeah. That’s not really...no one, okay? It’s just...new.”

This, Zim understood. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

* * *

Dib had not expected this to be Zim’s TV choice. He’d thought maybe a B-side horror, or true crime, or...something at least moderately grisly. 

Not reruns of Full House. 

“It’s a fascinating insight into a part of Earth culture I have not yet witnessed!” Zim insisted as Dib pelted him with Skittles. “Stop that! You’re wasting them!”

“Oh please, you have definitely eaten food off of worse surfaces than your own pillowcase.”

Zim stuck his tongue out at him, and it was colored bright yellow from the candy. He tried not to think too hard about that. 

Actually, he’d been trying pretty hard not to think about Zim’s body for the last four episodes. Every time Zim laughed, he settled in slightly closer on the bed to Dib’s side. 

Dib wasn’t moving because he didn’t want to offend Zim. Yep, that’s exactly what he was doing. He was staying put in the interest of not making Zim think that he didn’t trust him, or didn’t want to be here, or...or...it didn’t matter. 

He most certainly was not staying put because it was actually very, very pleasant to have a giggly Zim pressed against him. 

This defense looked pretty flimsy even to himself, though, when a siren went by on a distant highway outside and Zim jumped in surprise, landing mostly in Dib’s lap. 

Zim didn’t make any move to change this. 

Oh for Christ’s sake. 

“Uh, Zim?”

“Yes?”

“You’re kind of on top of me.”

Zim twisted his head to look at him with large ruby eyes.

“Is this a problem?”

Oh. Okay.

“Uh, I guess not. If it’s...if you don’t…”

“Is your decreased ability to communicate due to your lack of sleep?”

This was going to kill Dib, actually.

“Yep. That’s. Yeah.”

“Then it seems to be getting worse, and you should definitely try harder to be unconscious.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Zim rolled his eyes. “So that we can continue our journey in the morning, stupid.”

“You’re stupid.”

“You’re stupider.”

“Whatever.” 

Well, if Zim wasn’t going anywhere, Dib decided, he might as well get more comfortable. If that meant his arms were around Zim’s waist and his chin was resting on top of his friend’s head, so be it.

It wasn’t long after that before he drifted off. 

* * *

Dib’s unconscious form should be disgusting.

He was—completely vulnerable. Weak. Exposed. Such a display of fragility should have been horrifyingly inferior.

It wasn’t. It was...something else.

His bangs were plastered to his forehead and his arms were still outstretched to the spot where Zim had sat before he’d wriggled away to check on a dormant Gir. He was slumped down further in bed, and his eyes were closed, and Zim had never realized that his eyelashes were so long.

There was absolutely no tactical reason for him to ever have noticed such a thing. But here he was, anyway, noticing it. 

No matter. No one could dare question the mighty Zim. Not even...not even Zim himself. 

After a moment of hesitation that he wouldn’t admit to if interrogated, Zim squirmed back into the spot he’d abandoned, underneath one of Dib’s sprawled arms. 

The slow, steady rhythm of his friend’s breathing reminded him of a Pak’s low, measured hum. 

He closed his eyes, and if his antennae brushed against the spot where Dib’s eyelashes grazed his cheek, well then it had and no one would dare challenge him over it. 

Chapter Text

As far as Zim could tell, this method of transportation was neither efficient nor particularly charming. They had to stop for fuel at inopportune intervals. The car was on loan, and thus had to be kept out of any and all destructive excitement. 

He supposed it was at least interesting to see the landscape blur by: wet, green forests and sharp, high mountains capped with snow giving way to wide plains and prairies, the occasional city rising from the horizon. He found those rather drab, for the most part. The little dining establishments and sleeping accommodations they stopped at were strangely peaceful, but he was antsy to get to the other side— the “East Coast”. 

He was sure that there must be something more intriguing hiding behind the vast stretches of land they had traveled the past week or so, but Dib seemed insistent on getting as far away from where they’d started as he could, and Zim was uncharacteristically unwilling to complain. He’d seen so much of the city they’d grown up in, spent far too long marinating in a singular population and societal footprint on this wide planet. He wanted to make up for it somehow, all the disgusting and dismal things he’d seen. He found himself, reluctantly, wanting to give Earth some kind of chance. 

No , he thought. That was ridiculous. He was just resigned to being trapped here. Or, no, he wanted more interesting fodder for his experiments. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted. 

He was sure that with every mile they scaled, Dib seemed to be more excited about what lay ahead and less concerned about the responsibilities and detractors he was leaving behind. Check-ins with his father-unit had started out at a reckless 0, quickly scaled to many times a day, and gradually evened out to a respectable and comfortable daily check in. He had finally stopped checking all his infuriatingly vapid little profiles on all those cryptid sites. At a rest stop with a view of a deeply unsettling sky and several barns in Saskatchewan, the camera came out of its locked case and Zim was pleasantly surprised when Dib pressed it into his clawed hands, told him to take a picture. He took several, of the eerily purple sunset, the dilapidated buildings. Not the most majestic sight, but...striking. Somehow. 

But there was one thing still nagging at the back of his mind, and no matter how many quiet hours they passed listening to Gir’s mechanical snores, he could not let it go. 

Just one more little question would be okay. 

“Okay, but how did you acquire the spelling of the name to put on the―”

“Zim!” Dib cut him off, exasperated. “I told you, okay, it was just...research, for...I mean, there was no way you could travel out of the country with no documentation of your, like, existence. Crossing the border was weird enough as it was.” 

They both shared a moment of silence, thinking back to the officer’s perplexed expression as they struggled to explain why their “dog” was attempting to turn them in for smuggling “pizza and feelings.” 

Zim sighed and rapped his clawed nails against the dashboard. “Zim knows this. Not every bureaucratic institution on this planet is as flawed and useless as our school was. But you’re still dodging the questions I actually ask.”

“Why does it matter? I took care of it.”

The growing sense of panic finally snapped in Zim’s brain, the calm they’d shared for days suddenly electrified as he whipped around in the passenger seat to face Dib. 

“Because it does, Dib-idiot! Because that’s my name, and my history, my language, my forged identity, and you clearly must have given it to someone else, and you won’t even tell me who, or when, or how!”

He was startled to find that his voice hadn’t entered that frantic, hysterical register in some time, and it made him sound raspy, desperate. 

Not for the first time on the trip, Dib slowed and pulled over on the gravelly highway shoulder. 

He groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “It was me! I did it. There. Are you happy? I knew you wouldn’t want some wannabe counterfeiter sorting through your stuff and I also knew you’d have a field day with it if you knew I spent the godforsaken time and energy to learn how to forge a bunch of documents for an alien who was supposed to be my stupid nemesis so we could go on this stupid fucking trip!”

Zim stared at him. 

“Well?” Dib threw up his hands. “Go ahead! Have your field day! Dib is a terrible world-defender and a world-class idiot. Dib is probably on two new FBI watchlists. Dib…”

“Dib is an amazing and badass friend”. The words left Zim’s mouth before he had the chance to think about them, so there was no choice now but to roll with it. “Dib, that is... cool. You became an international criminal!?”

Yep, Dib thought, knowing his face must be turning bright red, I became an international criminal. For you. 

“Shut up and be annoying again,” is what he said instead. 

“No.” 

“Please?”

“Never.” 

“You’re being a scoundrel.”

“Gir, listen to that! What a lovely compliment.”

“Ugh, you―wait, are you doing what I want or not? You—!” 

Dib wasn’t sure when their argument evolved into screeches, or when that turned to laughter. 

He just knew that by the time they pulled into the motel they’d booked in Newfoundland, his ribs hurt as he gulped in the fresh air through his open window and he didn’t really mind. 

“Hello, listeners, and welcome to the first show from Planet Detour, a paranormal activity podcast hosted by yours truly, Dib Membrane aka Agent Mothman, and―”

“ZIM. ZIM IS HERE.”

“—Hold your horses, I was getting to that―

“Zim has no horses to hold, Dib-beast! We are in a car—”

“And Zim, my insistently literal, eternally annoying cohost and travel partner. Zim, say hi properly.” 

“I am Zim! Humans—I mean, uh, we― are woefully ignorant of the deeply disturbing world we inhabit and most paranormal research is stupid! Get ready to experience the real―”

“Thank you, Zim! That about covers it. If you don’t know me, I’ve been obsessed with the paranormal since before I could walk, and I’ve decided to take research into my own hands. Zim is here as an aggressively oppositional party to bounce ideas off of, be funny, and yell at me if we get in too deep!”

“You did not say anything about getting in deep anywhere, Dib―”

“This week, we’re here in the historically haunting and haunted province of Newfoundland, and I am dying to know what’s up with the local Nessie impersonator, Cressie! These days, almost every region has their own legend of a beloved water monster, but how do we sort out which ones are true and which ones are jumping on the bandwagon for tourism clout and cash? Today I’ll be interviewing local Cressie enthusiasts…”

Dib switched off the recording. “Sweet! I think this is a really good start. I mean, obviously, I’ll need to do some editing...probably add some soundscaping…”

Zim’s eye twitched. “This couldn’t have waited until we were dry ?” 

Dib forced himself out of his flurry of podcast plans and glanced around. “Ah. Right.” 

They were soaked in lake water, the debris from their illuminating encounter with the beast known as Cressie littering the beach. It turned out that it was the naming convention that was a grab for attention, not the claims. The Crescent Lake creature was real, and she was not happy to be disturbed by Dib’s experimental sonic technology. The irritating pair of locals was thrilled. Dib was thrilled. Zim was damp, and crabby, and ready to put on his soft sweatshirt and curl up for a nap. 

He wouldn’t go so far as to say he hadn’t enjoyed playing the hysterical pragmatist to Dib’s incessant cryptid hunter, but he’d had enough of the ocean for one day. 

Nevertheless, when Dib flashed him a sheepish smile, he couldn’t help but drop his scowl to beam at his friend. Just a little. 

“Alright,” Dib agreed, “let’s go home.” 

Zim stopped himself before pointing out the frustratingly un-literal phrasing. Of course they wouldn’t be going “home” home. Whatever that actually meant. But he found he didn’t mind referring, in the interim, to whatever rented room they were crashing in for the night as home. 

“Yes. Drive Zim―” 

He stopped short as he opened the door to the car. 

No. No, no, no. This had been a surprisingly bearable day but this―

“GIR,” he tried to seethe but wound up at more of a wail, “how could you—”

“Hey bud, what’s wrong—ooh. Yikes.” Dib caught a glimpse of the damage from over his shoulder. 

Gir sat, dripping in dark, sticky popsicle juice, on top of Zim’s new, soft, glorious red sweatshirt. The 100% Hu-man one. Bold. Comforting. Fleece. Ruined.

After the shock had run through him, Zim deflated a little bit and climbed into the passenger seat. “Destroy my jacket and blow my cover. Little bastard.” 

Dib snorted out a surprised laugh. “I probably shouldn’t have taught you that word, huh? But hey, listen—” his voice was soft, which should have been condescending, annoying, but wasn’t— “Don’t worry about it too much. Gaz has waged sibling warfare on some of my best shirts. I can definitely get it out as soon as we get to a store that carries stain remover.” 

He paused, and Zim felt his eyes lingering on him for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw hesitation flash across his friend’s face. Then decision, and then reached into the back and pulled out one of his own sweatshirts, black with an outline of Mothman. 

“And in the meantime, you can borrow mine?”

Zim sniffed. “I bet it’s stinky,” he retorted, but took the bundle of cozy, worn fabric in his arms anyway. 

By the time they pulled into their parking spot at the motel, he was wrapped in the jacket with the long sleeves pulled down over his hands. 

He followed Dib into the room and collapsed into the armchair by the window. 

This was...not an unacceptable turn of events. 

It was early morning, far earlier than he usually woke, when Dib felt a slight disturbance on the mattress and turned over to find Zim missing from the bed. That wasn’t strange. Zim didn’t technically need sleep, and often clambered out of bed at all times of the night to tinker on his many mechanical projects or play with Gir. 

Nevertheless, something about this morning prompted Dib to sit up groggily in bed, shove his feet into his cow slippers discarded on the carpeted floor. Maybe it was the light, an unusually bright dawn over the water. Maybe it was the eerie quiet. They’d moved on to a motel nearby some abandoned fishing towns, thinking if anywhere held untold secrets or skittering creatures, it was the weather-worn wood and collapsing structures of the old villages. 

Dib let his mind wander as he put on the little portable coffee pot. Something about this leg of the trip had felt like a dream. Not one of his nightmares about Florpus or becoming a scientist automaton or something, but a weird, meandering dream where he could say anything and the limits of regular life seemed far away and hazy. 

He really, really hoped that vibe kept going. 

He and Zim had still been bickering but comfortably, their arguments more often than not dissolving into laughter or utter nonsense. He’d gotten to chase a lake monster across the beach with friendly, supportive people, laughing, without worrying about cameras or proof. It didn’t matter. Suddenly, none of it mattered. People would listen to the podcast or they wouldn’t. If they did, they could believe him or not. They’d get plenty of well-considered thoughts on the history, etymology, and cultural standing of Cressie and her Scottish namesake, either way. 

He felt a little bit like he was floating. 

The room was filled with the smell of fresh coffee, and he poured some into a kitschy mug he’d picked up in Ontario and shuffled out the door. 

There, at the edge of the rocks, surprisingly close to the water, sat Zim. His knees were pulled up inside Dib’s sweatshirt, which he’d quietly kept and added to his clothing rotation even after they’d cleaned his other one. 

Dib crossed the parking lot and sat down to join him. He couldn’t resist an annoying poke to Zim’s side, but it was only met with a half-hearted squirm and a hand batting his finger away. 

“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked as he crossed his legs, blowing on his coffee. 

Zim pointed a long, weirdly graceful finger at the houses, coated in faded and flaking paint in buttery yellows and schoolhouse reds, rising out of the water on tall, spindly stilts. 

“It’s me,” he said. 

Dib let out a startled laugh. “Um, what? Is that...did you learn a meme?”

Zim ignored him, and slowly deployed his Pak legs, raising himself up a bit into the air. He nodded towards the architecture again, meaningfully. “No. Dib. Look. It’s me .” 

Dib breathed in and took in the similarities. The haphazard leaning of the spindly legs, supporting something. Zim had taken a few steps forward, was now suspended above the water, protected from the lapping of the waves the same way the lonely houses in the distance were. 

Huh. Zim saw something of himself. Here. 

“Yeah,” he said softly into the quiet morning breeze. “It’s you.”

Chapter Text

“Alright! Cleared Customs again. That’s two of…” 

Zim groaned. “Don’t even tell me. I shall remain in blissful ignorance.” 

Dib laughed. “Suit yourself, alien boy. Anyway, welcome back to the US.” 

“Going home already, Dib? Even I didn’t think you’d tire of me that quickly. If Zim loses any bets, you will be at fault!”

“Hey, hey!” Dib held up his hands in fake protest. “Your risk, your problem. Anyway, I already cover all your bets. But nah, we’re just stopping in upstate New York before flying out of LaGuardia. Cheapest flight I could find.”

Zim leaned back in the passenger seat, arms folded behind his head, antennae twitching in amusement. 

“So what infernal creature do we owe the pleasure of visiting now?”

“Uh, none, actually. I mean, I’m sure there’s plenty around here, but we don’t really have time for a full investigation, so I’m not recording anything until we get to Europe.”

“So you’re telling me our only entertainment from here until the next continent is to annoy each other?” 

Dib wrinkled his nose. It was...Zim was not going to deign to describe it.  “No! I mean, maybe. I figured we could go sight-seeing, maybe? There’s always weird little tourist traps on these old highways.”

Zim perked up. “Tourist traps?” Now that sounded intriguing.

“Okay, not what you think it is. Not so much ‘trap’ traps as, uh...money traps. You know, suckering fools into upending their wallets at the gift shop. That kind of thing.”

Zim’s grin grew wider. “That still sounds delightful to me.”

Dib snorted. “Right. Well, what if I told you we’re the poor fools?”

“Speak for yourself, Dib-idiot. You’re the one with savings in your wallet.” 

As recompense for going through that horrendous border-crossing fiasco again went, watching Dib get conned out of his money at some hokey and inexplicably charming establishments of manipulation sounded pretty acceptable to Zim. 

The look on Zim’s face was ador—no, impossibly, perplexed. 

“Panning? What does this have to do with...we are not frying rocks, Dib. So much of what you eat barely passes for sustenance but this—”

At this, Dib couldn’t help but double over in laughter.

“No, no, dude. Panning for gems. It’s like—you have a little, it’s called a pan, I don’t know why. It’s like a strainer. Like for spaghetti noodles. You pull the rocks out of the water and you look for gemstones.”

Zim pursed his lips. “Your language is so disgustingly indirect.”

“You’re just embarrassed you thought we were going to eat rocks.”

“Zim is no such thing! Zim is...demanding that you learn the nonsensical history behind these words and phrases that are so ridiculous!”

Dib shrugged. “I’m no linguist, but hey, if you’re interested, you should look them up yourself.”

“Hmph. Maybe I will.” Zim’s expression was haughty, but Dib could see some sincerity there.

The gem mine was fairly crowded with clusters of couples and families on the way to Niagara Falls. Dib automatically stepped closer in line with Zim. Not to...okay, maybe to protect him. They were friends. Zim didn’t like crowds. Whatever. 

It wasn’t a thing.

“Why are you clinging to me like a shadow, Dib?”

“It’s not a thing! I mean, I’m not!” Dib self-consciously scooted a few feet away, glaring at Gir’s cackling from where he sat perched in Dib’s backpack. 

Zim followed to close the distance again. “I didn’t say to stop.” 

They climbed the rest of the rickety wooden stairs to the panning area in comfortable silence. Zim snickered as Dib passed his credit card over to the cashier, but he could only muster a half-hearted eye roll in response. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the fool. Watch and learn.”

“Oh, don’t worry. ‘How to con the Dib.’ I’m taking extensive notes.”

“At this point, they should probably be taking notes from you.”

Zim grinned. “I’ll be sure to tell the money persons to stock up on cheap, useless Mothman merchandise. They’ll be rolling in your departed cash.”

“Oh, shut up! I have a brand!”

“I thought one was to make money off a brand, not watch it crawl down the drain.”

“Hey, at least I haven’t been arrested for petty theft fifteen times!”

“It was Gir! I swear!”

They both dissolved into laughter, earning a few vaguely annoyed glances from nearby families.

Dib leaned on the railing to catch his breath. This is exactly what he’d wanted out of their last day in North America. No chasing monsters, no taking notes, or checking in with Gaz, just...this.

Zim held up a nugget of metallic yellow rock. “Dib, look. It’s your brain.”

Dib squinted at the rock, then at the laminated guide in front of them. “What is that?”

Zim wore an evil grin. “Fool’s Gold.”

“What? Yeah, well, here’s yours!” Dib picked out a smooth orange oval. 

Zim looked at it suspiciously. “What is that?” 

“Amber.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Disgustingly old tree sap. Look, it’s even got bugs in it.”

Dib really should have seen it coming when Zim used his pan to splash Dib’s face. 

“Hey!” He went to return fire, then thought better of splashing Zim with water. “No fair.”

Zim smirked. “Since when do we fight fair?”

“Touché.” Dib swiped his pan of loot and dumped it into his own. He dodged as Zim went to poke him in the ribs, and made sure to avoid stepping on Gir, who was busy hoarding a small pile of shiny stones beneath their feet. 

“Okay, okay, truce. I found a cool one.” 

Zim peered over his shoulder and Dib held his breath for a moment before remembering his antennae wouldn’t brush his shirt, since they were currently squashed beneath his disguise. 

“That looks like a rock. An average, boring rock. Like the rest of this planet.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a geode. We’ll have to break it open. It might have gemstones inside.”

Zim scoffed. “Zim sees no value in this plain rock. Let’s keep looking.”

“No, seriously! Here, come on, I’ll show you.”

They shuffled over to a small station with a chisel and hammer, recently abandoned by a harried-looking dad and his wailing set of twins. Dib yanked a pair of protective goggles over his face and shoved a pair behind him for Zim to take. 

“You just want me to get those funny lines on my face.”

“That’s just an added bonus! Seriously, trust me.” 

Zim stopped short for a second. The light in his friend’s eyes was so sincere, so genuinely excited to conduct an experiment and show him the results. He shook his head slightly and stepped forward, carefully placing the goggles over his contact lenses.

Dib placed the chisel against the center of the rock, tapping it a few times with the hammer. A seam began to appear, and sure enough, Zim could see that behind it the rock was hollow, hiding something inside. 

He reached for the hammer with impatient hands. 

“Wait! I wanna try!” There was something to destroy, and he wanted a chance at it. Some habits really did die hard.

Dib grinned and passed him the geode and chisel, waiting until Zim was ready before placing the hammer in his hand. He stood behind Zim to watch carefully as he struck the rock with the hammer, more forcefully. 

After a few tries, the rock split open and—

Oh. 

The inside of the rock was filled with a sparkling display of bright purple crystals. They were sharp and glittered in the afternoon sun. They were stunning.

And they had come from this ugly, gray hunk of gravel Zim wouldn’t have even glanced at twice.

“Whoa!” 

Zim had split open the geode to reveal a cavern of amethyst druzy, little crystals lining the sphere like brilliant purple flames.

Zim was staring at it like he’d discovered the holy grail.

Dib reached out and carefully pulled one half of the geode away, leaving the other cupped in Zim’s hands. He turned it around in the light to get a closer look at the inside. 

“See, Zim? It’s amethyst. Like quartz, but purple.”

“Zim sees.”

“I told you it’d be cool!”

“Zim sees.” His eyes were still frozen in place, tracing the tooth-like protrusions of gemstone. His clawed fingers trailed the smooth outside. 

“Are you okay? Did this break you?” Dib took a moment to pull off his goggles, and then, before he could think better of it, reached forward and gently pulled Zim’s off his face, too. He didn’t seem to mind.

Zim turned to him, still clutching his half of the amethyst, with a slightly wild look in his eyes.

“So you’re telling me spherical rocks can be split open to find treasure inside?”

Dib didn’t know where this was going, but he knew Zim’s manic tone was something to stay cautious with. “Not all of them.”

“And this planet is a spherical rock, yes?”

Dib’s jaw dropped a little. “What? No! I mean, yeah, it is, but no! Zim! No world destruction! I thought we were past that.”

When he got over his shock and looked down at Zim, his friend was doubled over and wheezing.

“Zim jokes, Dib-fool! It was a joke!” 

Dib let out a breath. “Oh. Right.”

“You should have seen your face!”

“You are such a shit, you know that?”

It took 28 US dollars, two Canadian quarters, and a bribe of Sour Patch Kids to escape the mining place with the geode, a handful of shiny stones, and Gir.

“GIR. How many arrowheads did you consume?”

“Eleventy!”

“That is not a number, Gir. This is disgusting.”

Zim’s lap was full of 4 coughed up fossils, coated in sugary syrup. Gir cackled. 

“It’s a lost cause, babe. Just put him in the back.”

Dib swerved out the parking lot at a breakneck pace the moment he had said it, face turning an interesting hue of pink. 

Zim twitched his antennae, recently freed from his wig. “What did you just call me?”

“Bro,” Dib coughed, “I definitely said bro.”

“I am not your brother.” 

“Nope.” Dib’s voice cracked. 

“That is also not what Zim heard.” He hoped, strangely, that his friend caught the teasing note in his voice. 

“It’s just a weird expression. A phrase. For friends.”

Zim leaned back in his seat. “Zim will have to confirm this when he starts linguistics research as you so brilliantly suggested this morning.”

“Did I? That doesn’t sound like me. Doesn’t ring a bell. Probably shouldn’t try it. Anyway, who wants pancakes?”

“MEEEE,” Gir screeched, launching himself into Dib’s lap. 

“Pancakes sound supremely acceptable, Dib.” Zim scooped Gir out of his lap and deposited him unceremoniously in the backseat. The even newer and more improved car seat trapped him midair and pulled him into place as he squirmed.

“PANCAKES,” he wailed. 

Dib kept his eyes steadfastly on the road. “Diner in 15 miles, guys. Friends. Buddies. We will be there. Uh. Soon.” 

Zim let a lazy smile take over his face. “Alright, Dib-ruby.” 

Dib squeezed his eyes shut. “What? No. Why?”

“Because it is the current shade of your face.”

Three stacks of pancakes, two spilled pitchers of syrup, and four trips to the bathroom to splash tepid water on his face later, Dib was finally, almost, kind of ready to put the stupid car mishap behind him. 

It was just a slip of the tongue. 

Nope, also not a phrase he wanted to think about. Whatever. It was over. He said what he said. And now he had to check in to their flight, and check for the passports again, and double-check the tip on this bill, and—

“Dib!” 

“Huh?” Okay, he also needed to re-weigh their luggage, maybe, and make sure to charge all the electronics, and while he was at it—

“Zim has got it.”

“What?” Dib was finally shocked out of his embarrassment-fueled to-do list by the sight of Zim sliding a few bills across the table. “Since when do you get...well, anything?”

Zim’s shoulder’s stiffened a bit. “Zim hasn’t...had the chance to acquire Earth money like you. But...you have paid for this entire trip. It is the least I can do.”

Zim continued before Dib could even open his mouth.

“And no, the money was not stolen, though I still fail to understand—”

Dib cut him off. “Thank you, Zim.”

Zim smirked. “You are welcome. Zim is very generous.”

“Sure you are.” Dib bit back a grin. “Ready to get out of here?”

“The country, or this sticky food establishment?”

“Well, both, I guess. Just the latter right now, though. Our flight leaves in the morning. We’ve got a few more hours on the road before our hotel.”

It was a ghastly and dark hour of the early morning, and sure, Zim didn’t need to sleep, but he had grown quite accustomed to it being still and quiet for at least a few hours each day and he did not exactly relish it being interrupted by...an electric drill?

“Dib,” he seethed into the dark, fumbling for a light to switch on, “what are you doing? ” 

Dib mumbled something, but as far as Zim could see in the dim light of the alarm clock, he was holding something between his teeth and so it came out a slur of useless consonants. 

Zim blinked and let his Irken eyes adjust to the dark so he could see clearly. Cord. Dib was holding some sort of cord between his teeth. 

Zim pointed at the drill. “Why did you even bring that thing?”

Dib spat the cord onto the floor to respond, but didn’t look up from his project. “Gir’s car seat.” 

“Oh. That...was smart. I suppose.” 

Dib rolled his eyes and grunted a thanks. 

Zim sat for a moment, waiting, but didn’t get any more out of his friend. He cleared his throat.

“So? What is the Dib working on at—” he glanced at the clock, “—3:48 AM?”

“A souvenir.”

“A...what? One of those cheap little things we refused to buy at the gift shop?

“Sort of. Only better.”

Zim rubbed his eyes and sat up in the bed. “Explain.” 

“In just a minute, I won’t need to.”

Zim sighed and sat back against the headboard. He knew better than to argue when Dib got stubborn like this. Usually, that wouldn’t stop him, but he was still groggy from his nap and wanted to relish the moment of quiet now that the drilling had stopped.

His peace was broken a few minutes later by Dib’s tired but excited voice. “Okay, close your eyes.”

Zim cocked his head at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Fine.”  Zim closed his eyes and felt Dib shuffle closer to him on the floor, then lean up to...hang something around his neck? 

“Okay, open them.”

Zim did, and looked down. The first thing he noticed was the hopeful expression in Dib’s sleepy eyes. The second was that his half of the amethyst geode was now hanging around his neck. Dib had drilled a hole in the top and threaded a cord through it, turning it into a pendant. 

He got to carry this little piece of their trip, this small and glittering fragment of the earth, with him.

“ Oh. ” He breathed out.

“Oh? Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad ‘oh’?”

“Dib. This is...a worthy gift.”

“Really? I’m used to your style being more, uh, weapons of mass destruction.”

Zim glared at him. “It’s perfect. Shut up and believe me.”

Dib’s face cracked open in a wide smile. “Okay, Zim.”

Zim searched his face. He was proud. Nervous. Why? No matter. They had a long flight ahead of them for Zim to try and figure him out.

But…

“Where’s yours?”

“Oh! Right. It’s right here,” he held up the other half of the geode, similarly strung into a necklace, “but I wasn’t sure if you’d wanna be all matchy-matchy, so…”

Zim stared at him. “Every day you get more and more ridiculous.”

“So I should wear it? Too, I mean?”

“Of course you should. Now get back in bed and go back to sleep. We still have a few more hours before we need to leave for the airport.”

“But—”

“Zim demands it.”

“Okay,” Dib breathed into the space behind Zim’s neck, sliding back into bed behind him. “Okay.” 

Chapter Text

Zim had perhaps miscalculated one thing about Earth-style air travel.

He’d factored in its deplorable inefficiency, it’s frustratingly bureaucratic adherence to pre-marked routes, its dry and awful air pressure.

But he’d forgotten how horrifically public it was. He was currently crammed into a seat between a drooling, unconscious Dib and a businessman in a sleek suit whose cologne made him want to barf and whose leering smile made his skin crawl. 

They hadn’t wanted to shell out the cash for a seat for Gir, so his assistant was on standby mode (that’s right, this dreadful plane wouldn’t even allow electronics to remain in use for half the damn time) and tucked under the seat in front of him. 

The muffled voice of a bored flight attendant had just announced that they would begin their descent shortly, and while he welcomed the news that they were almost at their destination, his stomach flipped as the plane began to go down, excruciatingly slowly.

The first leg of the trip had been almost fun. The cab in New York had made him puke, but there were many glorious snacks to be had in the sprawling airport, and the quick flight up to Boston had an in-flight movie that he and Dib watched and then argued about. He’d spent the first several hours of the 6 hour flight over the ocean distracting himself from the expanse of salty, disgusting water below them. He’d demanded a seat in the center of the plane; he’d dissected the so-called “food” the airline served and determined through superior experiments that it was scarcely better than dust or sand. He’d prodded Dib to entertain him with stupid stories about stupid cryptids. 

And then Dib had taken a nap, and the quiet chatter of the plane started to drive him insane, and now here they were. He had to get off this thing. But he couldn’t very well make it to the ground from here on his own, which mean he had to wait. 

Dib had been asleep long enough. 

“DIB” he hissed through his teeth, poking his companion with a claw. 

“Wha’d’y’wa,” Dib mumbled. 

He shook his friend’s shoulder. Nothing. Hmmm…

He licked his palm and slapped it to the side of Dib’s face. 

Dib shot up and glared at him, leaning away from him as far as the tiny seat would allow. 

“Zim! Gross! What do you want?”

“You would not wake up.”

“Yeah, I told you, Dramamine does that.”

“You shouldn’t have taken it.”

“Then I would have puked on you. Trust me, this was better.”

Dib yawned and wiped at his face with his hoodie sleeve. 

“Alright, nap-ruiner. What’s so important?”

Zim drowned out the sounds and sights and smells of the rest of the flight and zeroed in on Dib’s face. 

“Why is it called Iceland?”

“What?”

“The continent we are about to land on. Zim has looked down there, and it is clearly not made of ice. So why Iceland?”

“If I tell you, will you promise to never assault me with your saliva again?”

“Of course not.”

“Ugh, fine. Okay, so, the legend goes that way back when the Vikings settled these islands, they pulled a con. Basically, they named this one, which is really green and lush, Iceland, so that no one would want to go there and take their shit. And they named the other one, which is icy and gross, Greenland, so that people would get confused and go there instead.” Dib stretched his arms above his head, and Zim watched as a sliver of his pale skin was revealed and then covered again. “I mean, I’m not sure if that’s actually true, and I’m sure there’s way more to it, but without the internet, that’s all I got.” 

Zim pursed his lips. “That is actually...quite ingenious,” he admitted. 

Dib grinned lazily and glanced at him. “Yeah, we humans can be pretty clever sometimes, you know.” 

Zim tried to scowl, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Yes, yes, Mr. Human-Race-Protector. You would think so.” 

Privately, though— or perhaps not so privately, as he was irritatingly sure that Dib could probably read this on his face by now—  he was impressed by the story. He’d have to learn more about these Vikings, whoever they were. They seemed...worthy.

“You’re telling me,” Zim said slowly, as though he thought Dib was a particularly stupid child, “that we are here to see lights in the sky.” 

“Zim— ” Dib tried to explain again, but he was quickly cut off by Zim’s rising skepticism. 

“ Lights in the night sky. We see those every single clear night.”

“Zim, I know, that’s not— ” 

Zim’s voice finally cracked an octave higher as he seemingly lost the rest of his sanity and faith. 

“They’re stars! They are just stupid little stars, flaming balls of gas, we’ve seen them, up close, they are stars and planets where simpering little people live their stupid little lives and dust chunks float out in space!”

“Zim.” Dib caught his gaze with a level stare, grabbing onto his shoulder and pulling him out of the moving crowd headed towards baggage claim. “I’m not talking about the freaking stars.”

“Eh?”

“We’re here to see the Northern Lights. They’re a totally different thing, and they’re a sort of unexplained phenomenon with myths that go back centuries…”

“Okay, okay, save some for your radio thingy.”

“ Our radio thingy.” 

Zim rolled his eyes, but his chest puffed up just a bit.

“Alright, let’s grab our stuff and find our hotel. Then we can boot up Gir and get some real food and rest before tonight.”

Zim pulled the robot nonchalantly out of his bag and started towards an outlet. “Why wait? We brought the adaptor, we can just turn him on now.”

“Zim, no!” Dib dove for the cord and yanked it out of ZIm’s hands. Visions of the last time they’d let Gir loose in an airport flashed through his mind and he shuddered. “Baggage claim first, ” he said firmly.

He watched as Zim caught up, recognition and then horror blooming on his face. “Oh. Oh no.” 

“Yeah. We can’t chase him through the conveyor belts again.”

Zim nodded gravely. “Lead the way.”

Zim shivered and pulled his cream cape-coat tighter around his shoulders. He was bundled in the hoodie he’d stolen from Dib a while ago, and the coat on top, but it was still chillier than he expected. Perhaps there was some truth to the ice moniker. 

Nonetheless, he’d been prepared, and brought a coat. The late afternoon temperature was dropping quickly, but he could always mess with his Pak sensors if things got worse. 

Dib, on the other hand...was clenching his chattering teeth like a fool and insisting he was fine.

Good grief, what would this ridiculous human do without him?

“Just let me adjust it!” he said again, tugging on Dib’s arm to find a good vein.

Dib leapt back. “No! Not after last time. You don’t have strong enough data on homeostasis and I do not want my blood filtered again.”

“Then buy a warmer layer with your earth-monies. I know you have them, I watched you go to the currency exchange.” 

“I told you, I’m fine.” 

Zim held up a syringe threateningly with one of his Pak arms. “Buy something warmer or I’m doing the injection. It’s your choice, Dib-fool.” 

Dib held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, jeez, I’ll just run into one of these shops.” 

Zim retracted his Pak leg, satisfied. 

Ten minutes later, Dib emerged from one of the small shops wrapped in the most ridiculous garment Zim had ever seen.

“What on earth is that?” he demanded. 

“It’s a scarf! That you told me to buy!”

“I have been to stores with Gaz, Dib. That thing is not a scarf. That is...a blanket. A shawl. A tarp, even.”

“It’s just an oversized scarf!” Dib flicked the decorative fringe at Zim and ran his fingers down the orange lines in the earth-toned plaid. 

“That scarf,” Zim declared, “could cover California.”

Dib pulled the scarf up over his face to hide how red it was turning. “Shut up.” 

“If you trip, I’m not helping you.”

“Bastard.”

“Idiot.”

The whir of the recorder was quickly becoming one of Dib’s favorite sounds. He cleared his throat and began.

“Alright folks, tonight Zim and I are visiting the eerie, lovely city of Reykjavik to see one of Earth’s oldest and most confounding curiosities—  the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. Now, Zim, tell me what you know so far about the Northern Lights.”

“They are not stars. And they are explained by modern science, according to the internet, so I’m not sure why we are wasting our— ”

“Good, okay! They’re not stars. They’re more like, well, floating, dancing lights. The Northern Lights are caused by disturbances in the magnetosphere, which, as Zim has suggested, seems pretty solidly scientific. And that’s true! But we can look to historical and mythical explanations of the polar lights to find clues to other paranormal phenomena and entities…”

Dib went on with his show, pausing every now and again to ask Zim a question or hear one of his skeptical quips or delighted observances. 

He was trying to focus on the show, and he thought he’d done a pretty decent job, but it was harder than he wanted to admit, focusing on something while watching Zim’s face light up at the shimmering display above them.

“They’re green, ” Zim whispered, too low for the microphone to pick up. “ Like me.”

Dib would make sure to cut that out of the audio before he posted this episode. Because it wasn’t clear or loud enough. Because it could give Zim away. Because he didn’t want anyone else to hear the hushed tones of Zim’s awe.

They made it back to their charming hotel in downtown Reykjavik late, late into the night, and Dib was all but cocooned in his new wool scarf against the 40 degree weather. He huddled close to Zim and followed him quietly to their room. Zim had taken to letting him get quiet like this, when he was sleepy, had settled into sensing the differences between his exhaustion and his depression. 

He needed to clear his head and think about that, at some point.

He was pretty sure now, with frozen toes and heavy eyes, with equipment full of footage and lungs full of clear, cold air, and Zim curled up beside him, was not that point.

Chapter Text

Ugh, back into— what was that phrase?— ah yes, the belly of the beast. Urban Earth. 

As cities went, Zim had to admit that Amsterdam was less...dismal than the one he and Dib had grown up in. Lights reflected majestically off the water. Whimsical turrets twisted up into the sky and bicycles filled the streets. Zim didn’t generally enjoy crowds, but so far Europe seemed slightly less filthy than America. And much, much older. 

That part was a bit fascinating. Irk bulldozed over its history every chance it got with the newest tech, the shiniest materials, the latest conquest. Only stories of victory remained; he knew little of what their culture had been before it was the Empire, before computers made all the choices and soldiers were grown in labs. Even on the planet of his birth, things were stark and modern, built entirely for function and power. 

This was nothing like that. Of course, the interior design in their hotel was a bit more streamlined and modern, which Zim enjoyed, despite himself. But the meandering streets, the old brick facades, these were relics of different ages, era upon era of art layered on top of one another. It was a little dizzying, but not altogether unpleasant. 

The smell wafting from the bag of greasy potato chips Dib had bought at the airport, however, was another story. Zim scrunched up his face and glared. 

“Wha?” Dib mumbled with a mouthful of chips. “These’re the best stakeout snacks!”

Zim yelped. “Stakeout? Who have you been stalking?” His blood ran cold, but he wasn’t about to think about why.

Dib stared at him for a moment, like he was a particularly defective smeet. “You, idiot.” 

His blood was anything but cold now, and rushing to his face. “Right. Of course. As it should be.”  Zim cleared his throat. “Anyway! Zim fails to understand why you insist on those greasy flakes when this city has some of the greatest Earthen foods Zim has ever sampled.”

“You really like stroopwafel, huh?”

“What can I say? This country knows how to craft a sweet.” 

Dib bit his lip and smiled. “Really glad to see you warming up to this place, dude. I wasn’t sure, what with the, you know. People.”

Zim looked around the bridge they were currently parked on, suspended across the long and gleaming canal. “It is a bit more crowded than is strictly preferable, yes. But these people are far less moronic than in our hometown.”

“Agreed.”

After a few more moments of watching Dib fiddle with his recording equipment, Zim was startled to find a tall Dutch woman with showstopping earrings and an animal print coat approaching him. He backed towards Dib, out of habit, but she hardly looked like a threat. 

She smiled and spoke to him in a light accent. “Excuse me, could I take a photograph?”

Zim blanched and took a step back. 

“Why do you want my picture?” he hissed, going over her again with suspicion. She didn’t look very much like a government drone. She didn’t seem like someone who would put him in a cage. But then, he didn’t want to be a fool. 

He didn’t want to fall in love with this planet so much that it put him at risk.

The woman scrunched up her face in confusion, and then let out a laugh that sounded like wind chimes. “Oh, see, it is for my street style blog!” She held out a phone to him, and he took it gingerly between two claws. 

The pages he scrolled through were innocuous enough. Just photo after photo of boldly dressed people on the streets of the city. 

He glanced down at his outfit. He was wearing wide leg pants in a jewel-toned and intricate woven design (the label had called them “jacquard”) and a soft velvet crop top. Gir was tucked into a small cross-body bag, humming to himself. Alright. So the woman simply had taste.

He handed the phone back to her decisively. He wanted to be...recognized. Honored. He forced the words out. “I suppose.” 

Zim squeezed his eyes shut. He hoped he didn’t regret this. But he had his disguise on, and it had served him well for years. He’d been through customs at least four times now. If humanity hadn’t caught on by now, it seemed doubtful they ever would.

And…

He glanced at Dib, who caught his eye and nodded encouragingly. Well, if anything happened to him, he knew...he knew he could trust Dib to come get him. If anyone on this planet was a threat to him, really, well...he was already here. He was already right here, and he was on Zim’s side. 

Zim nodded and stepped off the bridge to lean against a tree. The woman snapped a few shots, and then showed him and let him pick his favorite one.

“Do you have any profiles? I can add you!” 

Zim shook his head, but gave her his cell phone number, and got hers, with a promise that she would text when she posted his picture for all to see. 

His hands shook slightly as he typed her number in, under “Dutch Fashion Lady”. 

He now had a grand total of three cell phone contacts. Dib, Gaz, and this woman. 

He puffed out his chest a bit. He was really starting to get the hang of this Earth citizen thing.

They’d been staking out the canal for a few hours, and dusk had fallen, the water now lit by sparkling street lamps and a sliver of moon. 

Finally, finally, Dib caught a glimpse of what he’d come here to see. The bullebak. 

“Alright, folks, there she is! A water demon of Dutch folklore. But what’s the truth? Is it a roaring monster, poised to drown the unsuspecting child? Or will it whisk them away to a wonderland of lights and stars?”

Zim snorted. “This water demon is going to ferret us away to space?”

Dib grinned. “That would be an interesting take on the mythology, Zim! But the bullebak is most well-known as a child terror, and we’re, well, a bit past the age of risk, I think.”

“We could use Gir to lure it over here.” Dib could hear a trace of wicked humor in Zim’s voice.

“Aw, I’ve really started to grow fond of the little guy. Listeners, Gir is our robot slash pet slash toddler, and he is, oof, well, a bit of a handful. Zim may or may not be an engineering genius, but his masterpiece is definitely a being of pure chaos. If you’d be interested in hearing more about him, or seeing posts of the snacks he gets into every week, let us know in the comments!”

“Please do not encourage him, mysterious listeners,” Zim warned. “I humbly beg of you.”

Dib caught a bit more footage of the creature's hazy form, lurking under the bridge, and explained more of the folklore. But...they’d a hectic flight from Reykjavik that morning and he was honestly ready to crash. 

“Alright folks, this is Dib and Zim, signing off, but we will be back for Part 2 of this episode tomorrow evening, and meeting up with local paranormal enthusiasts Luuk and Elise.” 

He stifled a yawn and started shoving equipment back into his bag, Zim silently helping beside him. 

It was a short cab ride to the hotel. They’d foregone the cheaper but far less private hostel for a little sparse but clean hotel popular with traveling grad students and artists. The furniture was sleek and light, and everything looked very efficient. 

It took Dib only a few moments to yank on his pajamas and fall face-first onto the bed. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, he’d stopped bothering with any pretense of looking for rooms with two beds. Habit, he thought. 

Dib stretched his toes into the soft, clean sheets and shut his eyes. A moment later, the bathroom light clicked off and Zim shuffled to the other side of the bed. He carefully pulled back a corner of the thin quilt and started to climb in.

Dib cracked an eye open. “Hey.” 

“Oh! You’re still awake.” 

Dib huffed a laugh. “Yeah, dude. I never fall asleep that fast.”

Zim scrunched up his face. “Zim wasn’t sure.” 

Dib rolled over to look at his friend and froze. 

“You’re…”

“Yes?”

“I mean, you’re not wearing pajamas.” 

Zim looked at him quizzically. “I’m wearing the so-called boxer shorts.”

Dib swallowed. “Yup.”

“This is what you’ve worn to sleep almost every warm night since you were approximately twelve years old.” 

“...Right. Right.” He tried not to think about how Zim knew that, exactly. 

He had bigger problems, at the moment. Like how Zim was here, now, in alien-printed boxer shorts, in bed with him, and inching closer. 

He forced a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, right?

Zim’s skin was hot against his own. If he wasn’t so ridiculously exhausted, this would be...who was he kidding, this was kind of an ordeal now and he was ridiculously exhausted. 

“Go to sleep, Dib-idiot,” mumbled Zim, softly, and Dib swallowed, hard.

“Right. Goodnight, Zim.” He had a feeling he was not going to get very much sleep, after all. 

Eventually, though, long after Zim had fallen into whatever rest-state passed for Irken sleep, he succumbed to his exhaustion.

He definitely didn’t dream about Zim in boxer shorts. 

Zim sighed. “Dib-friend, why do you insist on 'teaming up' with all these other people on these excursions? It seems to me we are just fine on our—” Zim was cut off with a yelp as Dib elbowed him, gesturing to two strangers approaching them at the cafe. 

“Oh good grief,” Zim said, “you found a Dutch Gaz.” 

He looked on as a petite woman decked out in Goth attire with a punk twist, a spiky nose ring, a no-nonsense expression approached them. 

Dib swallowed the rest of his coffee and made a face. “I guess she is kind of, uh...yeah. But,” he brightened, “she’s one of us! Paranormal researcher.” He waved his hands in a high arc over his head. “Elise! Luuk! Over here.”

Zim cringed and looked at his napkin. Between Dib’s loud impulsiveness and Gir spinning in circles on the terrace, he was bound to be lumped in as a clueless American.

For once in his life, he did not feel the urge to jump on a small iron table and scream. Instead, he tucked his ankles neatly under the table and put on his best diplomatic face. He would not be intimidated by another Gaz-human. 

Elise finally reached them, shuffling her thick black combat boots against the ground and nodding slightly, squinting at them. She was joined by a tall, lanky guy with large round glasses and an old-fashioned film camera around his neck. This must be Luuk. 

“Hallo,” she said flatly. “Elise. Luuk. You are Dib,” she nodded at Dib, “and Zim. Let us do this.” 

Dib looked a little taken aback at her bluntness, but quickly fell into conversation with Luuk about how film was the best medium to catch certain... something -signatures. 

After a few minutes of that, Luuk pushed up his glasses and gestured towards Gir, who was leaping at pigeons on the end of his leash. “Neat dog! May I give him a treat?”

Dib started to shake his head. “Oh, thanks, but he’s actually a robot—”

Gir pounced on the small pie crust that Luuk had clutched in his hand. 

“WAFFLE,” he screeched. Luuk snatched his hand back. 

“He still likes to eat,” Zim explained, deadpan.

“ Whoa”. Behind his huge glasses, Luuk’s eyes were wide with wonder.

Zim fell into step beside Elise as they headed for a different bridge where the bullebak was supposed to be found in the canals. 

After a few moments of silence, she smirked at him in what could perhaps be construed as a smile. “You seem intense. I appreciate that.”

“I am more of a commentator and superior cultural voice than a...eugh, paranormal enthusiast, ” he informed her. 

Her nose ring glinted in the twilight. “I can respect that. I am an artist first. I care for music. Luuk’s excursions serve as...ah, inspiration, you would say. She shrugged. “Also, he is hot.”

Zim jumped a little. “Oh! You’re together, then?”

She shrugged again. “More or less.” 

Zim fought the urge to ask what that meant. And why it sounded so familiar. 

“What is this music you make? I’ve heard a lot of Earth music, and I have to say, not a lot of it has impressed me.” 

She looked at him with a hard, searching gaze, as if sizing him up. Then she thrust out a small, square device connected to the heavy headphones she wore around her neck, and after a moment, held out the headphones, too. 

When she hit play, he was hit with a cascade of electronic sounds, beeps and tones that sounded more familiar to him than any bird call or melody. 

Oh. It sounded like...his ship. It sounded like computers. It sounded like home. He handed it back to her, reluctantly, when the song was done.

She mumbled something about a house that he didn’t quite catch, and then typed her social media handles into his phone. He pulled up the bare skeleton account Dib had made for him to look at the style blog, and hit follow immediately. 

“Elise,” he told her, very seriously, “you are officially one of my favorite humans.” He paused. “That is a very high honor.”

She bowed her head. “ Dankjewel. ” 

To Dib’s credit, it wasn’t actually the monster he’d sought out that was chasing them down the dimly lit streets of a sleepy neighborhood. 

Oh, no. The bullebak was God knows where, grabbing children to its hearts content, blissfully unrecorded. No, the thing chasing them was something Luuk had called a mara, and he’d rambled something about strangling and nightmares. 

What had appeared from the bridge to be a young woman lingering on a street corner, once the crowds had thinned for the night, had transformed into a large moth creature with silky black wings and tangled antennae, flitting around corners after them with threats of deadly hallucinations. 

Okay, so he probably shouldn’t have asked her for a quote on the bullebak. And he definitely shouldn’t have encouraged Luuk to snap a photograph of her as she began to elongate and form a proboscis. 

They stumbled into a small alleyway to catch their breath. 

Dib caught sight of a reflection on the creature’s wing. Wait. If he could just reach out a little further towards her, he was pretty sure he could get a sample...he crouched down and shuffled forward slightly. Almost...almost…

The mara caught sight of him and snatched him up in her proboscis. Shit. He felt the aura of his nightmares start to curl around the edges of his consciousness, pressing in on him. The air was getting thicker now, and harder to breathe. Sweet, like chemicals. Sharp. He was going to suffocate. Or he was going to dream his suffocation. Either way—

The unmistakable swoosh of a Pak leg cut through his panic, slicing off the end of the insect-like tongue and hooking onto the back of Dib’s shirt.

As he was lifted up to the relative safety of a nearby rooftop, Dib bit back a scream. Of fear? Relief? He wasn’t really sure, but he was pretty sure he was almost toast, thanks to a monster he hadn’t even been investigating.

He was set down kind of roughly on the tile rooftop, and blinked as he tried to take in his surroundings. Luke was uttering some kind of incantation to ward the mara off, his phone open to a deep web page. 

Zim looked halfway between concerned and livid, and he was midway through saying something to Elise, who looked surprisingly unfazed.

“—you can see, is,” he clenched his teeth, “ dedicated —”

Elise cut him off. “Your boyfriend is insane.” 

Zim waved his hands in exasperation and marched over to Dib. Only a few words got through his addled state of mind, but he got the gist. 

“—you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed! Stupid human...death wish! Can’t believe I…”

Zim’s face contorted into such extreme worry made Dib's heart clench in his chest. 

He was pretty sure he might be about to throw up.

Luuk finally finished the incantation, then took a deep breath and looked at them all. 

“Well, I think that’s enough for our episode, yes?”

Dib swallowed back some bile and nodded. “I think I have enough adrenaline in my system to last me two weeks, right now.” His hands were shaking. At some point, Zim had grasped one of them with an iron grip and he wasn’t about to let go.

Elise crossed her arms. “In that case, I have just the place.”

The club was smack in the middle of the red-light district, and the music spilling out was like Elise’s— electronic beats and ethereal humming tones. The lights flashed different colors, and people danced close in the shifting shadows.

Gir immediately disappeared (to cause mischief somewhere, no doubt). Zim sighed. He’d have to track down his Sir unit later. 

Luuk tapped him on the shoulder. “Where’d your robot go?” he whisper-shouted over the music. 

Zim shrugged. “He does what he wants, most of the time.”

“Did you make him? Like your backpack?”

Zim paused. Thought about the defective robot he’d been granted by the Empire. Thought about how much work he’d put into fixing Gir up over the years, undoing so much damage, making him his own. Thought about what the Tallests would have to say about him claiming their tech for himself. Pushed that thought down. Grinned widely at Luuk. “Yes,” he said proudly, “yes I did.”

Luuk was now shoving bar snacks into his mouth as Elise tugged at him to go dance. “That’s so rad, dude,” he mumbled around a mouthful of pretzels. 

Zim beamed. 

He’d lectured Dib plenty about his absolutely unacceptable behavior on the way over here, so he was just about ready to shut off his thinking and scream all the panic out. A club packed with dancing humans wasn’t usually where he’d choose to do this, but the music was strangely soothing, and the bartender slid something towards him that actually smelled...amazing.

Unlike the disgusting beer that kids chugged at high school parties he’d been to, this was fizzy and smelled a little like fruit. He sniffed it experimentally, and then threw it back.

Zim beamed again. That, he thought, tasted like space. Like starlight. He pointed at Dib.

“I want another one of those.” 

Dib laughed. “Seriously? Okay.” He shook his head and mumbled to himself. “Drinking with Zim in Amsterdam. Never thought I’d...wow.”

Twenty minutes later, the alcohol had definitely gone to Zim’s head. He wasn’t sure if he could get drunk like a human, but he was definitely tipsier than he’d intended, slurring his English and slipping into Irken clicks when he couldn’t think of words. He’d lost Dib a few moments ago, after mostly watching his friend do a ridiculous little dance and make up his own lyrics to the music. 

Uh oh. He was starting to feel nauseous.

Aha! He caught sight of Dib’s silly little hair tendril from across the room and grabbed onto his arm, a little harder than he meant to. Dib yelped but grabbed onto him in turn.

“What’s up? You need to go?”

“No, just. Can we. Outside?” Zim managed to get out. 

Dib nodded. They made their way to the door to the alley where people kept leaving to “have a smoke,” and slipped outside into the summer night air. 

Zim sat primly on the pavement in the cool alley. Dib dropped ungracefully dropped to the curb beside him, cheeks still red from the sweaty crowds and the alcohol. 

“Better?” he asked, after a moment. 

“Yes,” Zim affirmed, nodding. “There is adequate air out here.”

“Yeah. That was fun, but kind of a lot.” 

Zim took another deep breath. “What was the deal with Elise and Luuk, by the bar?”

“What, when they were making out?”

“When they had their tongues in each other’s mouths.” 

“Same thing. What do you mean?”

“They seemed...before the kissing, when they were dancing. They seemed to be in their own small world. Like a bubble. A spaceship. Not just drunk and sloppy like everyone else, but…” Zim struggled to find more words. 

Dib nodded. “I think they’re just really in love? I mean, any two idiots can get drunk and kiss each other—”

“Zim knows this,” Zim said drily. “I did go to high school. I...that one, I guess I understand. It’s scientific. A sort of biological urge. However undignified.” 

Dib snorted. “Right. So…”

“But,” Zim continued, “Elise and Luuk are...they aren’t idiot meat-pigs like our high school classmates. They’re, you know. People.”

People. They were in Amsterdam, they were tipsy...Zim just saved his life, and he was sitting here describing paranormal investigators he’d known for a handful of hours as people. 

If he hadn’t just escaped a nightmare monster, Dib might think he was dreaming. 

He watched the city lights dance across Zim’s smooth face. 

“Zim,” he said slowly, “does Irken culture have romance?”

Zim looked at the ground. His response was quiet.

“Dib. You ask me that like I’m not here because I’m an outcast.” 

Dib’s heart broke a little. 

“Right, I’m...I’m sorry, I...well, I mean, me too.” Dib grinned sheepishly and knocked his shoulder against Zim’s, but his friend’s face stayed downcast.

There was a note of frustration in his voice, sort of a growl.

“You really still think that? Look at you this summer. You have friends in every country we’ve been to so far. You’ve found your people. They love you.”

“What?” Dib gripped Zim’s shoulder. “So have you!”

Zim shook his head. “They don’t know me.” He finally turned to face Dib, and Dib looked down into his eyes to find that he was suddenly very, very close. 

He swallowed. “I know you.”

He wished suddenly to be looking into Zim’s real eyes, instead of the contacts. The deep magenta. 

God, that was stupid. 

God, that was true. 

Zim looked at him for another long moment. 

“You do,” he said, simply.

If Dib wasn’t an idiot, this is when he would have kissed Zim.

Of course, Dib was an idiot. He’d dragged them to a foreign country, chased down a bunch of bedtime stories designed to keep children obedient, and then almost gotten himself killed by one. Dib was a high school graduate with no plans but a podcast and some good old-fashioned rebellion. Dib tried to beat his nationally-ranked gamer sister at a new video game pretty much every week. Dib planned a trip around the world with an undocumented alien and an unhinged robot. Dib had drank two tulip-shaped glasses of Dutch gin on a half-empty stomach while on antidepressants. Dib was falling in love with his best friend. Dib was nothing if not an idiot. 

Dib was such an idiot. 

Zim leaned forward and pressed his mouth against his best friend’s.

It felt like driving a space cruiser at warp speed. It felt like being put on trial. It felt like the spark of a brilliant plan. It felt like the burst of camaraderie at the end of a big mission. It felt like the stars rushing past him so fast they blurred into a single, shining streak.

It also felt kind of like none of that, because it actually felt like salty human lips pressed against his own, like clutching Dib’s jacket in almost but not quite the same way he had been for months. Feeling Dib’s pulse beat fast under his skin. Pressing closer to someone funny and stupid and brilliant and warm. 

Zim wasn’t really sure if other Irkens kissed, or what they did in their illicit personal time behind closed armada doors, and suddenly, for a breathless, blinding moment, he didn’t care. At all. Because whatever it was—whatever posturing, lie-soaked, power-trip bullshit it was, it obviously wasn’t as amazing as this.

It felt, for a moment, like the exhilarating lurch before he landed a difficult move in a game, or captured the perfect piece of evidence, or figured out the solution to an impossible problem. 

It felt like Zim’s rough mouth pressed against his own, stubborn and insistent and incredible. 

And then it didn’t feel like anything, because it was over and Zim was pulling back from him to take a breath and Dib felt dizzy, so dizzy.

He felt a sharpness in his chest. A lump starting in his throat. Shit. 

It was just. It was just— 

It was just that Zim was, maybe, everything. It was just that rivalry and companionship had twisted themselves together in his brain so completely that it hurt to think about. It was just that he was kind of drunk and in a completely unfamiliar foreign city and things were finally falling into place and he wasn’t sure how to not fuck it all up. It was just that he’d just been kissed by a bug alien he’d been obsessed with since they were children and who’d tried, multiple times, to kill him. Who’d tried, even more importantly than that, to run from him. 

It was just a lot. 

He wasn’t sure if he was actually swaying on his feet or if his vision was just really blurry. 

Zim leaned forward, his cool forehead against Dib’s, which was sweaty and burning hot.

“Dib-moron,” he murmured, “stop thinking.” The command was clear, and Dib chose to obey. 

“We need to find your stupid fucking robot,” he tried to say, but his voice stuck in his throat.

“Zim,” he whispered instead.

“Shut up,” Zim whispered back, and it was all the instruction he needed. 

They crept back through the club, scooping Gir off a stranger’s shoulders on their way, and waving goodnight to Elise and Luuk from across the room.

They stumbled into a cab, and out of a cab, and into their hotel room, and into the bed.

Dib could feel Zim’s claws tracing patterns on his shoulder. 

He closed his eyes, and against his will, sleep crashed over him like a thunderstorm.

Chapter Text

They hadn’t really talked about it, but Dib’s skin felt electric, somehow. Kind of like the way ozone smelled in the air after lightning. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it. Talking about it meant they had to deal with it, and frankly, thinking about having the talk with a) someone who might just as soon claw a scar into his face as compromise, and b) the singular most important friend he had in the galaxy, made him want to rip the med tracker out of his wrist and throw himself off the nearest building.

Instead of talking about it, they’d eaten a long and lazy breakfast at a cafe by the hotel, lingering as Zim ate slice after slice of bread covered in chocolate sprinkles and Dib picked apart his krentenbrood. 

Instead, they took a walk along the Brouwersgracht canal, pointing out floating homes and ancient bridges as they cut through the morning mist. 

Instead, they boarded the high-speed train from Amsterdam to London and settled in for the four hour journey, Zim bundled in Dib’s sweatshirt and curled against the window, and Dib trying hard to focus on recording his episode on fractals and their place in both science and paranormal lore. 

“Okay,” he began, “so I know what you’re thinking—”

“ Dib, fractals aren’t paranormal ” Zim interrupted, unprompted but right on cue. 

“Well, yeah. That. See, listeners—and Zim—you’re not wrong. I know. But what fascinates me about fractals is the same thing that pulls me to the paranormal, and that’s exactly what I want to talk about today.” 

He paused for dramatic effect. 

“What pulls us in to study the seemingly unnatural? Where even is the line between natural and not? Between random and planned, imperfect and perfect? And why do certain stories have a sense of rightness or completion—so much so that we are driven to believe in them?”

Zim poked him in the shoulder and Dib tried to breathe steadily. 

“Enough pontificating, Earth-boy! Explain the pattern thingy.”

Dib bit back a smile. “New vocab word, Zim? Alright, alright. A fractal is a mathematical shape, or a pattern, that repeats infinitely. And they’re everywhere. Nature, computers, math, art. Everything from tree branches to lightning to your own circulatory system, it’s all built on these patterns…”

Earth-boy. That was an acceptable insult, yes? Zim was floundering for a sense of familiarity, and insults? That was the most familiar, normal kind of interaction they had. 

But it didn’t feel exactly like an insult right now. As he leaned against the cushioned seat, as the world outside rushed by, Zim listened to Dib ramble on about fractals and suddenly saw the captivating patterns everywhere. The clouds outside the train window, the crack in the faux-leather of the seat in front of him, the blue-green veins visible through the skin of Dib’s wrist. 

Were they in him, too? His Pak, his organs? They seemed to span the universe. Did they link him to this world?

For so long, Zim had wanted nothing to do with this backwater planet. He’d clung to his supposed superiority with all his energy, shielded himself from interaction and vulnerability with insults and arrogance.

But if he was going to be the best—and he was—he had to be honest. Had to take stock of his assets. Had to scrub that one-dimensional Armada crap from the recesses of his brain and let his own exceptional perspective take over and color his view of this world. 

That was his biggest goal for this trip—to get to know this place he had no choice but to call home. And the more he did, the more he fell in love with it. 

Love. That wasn’t supposed to be a thing he did. That wasn’t what Irkens were. They were loyal—completely, unfailingly, stupidly loyal, to their empire, to their Tallest, to those in control. 

But, he thought, eyes fixed on the blurred scenery through the window, love wasn’t loyalty. Loyalty required unquestioning faith, required obedience. And, if he was going to get serious about this honesty thing, well. He’d never been very good at it, had he?

Love, though. Maybe it was defective. Even the way it happened, falling, uncertain. But this whole planet seemed to thrive on it, and looking around, it didn’t seem to be doing half bad. Indeed, a lot of it was awful. But the ruthless place he came from wasn’t any better.

To love this planet, he didn’t need to accept its every flaw, live in denial with every step he took. It wouldn’t spurn him if he was angry. For Irk’s sake—well, no. For...Earth’s sake? That wasn’t...he’d have to update his phrases. The point was, half the population of this stupid insane place were also angry, and their anger didn’t always make it fall apart, didn’t destroy it. Their anger, their disgust, their terror, it could make them work harder, make things better.

So yes, Zim decided, sitting up a little more confidently in his seat, absently patting Gir on the head. He was falling in love with Earth. Slowly, and surely, and now that he’d had this little self-talk, totally on purpose. 

He glanced at Dib, still chatting endlessly into his recorder. So many thoughts he couldn’t contain. Such a messy, inefficient way of reporting them. Something pulled in Zim’s chest. 

Earth-boy. He really was. 

Dib clicked off the recorder and then took a deep breath. 

“You know, for someone who really used to hate psychology, I sure have talked about it a lot on this show.”

Zim snorted. “Speak for yourself. I’ve always thought the so-called “social sciences” were eh, fascinating.” He paused. “As potential vectors for world takeover, of course,” he clarified, but Dib was pretty sure by the lightness of his tone he was completely and utterly joking.

Dib grinned back at him. “Of course,” he indulged. 

“So,” Zim asked, rapping his nails on the armrest, “what is the plan in this,” he glanced at the map in front of them, “Lun-din”? 

Dib stretched his arms above his head and trained his gaze out the window. He still couldn’t look Zim in the eye. Maybe that would fade, after a couple of days? Or maybe—no. This wasn’t the time to think about it. 

He wasn’t really sure what was the time to think about it, or talk about it, but he was pretty sure in a train filled with strangers going 186 miles per hour through a tunnel under the ocean was not it. 

“I dunno, the cryptids reported around London are kind of, uh...campy? I mean, phantom kangaroos, bat creatures, Victorian weirdos. It’s ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I mean, yeah, but that’s besides the point. I don’t know that I...have anything, really, to say about them? Wales would be cool, but it’s a little off-track. So. Actually I figured we could just sorta bop around town until our train to Paris?”

Zim looked scandalized. “Zim does not ‘bop’”. 

Dib let out a low laugh. “Sure. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I’ve led the way this whole trip.” 

He pressed the map into Zim’s hands. 

“Why don’t you take us for a spin? You’re gonna have to be a bit of a guide in Paris, anyway. My high school French has nothing on your Pak’s translator.”

Zim all but ripped the map out of his hands. 

“Say no more, Dib-nerd! Zim shall take us on the most glorious adventure!”

Dib shook his head, smiling. “Okay, just...don’t make me regret this,” he warned, knowing there was just about no way he ever could.

“Okay,” Dib said slowly, “you know when I said take us for a spin, I didn’t necessarily mean literally?”

Zim cackled. “Zim knows nothing, Dib-let, and what does it matter? This thing looks incredible!”

He turned to look at the contraption head-on. This. This had to be one of humanity’s greatest machinations. Rides . Whole apparatuses rigged just for experiencing the edge of death and screaming. And this one, well. It may look innocuous enough, slow and harmless, but Zim knew the truth. The slower the wheel, the better the view. This thing was high ground incarnate. 

The London Eye. 

“This thing costs a fortune,” Dib grumbled as he stepped up to pay for their tickets. 

Zim blanched. He hadn’t thought about that.

“Whoa, no, don’t worry about it! I was just poking fun. I’ll be nice.”

“Dib-friend, you are many things, but I am not certain that ‘nice’ has ever been one of them.”

“Hey! I mean, that’s probably fair. But neither are you.”

Zim shuddered. “If you ever witness me be nice, please do me a favor and shoot me into an asteroid belt.”

“Noted. Can’t say I’ll swing that for like, compassionate, though. Sometimes it’s fun watching you let your guard down.”

Zim swallowed. This was getting dangerously close to talking about last night. Which wasn’t a challenge, of course! No, he would handle that brilliantly, when it happened. It was just...he hadn’t quite figured out how to do that, yet. 

How to make sure he hadn’t done anything embarrassing, or offensive, or crossed any lines that would ruin anything. How to put words to whatever change was happening in their friendship that wouldn’t make it crumble under the weight. 

He only had one person, after all. Maybe...he looked around the crowded queue for the Ferris Wheel. Maybe one day he’d have more than a handful of creatures to his name. But it wasn’t one day yet. It was today, and he hadn’t decided what to say.

They were up in line. He abandoned their train of conversation gleefully and grabbed Dib’s arm, yanking him into the pod. 

For all his poking fun, Dib immediately pressed his whole face up against the glass, watching in awe as the city grew small and spread out below them. 

At some point during the ascent, between pointing out landmarks and wondering aloud what various little ant-people were doing down there, Zim began to laugh. 

And it wasn’t anything like his evil, destroy-the-world cackle. It wasn’t gentle or soft, not by a long shot, but it...it felt more full, more alive. Rounder. Earthier. 

It echoed against the walls of the pod and Zim took a moment to look at his best friend against the backdrop of London, tiny and gray and magnificent beneath them, and beamed. 

After the 30-minute ride on the Eye and an elaborate afternoon tea, Dib was more than ready to get out of the bustle of tourists and into their hotel in Camden to pass out. 

His backpack was currently occupied by a jam-covered Gir, who was cradled by a bundle of pilfered sweets and finger sandwiches. 

“You know we can just get more food when you want to eat, right?”

“Shhh. It’s the principle of the thing. We paid our monies for the snacks, we take the snacks. They’re ours.” Zim paused. “Besides, I don’t like going out for food in the middle of the night without you. It’s...too quiet.”

“You never did like quiet much, huh?” Dib nodded playfully at Gir, who basically never stopped making sounds. 

Zim rolled his eyes. “I suppose I never had the chance.”

Dib squinted at his phone, then at the sign they were approaching. “Alright, here we are. This Tube station should get us back to Camden, where the train station is.”

Zim sighed. “The bus was crowded and sticky enough. Must we also be underground? ”

Dib stared at Zim for a minute. Something dawned on him. 

“Wait. Zim. Are you...claustrophobic?”

“Zim is phobic of nothing!” Zim snapped. 

“Well that’s definitely not true. Okay. Well, the bus stopped running for the night, but it’s a short ride, okay?” He paused. “Wait. You were going to let me drag you into the Catacombs without telling me this?!”

Zim sniffed. “I told you, Zim is not kuh-loss-tree-phobic. I simply do not trust Earthen engineering or enjoy the close press of strangers in an inescapable environment. The catacombs are practically guaranteed to be human-free, and Zim has been in mines before and knows the escape protocols if necessary.”

“Okay, well, the Underground is pretty old, too, if that makes you feel any better. It’s held up really well. And uh,” Dib glanced away as he inched towards his friend, “I won’t, I mean...we’ll be okay. Okay?”

He hooked his fingers through Zim’s before he could let himself think about it. He felt his Zim take a shuddery breath.

“This is acceptable,” Zim agreed. 

They climbed down into the station.

“ Dib!” Zim screeched, “ I thought we weren’t doing an episode on any horrendous creatures in London!”

“Well, I guess we are now,” Dib screamed back, his footsteps echoing through the tunnel. “I didn’t really plan on running into a fucking werewolf on the subway!”

“You should really plan for your life better, Dib-friend! These things always happen to you!”

“Ugh, I know! Like you!”

“Yes, yes, like me, and like this horrifying wolf creature that won’t let us go home and sleep—”

“Here!” Dib called back to Zim, motioning into a maintenance closet built into the side of the tunnel. “In here.” He yanked Zim inside with him and slammed the door shut behind them. 

The thing was tall and grotesque, only tangentially like a wolf or a human, and it smelled terrible. Its teeth were even more horrible. 

Zim turned to face Dib in the dim light. Aside from getting out of this stupid situation, he had one thing on his mind. “Me. You think I’m one of these atrocious creatures you always run into?”

Dib gaped at him. “What? No! Zim! Okay, number one: I am having a blast. I know I’m crabby because I wanted to sleep, but this? Other than like, tinkering on inventions and hiking, this is my favorite thing in the world. Two: you haven’t been something that happened to me in a very, very long time.” He took a deep breath of the dusty air and hacked up a cough. “And an honorary three: we really, really need to get out of here.”

Zim held his ground, the weight of whatever they’d left unspoken suddenly bearing down on him just as much as the city above. “But—but—what do you think of Zim? I mean, we have a truce, but that isn’t real intel, that’s just a sorry link of necessity! And last night—”

Dib cringed. “You want to do this now? Seriously? ” 

“Yes,” Zim decided, waving his arms wildly, “Zim wants, no, Zim needs to have this conversation. Now!” 

Dib gulped. “Okay, space-boy. I like you, okay? You’re my best friend in the world and you’re funny and snarky and scary and awesome and beautiful and I don’t know what I’d do without you. Also, I was drunk. Also, maybe so were you? You’re more important to me than anything and I don’t want that to change for any reason. Also, I’d really like to kiss you again. Preferably sober, and alone. But we really need to get out of here for that to happen, yeah?”

Zim exhaled. Relief filled his system before he even knew he’d been waiting for it. 

“Yes, yes. Zim feels...much the same.”

“That’s really great, Zim, I’m so glad we had this talk, but listen, tell me, does Zim have a plan? !”

“Also yes.”

“Brilliant. Mind filling me in?”

Zim stopped to consider. “Eh...on a scale from one to ten, how upset will you be if I skewer the were-thing like a...what’s that thing called? A kebab?”

Dib let out a hysterical little chuckle. “Wait, we’re considering my feelings about gruesome paranormal incidents now?”

“Quickly, Dib-thing!”

“Right. Uh. I mean, I don’t really want to deal with this, or, or go to prison, or anything, and we don’t even know, really, what this thing is, like, is that a person? Do they even know what they’re doing? I just...man, I just want to get out of here alive. Maybe that’s ethically ambiguous, but uh. That’s not new for us, right? Also, I don’t want to harm the population especially if we could get some samples—”

Zim nodded. “Got it. Hold Gir.” He thrust a squirming robot into Dib’s arms and braced himself against the door.

He really hoped this would work. No. That was ridiculous. He was Zim. Of course it would work. 

He opened the door just a crack, and let a dispersal contraption out of his Pak. It was supposed to be used for...well, originally, it was supposed to be used for biochemical weaponry. Then he hacked it to spray Gir when he was misbehaving, which, in the long run, was a much more relevant application. 

But if he just infused the liquid within with silver ions, taken from the filtration system built into the Pak...hopefully, it would be just enough to be an irritant. 

Zim didn’t really mind tiptoeing over a dead creature in the subway and calling it a night, but he wasn’t about to listen to Dib freak out about it for the next week.

And he supposed he had asked. 

After the mist was released, he shut the door for another few moments. Sure enough, they heard the roar of a disgruntled creature and then the receding echo of it lumbering away. 

Zim let out a breath he would refuse, if asked, to admit he had been holding.

Dib’s exhale was much louder and more obvious.

“Thanks, Zim. I guess we, uh, need to talk.”

Dib hadn’t thought it could feel any more comfortable, their nightly routine. Curled up in his clean pajamas, after a harrowing walk back up to the street level and into their hotel, three scalding hot showers, and a long, long talk, though, he realized he’d been wrong.

Turns out talking about your feelings makes you feel better. And safer. And all that junk.

Zim had conked out sometime after Dib had stepped into the shower, so Dib carefully stretched out beside him and let his mind wander. 

***

When they’d gotten back, after containing and labeling some werewolf fur samples, he’d forced himself to sit on the bed across from Zim and just talk. Not something they’d ever really been very good at. Bickering? Sure. Fighting monsters? Absolutely. 

Sitting four feet apart and using their words? Not a chance. 

“I didn’t think Irkens did feelings like that,” he’d admitted.  

“I don’t know how good at being Irken I am anymore,” Zim told him. His voice was even but he’d gripped his arms tightly against his chest. “Or ever was.” 

“Touche, I guess. I...like being close to you.”

“Obviously, Zim feels the same.”

“That’s the thing, though. I don’t know if any of this is obvious. ”

Zim stared at him. “How about this? Zim will promise to say more obvious things and be more clear, if Dib promises to stop questioning every obvious thing Zim does and says.”

Dib rolled his eyes. “I will promise to keep my assumptions in check, if you will promise to tell me what you’re thinking once in a while.”

“Deal.”

Dib stared at his feet. He had to...God, he didn’t want to have this conversation. Ever. This is why he never…

“Spit it out, Dib-thing. Follow your own infuriating advice.”

“Okay, so, like...I’ve never dated anyone before. And you’ve definitely never dated anyone before. At least, on Earth — ”

“Zim has never associated with anyone in this manner before, either.”

“And you’re my best friend, and…I mean, are you? I mean, what are you? To me? Or vice versa?”

When he looked up, Zim looked tired. Really tired. And instead of the snarky, avoidant response Dib had been expecting, he got…

“Zim is a bit done with trying to figure out what he is right now. Not an Invader, maybe Irken, not a rival, not a human. Perhaps we could…”

Dib nodded, slowly. “Yeah. We can just...take the summer, right?” He paused for a long moment.  “ You don’t have to be anything to me, Zim. You can just be.”

He felt the last mumbling comment more than heard it, as he leaned in to hug Zim before going to take a shower. 

“Oh, I’m always something to you, Earth-boy.”

***

Dib let his body fully relax for maybe the first time in a week or so. He let his breathing fall into rhythm with the slow whirr of Zim’s Pak. Later, they’d talk more. Or...whatever. 

Later, they’d figure out boundaries, like they always did: with jokes and threats and honest glances. 

Right now...it didn’t feel like a hazy dream anymore. It was too solid for that, already cracked open and acknowledged. And maybe he missed that feeling a little, but...well. 

There was always tomorrow to look forward to.

Dib draped his arm across Zim’s waist and for the first time let himself really pay attention to how it felt, settling there. 

And upon observation, it didn’t immediately shatter. It wasn’t a hallucination, and it wasn’t magic. 

It just felt...good. Maybe a little awkward. A tad too warm, but good enough to not care. 

It wasn’t perfect. Just real. 

Chapter Text

Zim couldn’t help but grin maliciously at the inscription. 

Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort, it read. 

“Stop! This is the empire of Death,” he read aloud to Dib. 

This. This was an empire that had nothing on the Irkens. The grandest one, the one that would overtake all of them one day. Earth and Irk both, all of the soldiers, the Tallests, the Invaders, the humans, everyone. 

“Well,” Dib replied, “here goes nothing.”

He stepped across the threshold to descend into the Catacombs of Paris. 

It was late in the night, long past the scheduled museum tours of the ossuaries that held piles of remains. They were planning to explore deeper crevices than was generally allowed, and that meant not being under the watchful eye of a well-meaning tour guide. 

Zim followed Dib down into the tunnels. The walls were lined with macabre rows of bones and skulls, and though Zim was fairly desensitized to piles of corpses and remains, ahead of him he caught Dib involuntarily shivering. 

Zim pulled Gir along, who was whining about wanting to make a cozy bunk inside of a particularly large skull, and stayed close to Dib, almost close enough to press against his back. 

Whatever was down here, it wasn’t going to get the best of them. Even if it was only a deep sense of unease.

Dib clicked on his recorder, and it echoed ominously in the empty halls of the ossuary. 

“Hello listeners. Tonight Zim and I are creeping on the dead of Paris—we’re headed down into the Catacombs, which are a series of former limestone mines turned into tombs in the 18th century when overflowing cemeteries began to collapse. Pretty gruesome, right?”

Zim hissed. “This is the most inefficient trajectory of burial I’ve ever seen.” He paused to run his fingers along the wall of bones. “It is quite fascinating, however.”

“So, the facts: roughly six million people are buried down here, in a small part of the tunnels that network their way underneath the city. They’re pretty creepy, but we know what’s down here. Bones. So, so many bones. But the tunnels go beyond the ossuaries, and that’s what we’re here to check out. What might these bones be attracting? What creatures might hide themselves in this maze?”

Dib flashed his light down another tunnel: a dead end filled floor to ceiling with elaborate displays of bones. Zim cleared his throat. 

“I, on the other hand, am more interested in the history of these tunnels. There may have been a handful of lousy reports on curious monsters, ghosts and so on, but so many stories find themselves captive in these walls! Lavish secret parties, sinister tourist attractions. Only humans would make money out of artfully displaying the remains of their dead.”

They continued on like that for a few miles, trading stories of spooky hauntings and illicit celebrations. With each corner they turned, there were less bones and more smooth, empty stone walls. 

Dib was pretty sure they’d exited the area that most people visited, and the cold and stagnant air was making him feel on-edge, exposed. He snapped picture after picture, making sure to look out for any tracks or marks in the ground. 

After a few moments, he realized Zim was no longer at his back. He stumbled for a second, almost dropping his camera. 

“Zim?” he called out uncertainly. He was sure he was going to get an earful, making fun of his worry, but he’d rather keep track of everyone in a place like this.

All he heard back was his own echo. 

Wait—no. 

That wasn’t his echo. It was just his words, repeated back to him. 

“Zim! This isn’t funny!” he tried. There was a cold prickle up his spine. 

He was going to murder that bug. 

“ Zim! This isn’t funny!” he heard, bouncing along a tunnel veering off to the right. It definitely wasn’t an echo of his voice, and he was increasingly sure it wasn’t Zim or Gir playing a trick on him either. 

He slung his camera strap around his shoulder and took off running down the left fork. His footsteps echoed hard and solid, but his heavy breaths didn’t. Instead there was just a mocking silence. 

It was a dead end. 

There was nothing here, save for an ancient-looking instrument. A piano? Dib stepped forward to look closer. Nah, an organ. 

It looked like it had been down here a long time, but it wasn’t dusty. 

What had he been looking for, again?

“Dib!” Zim called, poking his head into another pathway. He was trying not to sound frantic. He’d hung back for just a second to keep Gir from prying a bone out of the wall to “play fetch,” and when he’d turned around, Dib was gone. 

Zim grumbled his way down the hall. Leave it to his stupid human to get lost in this literal death-trap. Had he fallen down a sinkhole? Been eaten by a lurking snake or something?

Maybe he was lured away by ghosts or spirits. He was predictable, that way.

Zim caught a glimmer of light up ahead and hurried towards it. 

There, at the corner, was a tunnel he hadn’t noticed before, though he swore he’d passed by here already. It veered off to the right, and he scooped Gir up and raced down it on his Pak legs, clanging with an eerie echo.

At the end, there was a hulking keyboard instrument with gorgeous, twisting pipes. And on the stool in front of it lay Dib. 

Zim lowered himself to step forward and shake his friend violently. 

“Whuh? Hey, I’m up, I’m up!” Dib blinked and shook his head. “Where’d you go?”

“Zim didn’t go anywhere, you moron! I looked up and you were gone!”

“Oh.” Dib pulled himself up off the bench. “Sorry, I...there was this echo...I...I don’t remember how I got here.” 

Zim caught the moment his eyes lit up and watched him pull out a pen and pad, scribbling theories as he muttered into the recorder about ghost types and unearthly pull. 

He let him ramble for a moment before leaning in to grasp onto his shirt tightly. 

“Look at me.”

“I’m—okay, okay, what’s up?”

“Stay close. And do NOT follow any more echoes.”

Dib all but pouted. “But I wanna know where the ghosts are!”

Zim gritted his teeth. “We’re not going to know where the ghosts are if they devour you and your equipment, are we, Dib-idiot?”

“No,” Dib admitted. 

Zim sat down on the bench beside him. He hesitated before what he had to say next. 

“You know that we are going to have listeners whether you prove your theories or not, yes?”

Dib startled. “I...I mean, you really think so?”

“Dib. Seriously. Most of your episodes so far have been intrigue, background, myths and fables. Not hard scientific proof.”

“Great, yeah,” Dib muttered. Zim covered his pale hand with his own for a second. 

“ Yes. And you still have so many listeners. They don’t need the proof. They just want to hear you.”

Dib sucked in a breath. He knew, on an objective level, that what Zim was saying was true. 

But it was hard to let go, after years and years of habit, the idea that if he just had one more piece of evidence, one more way to prove himself, that the world would open up to him. That he would be taken seriously, respected, admired. 

He blinked the sting of almost-tears away. If he was to believe Zim, then...then he was already there, and too blind to see it. 

But if he was already there, then he had no idea what he was doing. With anything.

He needed a distraction. He pointed to the organ.

“So, you ever seen one of these?”

Zim squinted at it. “Not specifically. I have seen the so-called woodwind instruments, and I have seen a piano, but this seems to be...a hybrid abomination.”

“Yup,” Dib replied. “It’s an organ. They’re kind of old-timey. Not very common anymore, except in churches sometimes.” He took a breath of musty air. “You should take a crack at it.”

“As much as Zim enjoys destroying things, I think I’d rather know what it sounds like first.”

“I know you know what I meant.”

Zim grinned at him slyly. “Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, Earth-boy.”

Was this…? No. Maybe? He scooted closer to Zim, so their thighs were pressed together. 

Suddenly it wasn’t the echoes he was hearing, but his heart beating in his ears. 

He turned his head, on impulse, and pressed his lips into Zim’s exposed shoulder. 

Zim shuddered. 

“Play something,” Dib whispered. 

Zim reached out to the keys and let his clawed fingers settle there for a moment.

And then he began to play.

Zim wasn’t sure what he was playing, exactly. The first few notes he played sounded discordant and strange, but he wasn’t sure he minded. 

And once he got a sense of what each one sounded like, well. Like any machine, he took to it quickly. 

It was a much more beautiful kind of improvisation than his usual haphazard reactions to plans gone awry. 

He thought of Elise and her electric beats through the headphones. He sped up his fingers and tried to emulate the sound, but it came out distorted and faraway-sounding through the ancient instrument. 

He kind of liked the effect. 

Dib was now resting his head against Zim’s shoulder and he could feel the slow intake and exhale of each of his breaths. 

A few minutes in, almost imperceptibly, Dib clicked the recorder on. 

If Zim were another creature, he probably wouldn’t have heard it. But he was Zim, and he did. He didn’t say anything. He just kept playing, the music rising and falling as he tried to express what he was feeling about this moment in some way other than screaming. 

His fingers danced across the keys, and the pipes screamed for him. 

When he had nothing left to play, he let his hands fall into his lap and sat for a moment in silence.

Dib clicked the recorder off and then whispered into the dark. 

“That was amazing.”

Zim didn’t say anything, but wrapped his right arm, now free, around Dib’s waist beside him. 

“Have you ever played an instrument before?”

“Miss Bitters tried to put me in band once. Gir got stuck in a tuba and we were asked to leave. Zim was a master of the flute for a few classes, though.”

“I bet you were.”

Zim hadn’t expected this...quiet. He’d expected an impassioned rant about how he could use this newfound interest to integrate into humanity, or do good, or...or something. 

Maybe the ghostly influence hadn’t quite worn off yet. He looked down to check, but when he met Dib’s eyes, they weren’t glassy or distracted. They were large and brown and staring right back at him.

Dib had always known Zim was capable of great things, unbelievable things. World-destroying plans, yes, but incomprehensibly annoying plots and distractions, unparalleled engineering, incredible theatrics. 

None of them had ever been as raw or as brilliant as watching Zim play music, his own music, just for them.

This time, it was Dib who surged forward and kissed Zim. 

He wasn’t drunk, or confused, or exhausted. Okay, well, he had just had a strange supernatural encounter that maybe messed with his head, but that was par for the course, really. 

This time, when Zim kissed back, he wasn’t freaking out, wasn’t hyperventilating. Dib was able to lose himself for a moment in the sensation. It was quiet, and dark, aside from the faint glow of his flashlight, forgotten, on the ground. 

Zim wound his arms around Dib’s waist and pulled him in closer on the bench, and Dib pressed into him, grabbing hold of his shoulders. 

He must have grabbed a little too hard, because their teeth clanged together and Zim yelped. 

“Sorry,” Dib whispered against Zim’s jaw. 

He felt a mumble that might have been “Don’t worry about it, moron” before Zim’s lips were on his again.

Dib realized, suddenly, feeling the smooth, strange surface of Zim’s skin as he trailed his fingers down his back, that in a really weird way, his childhood goals were being fulfilled after all. 

He was examining Zim, figuring out what made him tick and what made him different. Just...a lot closer. And a lot warmer. 

He felt one of Zim’s claws inch its way beneath his shirt, scraping the skin. It made him wince. 

Zim froze. Dib pulled back to look at him. “I didn’t ask you to stop, space-boy.”

“Zim hurt you.”

Dib let out a breathless laugh. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He leaned in to kiss Zim’s neck, taking note of how the tendons stitched together, where the veins sat beneath the skin. 

“Hey,” he said, “it was just a scratch.” He kissed another point on Zim’s neck, harder this time, enough to leave a bruise on a human, though not on Zim.

“Also,” he breathed, “could you do it again?”

“This was okay, right?” Dib asked, shuffling his way out of an unmarked tunnel exit, lifting Zim and Gir up after him.

Zim glared at him. “If this wasn’t okay, Dib-fool, you’d be face-down in that shimmering pool we just passed.”

“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to make sure.”

He wasn’t going to say it, but Zim wasn’t altogether opposed to the question, anyway.

It was kind of...nice, he supposed. Being asked. 

The sun was just rising as they exited the catacombs, bathing the city in an ethereal early-morning light. 

After...the organ room, they’d wandered a bit around that part of the tunnels, but found few signs of whatever had entranced Dib to begin with. They had a sample of water from a hidden underground pool, and a few more recordings of the sound quality and potential hauntedness of the mines, but that was it. 

Dib yawned. “Well. I guess that wasn’t, uh. Totally unproductive.” 

Zim fought the urge to claw across Dib’s face. “You were nearly abducted by an unknown entity of deathly origin. I don’t want to get more productive than that, Dib-thing.”

“Fair, fair. Anyway, I guess we can...find some crêpes or something, and then hit the hotel for a nap.”

“Crêpes?” Zim perked up. “This is a snack?”

Dib grinned at him. “This is the ultimate snack. Imagine a pancake, but...well, no, it’s actually nothing like a pancake. Listen: you can get them with jam and sugar. That’s all you really need to know.”

“Take me to these crêpes, now, ” Zim demanded. 

“Say please.”

“I will turn you inside out.”

“I don’t believe you,” Dib said, eyes twinkling.

“I will tell your sister that you stole one of her stuffed animal robots to bring on this trip.”

“Okay, okay, you haven’t lost your touch! Crêpes thisaway, monsieur.”

“Much better,” Zim said approvingly. 

They swing Gir between them on their way to the crêperie. 

Okay. He had to ask. It was going to drive him insane if he didn’t. 

“Zim, what on earth are you staring at?”

It appeared, to Dib, like Zim was intently studying the concrete wall of an old building. Not the architecture, or the decoration, just...the concrete.

Zim waved him over. “Look.”

In the crack where he was gazing, a few little green shoots were sprouting up.

“Okay. I see some weeds.”

Zim looked at him, scandalized. “Weeds! These organisms are growing in an inhospitable environment, against all odds, and you call them weeds.”

“I mean...yeah? But yeah, I guess that’s cool. Kinda common, though.”

Zim shook his head. “They are...prickly. Spiteful.”

“You like them.”

“No.”

“Obviously, you like them.”

“Maybe,” Zim agreed petulantly.

Now that Dib was looking around, though, Zim was right. Moss against stone. Flowers blooming in the cracks.

More and more, it seemed, he was drawn to see things differently through Zim’s eyes. Not as targets or worthless bystanders, like he once might have, either. Beautiful things. Music he wouldn’t have liked, views he wouldn’t have noticed. 

Even things about himself. What people liked about him, what people listened to. 

He was starting to outgrow the ideas he used to have of what their lives would be. It seemed absurd, here, in another country, surrounded by art and history he’d never even considered, that his choices could possibly be as limited as he used to think, a binary decision between paranormal investigation and hard science. 

It made him feel almost dizzy, thinking about how much else was out there. 

And even dizzier to think that it was because of Zim, and not in spite of him, that he was realizing it. 

He snapped a few pictures of the view. 

Hmmm. He hadn’t really taken any pictures of himself since he’d snapped a quick record of meeting Luuk and Elise back in Amsterdam. He flipped the camera.

“Hey Gir! Want to take a selfie?”

“Syrup!”

Dib assumed that was an affirmative, since Gir bounced up and down, asking to be picked up. Dib used a crumpled napkin to wipe some bechamel sauce from God knew where off of Gir’s chin before scooping him up and holding him in front of the camera. 

He snapped a few silly pictures of the two of them before he felt a claw tapping on his arm. 

Dib whirled around, immediately explaining himself. “He’s in his disguise! I promise! Just me and a dog!”

Zim looked over his shoulder intently. “No, it...it’s not that.”

“Oh?”

“I was...I...Zim demands you take a photograph with him.”

“Oh! Sure. I guess that’s a, uh, new development, huh?”

“Was that a pun?” Zim asked suspiciously. 

Dib grinned. “It is now! Okay, come here.”

He pulled Zim in beside him and then rested an arm around his shoulders. 

Zim looked forward with a tentative smile. 

Almost...shy.

He snapped the picture. Usually, he’d take more than one, but...he didn’t want to push it. 

“I’ll send it to you.”

Zim nodded and mumbled what might have been a thanks, and then leaned forward to look over Dib’s shoulder at the photo.

Dib stood, with a wide smile, in front of a lamppost in the picturesque neighborhood they were staying in, his shirt stained with mustard and his hair mussed up from the wind. Zim leaned into him, his royal blue jumpsuit billowing a little in the breeze. 

It was a good picture.

When Zim turned away to snatch Gir from running off, he surreptitiously made it Zim’s contact photo. It was the first real picture he’d ever taken of Zim, one that didn’t look like it belonged on Mysterious Mysteries.

He hoped it wouldn’t be the last. 

Chapter Text

The architecture inside Incheon International Airport was breathtaking. 

The experience, on the other hand, of stumbling into Seoul after an 11 hour flight, was less than impressive. 

Zim had tried. He had succeeded. He had (he shuddered internally) participated.  But next time they traveled internationally? They were taking the Voot. 

Dib stumbled along behind him, dragging a deadweight Gir by the arm. 

“Why’d we turn him off again?” he mumbled. 

“I couldn’t hear that infernal song again!” Zim cried. “No more chicken. No more rice. No more.”

Dib blinked slowly. “Agreed.” 

After zombie-walking through the airport in search of their luggage, they decided to grab dinner and then crash at their hotel. 

Zim squinted at the menu. “This language is much less nonsensical than your Latin-based shit.”

“Hey man, I didn’t design them! But yeah. Probably.”

“You should learn this.”

“That would take me...years. You know that, right?”

Zim shrugged. “We have years, Earth-boy.” He paused, considering. “We have so many years.”

It was true, wasn’t it? The rest of their lives on this little spinning planet. They could do anything.

He looked up, awaiting a reply, but Dib had become distracted by a plate of fried chicken, practically drooling. 

Zim glanced back to the menu and scanned quickly. Dib had clearly already made up his mind. 

Barbecue, soup, soup, more soup...hmm. His antennae pricked up hopefully. Pancakes?

He typed the name into the little bar on his phone and shoved the screen at Dib.

“What is this?”

“Huh? Oh, those are like...savory pancakes. Like, little discs of dough, like a pancake, but they’re not sweet, so don’t get excited. They’re full of like, green onions and stuff. I think.”

Zim contemplated. “They are still full of, eh, carbs?”

Dib bit back a smile. “And salt.”

And salt. “Okay. Zim is ready.”

God, for just one city in one small country, there was so much to do. Dib’s head was spinning. Architecture...sky park?! And holy shit, the aquariums. 

He glanced at Zim, who was busy lasering off an offending button from his top. Apparently, anything that was just for decoration was inferior and disgusting. Dib was sure this had nothing at all to do with how it got caught on Zim’s sleeve.

“So? Any idea what you want to do while we’re here?”

Zim finished his task and flopped backwards onto the bed next to Dib. “This is the last place we are visiting before we return...home.”

Dib turned to face him. “Yeah. Last foreign country. We still have one more stop.”

Zim furrowed his brow for a moment, and then looked up, completely placid. “Okay. Everything.”

“Seriously?”

“You asked, Zim has answered. I would like to do everything.”

“Alright. You’re gonna have to give me another minute with the map and itinerary, then.”

Some schedule juggling and light bickering later, they had a plan. 

Two days, so many things. 

The first thing, though, was Haneul Park, the Sky Park, and Dib honestly couldn’t account for why he was so excited. 

So excited he was making a recording. About something...decidedly not paranormal. 

“...built on a landfill, which is insane. Who builds a landfill with views like this? But then, I guess, who turns it into a park? The duality of man, listeners. Okay, so…”

About twenty minutes into his rambling, Zim cut him off. “We’ll have to come back.”

“What?”

“The silver grass, in the pictures. It’s only in bloom in October. So we will have to come back.”

Dib squeezed his eyes shut and turned off the recording. It wasn’t anything, anyway.

Something past summer. Something...real.

“You want to come back?”

“That is what I just said, Dib-idiot.”

“With me?”

Zim stared at him. “Who else?”

Dib opened his eyes to the vast Seoul skyline. “Okay,” he said, feeling slightly hysterical. “Yeah. Let’s come back.”

Zim looked on at the building in front of him.

“Now this is a city hall.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty insane,” Dib agreed. 

Zim felt a little bit dizzy. The contrast between the bold, contemporary new building and the small, stately library that used to be the city hall. This whole city...old and new, side by side, on top of each other. 

Why hadn’t the Irkens ever done that?

They’d just blazed over their past in pursuit of some supposedly glorious new future. And now Zim was out here, floundering, no idea where he really came from, and no idea where he was going, either. 

Their culture had been so monotonous, he realized now. So...boring. Hideous. 

How had he been proud of that for so long?

He was sure it was still a part of him. But...wasn’t whatever came before it? Wasn’t it still simmering in his DNA, guiding him? That ghost of whatever once was?

What was he?

He thought back to a conversation he and Dib had had that morning, on the bus. Zim hadn’t understood why all these people here were Korean, because they were from here, but some of their classmates back home were Korean, but they weren’t from here, and…

What was it Dib had called it? Korean-American. 

A hybrid culture, a...an immigration. 

Not fully one thing, not fully another. 

Maybe that’s what he was now. Irken...Earthen?

The idea echoed in his head the whole way back to the hotel, and long after Dib had fallen asleep beside him.

Day two was museum day, and as much as Dib loved museums? His feet hurt. So bad. 

Funny thing was, he hadn’t actually voiced this complaint out loud when Zim hoisted him up onto his back.

“It was written all over your face, Dib-fool.”

Dib was trying to keep from spluttering. He was trying really hard, thank you very much. 

It wasn’t working. 

“I...uh...thank...wait, this doesn’t hurt you, right?”

Zim snorted. “My Pak makes me much stronger than you. Zim is fine.”

Dib looped his arms around Zim’s neck and decided to keep his stuttering mouth shut and enjoy this.

They’d been to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Trickeye Museum, and now, the COEX Aquarium. 

This was the first even remotely scientific place they’d been, and Dib found himself...surprisingly enough, not wondering about giant paranormal jellyfish. 

Well, he sort of was. He was sort of always thinking about stuff like that, but he was also...thinking about why the hell there were even stories of giant paranormal jellyfish. 

That was the thing he suddenly couldn’t get out of his head, the bit that wasn’t experiments and proving things. 

The why. Why were there all these stories? True or not, someone told them, spun them, stuck by them, believed them. 

“What nonsense is knocking around in your big head back there, Dib-heavy?”

“Hey, you’re the one who picked me up!” Dib sighed. “I don’t know. I guess...I guess I was just thinking about...folklore?”

“Isn’t everything you think about folklore?”

“Yeah, I mean, no? I mean, I guess I spend all my time trying to prove that it’s more important than folklore, that it’s real, right? But...what if...I mean, what if it’s really important because it’s folklore?”

Zim shifted underneath him. “Dib.” 

“Yes?”

“You have spent this entire trip prattling on about the stories behind all of your so-called paranormal idiocy. You mean to tell Zim that you are only just now ceasing the stupid notion that it’s not important ?”

Dib choked on a laugh. “I guess? I guess I just...I guess I’m, uh,” oh man, he was going to have to run this by his dad, “warming up to the humanities.”

Zim grunted. “I think that sounds very appropriate for the protector of humanity, Earth-boy.”

Dib was really glad Zim couldn’t see how red his face was turning. 

Okay. Zim wasn’t stupid. He was aware, uncomfortably so, that this rave was going...very badly. 

He just wasn’t sure that was entirely his fault. 

They’d shown up because of him, yes. This was true. Neither of them were particularly big fans of the party scene, but Zim had heard through some of Elise’s contacts about some experimental electronic music. 

All he’d wanted to do was go listen to—maybe even contribute to—this music with his....his...Dib. 

So how had things gone this badly?

He tried to trace over what had happened and he kept coming back to the same thing. At some point, Dib had ditched him to check out some spooky rumors about something near the bathroom, and Zim had found himself hovering by the DJ, alone.

Which was not what he’d wanted. Ugh. He tugged at his antennae in frustration. 

Now they were knee-deep in some sort of radioactive goo, and Dib had the audacity to be angry with him. 

Whatever. He was not going to be the first to crack. He wasn’t. He was the great and almighty Zim. He was a conqueror from worlds untold. He was not…

The words burst forth from his chest before he could stop them. 

“Dib-idiot, you are the one who dragged your stupid hunting hobby into the mix and got us into this mess! So I don’t see where you get off ignoring the mighty—”

“Oh, can it. The crowds have fled, you don’t have to hold onto your little posturing schtick. If my ‘hunting hobby’ is so stupid, why the hell do you even hang out with me? Maybe I just needed some distraction from your ridiculous new obsession.”

Zim sucked in a breath and let the rage pool in his gut. 

“Maybe you’re just mad I finally found something to be obsessed with that isn’t you!”

Dib had been angry, but that? That stung enough to have him ready to sob. 

He turned away from Zim, fiddling with some more wires in Gir’s chest. If he could just…

Well, if he could just see through the haze of tears clouding his eyes, maybe he could get somewhere and get them out of this mess. 

Not that he was the one that got them into this mess. 

He wasn’t the one who dragged them to some haunted-ass rave downtown, and he certainly wasn’t the one who blew off hanging out to fangirl after some DJ with a stupid haircut.

He didn’t realize he was mumbling to himself until Gir responded. It was kind of slurred, whether from the loose wires spilling from the robot’s chest or whatever illicit substances he’d consumed that night, Dib wasn’t sure.

“You sound jelly, Mary,” Gir repeated again, giggling. 

Dib stabbed a tool into his chest. “Shut up, Gir.”

Okay. Perhaps Zim had gone too far with that one. 

Dib was turned away from him now, utterly ignoring him, and Zim felt cold tingling in his limbs. 

He needed to say something else. 

He just wasn’t really sure, still, how to say something that wasn’t from a handbook about how to insult your enemies. 

They’d been rivals for far longer than they’d been friends, after all. 

Alright. What were you supposed to do when you were in a fight with a friend?

He tried to track back what had happened again. He hit the roadblock. Again.

“I just wanted to go to a show with you.”

He was startled to hear Dib reply so quickly.

“No, you just wanted to go to a show.”

“With you,” Zim sounded out, slowly, like talking to a stupid child. 

Dib was acting like a stupid child. 

Dib was basically a stupid child. Zim sighed. They both were.

“Funny way of showing it,” he heard Dib mutter. 

“What?” Zim replied, sounding...honestly confused. 

It made something in Dib’s chest hurt, that confusion. That...pain. Ugh. 

Fine. Whatever.

“The first thing you said to someone was that you were here with “some guy from school.” The literal second we were around people you had something in common with, I’m just some guy.” Dib stabbed another wire into the tangle in front of him, and it sparked.

“I get it, okay? We were never the likeliest of friends, or whatever. But come on. You could have just...I don’t know, just told me to fuck off or something.”

“What?” came Zim’s echo, again. 

“I just told you, you stupid—”

“You heard that?” Zim continued. 

“Yeah, I heard that, space-bug.”

It was silent in the goo-filled club for what felt like a long time.

“Zim is…sorry. I’m sorry.”

Dib chucked the bundle of wires at the source of the goo, an overflowing pipe in the wall, and it began to suction the revolting stuff back to whatever underground lab it had come from. 

“What?” It came out a lot softer than he’d intended it to. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid! What a miserable idiotic wretch he was—

“Zim was just, I just...panicked,” he admitted. 

“He asked what you were to me and I panicked,” he repeated, his voice feeling very small in his chest. 

He hadn’t heard Dib crawl over to where he sat until the other boy’s arm was on his shoulder. 

Zim looked up. Dib looked just as miserable as Zim felt. 

“I thought you were ditching me to hang out with some futuristic music nerds.”

Zim snorted. “Their technique was interesting, but Zim’s choice in people is much better,” he said, looking Dib pointedly in the eye. 

Dib looked down at the messy ground. “Then why did you—”

“I told you, I panicked. I...know you’re a friend, now. But you’re obviously...something else? I didn’t want to…” Zim searched for the right words. “I did not want to get my ‘hopes up’, I believe is the expression.” 

“About what?”

“About us.”

Dib stared at him. “Zim, what are you talking about?”

“I—”

“Zim. You seemed unsure so I told you I’d go slow because we’ve been...and we’re...but, listen, you...I love you, you idiot. I love you.”

God. That was it. He’d said it. 

It wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a joke, and they were going home to California tomorrow, and he’d told Zim he loved him and he’d meant it. 

“But you were so angry with Zim.”

“Yeah, because I thought you’d ditched me. And lied to me. And...because we probably still have a lot to work out, like, balance wise and shit.” He took a deep breath. “And because it hurt, that you were mad at me.”

Zim had climbed into his lap and was resting his head against Dib’s chest. His eyes were squeezed shut, but Dib was pretty sure he’d been crying.

“Zim loves you too, Dib-fool.”

Dib’s breath felt sharp in his chest. “I thought you weren’t…”

“I wasn’t. But I am. The stupid kid with the stupid haircut asked who you were to me and I panicked, because it wasn’t rival and it wasn’t friend and it wasn’t stranger. And I knew what it was and we hadn’t talked about it and...and you’re in love with this whole planet, Dib. It’s plain on your face.”

Dib wrapped his arms around Zim. 

“So are you.”

Zim looked up at him, eyes wide. “Only because of you.”

Dib sucked in a breath. “Oh.”

It felt different, this time, when Zim kissed him. More fragile. 

More real. 

He pulled back.

“We should go and get cleaned up, Dib-let.”

“You know, I actually like that one.”

Zim pulled himself up with a Pak leg, and then pulled Dib up after him. 

Dib brushed himself off and then looked at the floor. “I guess we have a lot to talk about, then.”

Zim rolled his eyes. “We always have a lot to talk about. Right now, Zim is just…”

He looked around the abandoned room. Thought about the whole zigzagging trip they’d just been on. Thought about building a place for himself in this world. 

“Zim is just ready to go home.”

He was caught off guard when Dib hoisted him up into his arms and started to make his way out of the building, dragging Gir from a cable like a leash behind them. 

“Me too, Zim. Me too.”

Chapter Text

Somehow, even though they weren’t quite “home” yet, Dib felt a tangible sense of relief when they landed in San Francisco. It was still his home state, his home country. 

He was in range of it all now— the crowds of people on the badly maintained streets, the trucks hawking greasy fried food, the exhaust fumes and thick air. 

He’d thought it might have diminished, after traveling more, the sense of vastness, the feeling that California and America stretched on and on beyond him, but if anything, it just felt bigger. 

He closed his eyes against the chattering of strangers. Familiar languages, the hard edges of English, the quick leaps of Spanish, words that he actually understood floating through his mind. 

He glanced over at Zim, a bit guiltily. He got to revel in the familiarity of his home, and Zim...well. 

But Zim was back to his own kind of familiar: yanking a wailing Gir off of the counter of a taco place, batting away concerned bystanders and screeching. 

Dib huffed a laugh and went to go help.

Zim blinked against the bright sun. There were definitely better corners of this planet. And certainly worse. 

But this one, he at least knew well. It held memories, if nothing else. 

Dib and his dramatics. Gir’s insanity. Zim’s base. Paths he’d walked before. A good starting place, for...whatever came next. 

Of course, not exactly this area. Which he still didn’t understand. 

“Dib,” he said as they approached the airport pickup area, “I do not mean to undermine your intelligence, but this is definitely not the closest airport to our...to home.”

“Nope,” Dib agreed jovially, holding out an arm so Gir could swing around in circles. 

“So...what are we doing here?”

“I told you, we have one more stop on our trip before home.”

“Then why on earth aren’t we dragging ourselves into another abysmal method of transportation and going to it?”

Dib grinned at him, clearly withholding something. “I think you’ll rather like our next mode of transportation.” 

An alarmingly familiar beep sounded from the pickup lane, and Zim turned to squint at...no. 

He fully intended to screech, You let the Gaz-sister pilot my voot ?!?

What came out instead was a surprised yelp as he dashed to his beloved car. 

The streamlined interface. The beautiful, clean chassis. 

He climbed in the driver’s seat and roughly knocked Gaz aside. 

“Hello to you too, weirdo” she grumbled, but she didn’t sound as threatening as she could so he didn’t worry about it. 

He felt a wicked smile spread across his face as he readjusted the seat and controls. 

“Alright, feeble humans and Gir. Where are we headed?”

Dib was so relieved his surprise went well. Zim had been affronted, but also delighted, and ultimately he looked completely at home at the wheel of the Voot, so it was ultimately an okay gamble. 

Dib really hoped he was getting better at making those. 

He directed Zim over the city and then loosely along the winding roads of Mount Tamalpais. 

The trees were getting taller. This was what they were here for. 

Finally, they stumbled out of the vehicle at the entrance of Muir Woods. The three of them had been on hikes before, but never with scenery like this.

A mile or so into the trail, on a bridge across a small creek, he decided to speak up and explain himself.

“I wanted to see something amazing near us before we went home.” 

Zim nodded slowly. “This is...acceptably majestic.”

“Shut up, you morons,” Gaz growled. “I’m reveling.”

Sure enough, Gaz looked straight-up mesmerized. Dib wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her this amazed. Video games be damned. 

The hills made Zim dizzy, but in a good way. The trees that towered above were old, ancient growths and they dwarfed every other living creature in sight. 

To hell with the Tallest, these were worthy of worship. 

They climbed mostly in silence, Gaz scouting ahead and Zim trailing behind, Dib comfortably in the middle. 

It felt too magnificent to break— the awe of the trees, the comfort of the quiet. 

It felt like being home. In this place, with these people. 

When they landed back in the city, Gaz departed as instantly as she’d shown up, muttering about some interviews with a gaming company and heading off as though on a mission.

Dib guessed she was. Her own, now, finally growing up. 

Ugh, that was sappy. Oh well. He only had one little sister. He guessed he got to be sappy about her sometimes.

She’d kill him if she knew, though.

He and Zim stopped by the Ghirardelli flagship store, and he watched Zim load up on every possible kind of chocolate while biting back a smile. He wanted so many more days like this.

“You know we can come back, right?”

“Dib-mate, we will be coming back regularly. ”

“That’s what I thought. Need me to carry any of those?” Dib reached out for one of the bags Zim was precariously balancing in his arms.

Zim snatched it away. “Get your own sweets!”

“Okay, okay, geez! I was just trying to help.”

Zim squinted at him appraisingly and then thrust one of the smaller bags at him.

“I suppose you could be trusted with this one.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

“Aw man, wish I’d recorded that. You’re welcome, Zim.”

“Feh, don’t get used to it!”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“So, where to next, human?”

“I’m not really sure. We’ve got the rest of the day...we could take the streetcar downtown?”

Zim nodded and they waited for a few moments and then climbed aboard the old car when it approached. 

It was blue, retro, and devoid of any other passengers. 

They sat and watched the hazy California sunset through the window. 

“Zim,” Dib asked, suddenly worried, “are we still...I mean...we’ve both got a lot to look forward to. But it’s going to be together...right?”

“Dib-fool, you haven’t gotten rid of me for more than ten years. It’s not going to be that easy.”

Dib let his anxiety melt away as he smiled at Zim. “Right back at you.”

Zim squirmed in the seat as the sky turned from orange to pink. “You know how we agreed, before the summer, to be...partners? Friends?”

Dib swallowed. “Yeah?”

“I think I’d like it if we were...something else.”

“Are you saying you want to be my boyfriend?”

Zim shook his head. “That’s a stupid phrase.”

Dib laughed. “Well, I guess we have all the time in the world to argue about that one, space boy.”

“I guess we do.” Zim paused. “I’m glad we do.”

“Love you too, Zim,” Dib replied, resting his head on Zim’s shoulder. 

“Loved you first.” 

“Love you more.” 

“You’ll never win! Zim is always victorious.”

“You wish!”

Dib had a feeling this was an argument neither of them was ever going to win.