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Today has taken a bit of a turn.
Zim’s strange amorphous blob of nanorobotics has gained sentience (unsurprising) and is now dead set on murdering Zim (even less surprising).
The problem with this, is that a robot made for mass destruction tends to annihilate anyone in its path, not just its target.
And, unfortunately, Dib managed to shatter his ankle on the last jump between rooftops, so he is currently in said path.
It’s the first time he’s sustained major damage in a fight in… probably at least six months. Or, major damage that wasn't a direct result of Zim’s PAK legs, anyway.
The pain is immediate, and vicious. Dib risks a glance at his ankle, and finds that it’s already doubled in size. Fucking great.
A dozen feet away, on the rooftop Dib just idiotically tried to parkour off of, Zim has stopped moving. He has a tiny lead on the aforementioned Robotic Blob Monster, but not enough of one that he should stop running.
That thing seems pretty determined to kill him, and honestly, Dib was kinda prepared to let it try.
Heartless? Maybe.
But, if anything’s gonna kill Zim, it probably won’t be a twenty-foot tall pile of nano-tech and goo with a smiley face carved into its stomach (courtesy of GIR, back when the damn robot hadn’t gone evil yet). That'd be- well, that'd just be pretty fucking insulting, considering how many times Dib has tried to kill Zim and failed.
Anyway. Back to the matter at hand, which is Zim's apparent lapse of (already limited) sanity. Because in the face of all logic, Zim has paused to stare at Dib.
His contacts are in, but his antennae are uncovered, wig lost within the first few minutes of avoiding robot bloodlust.
…robot bloodlust kinda sucks, Dib thinks dizzily, and not for the first time, thanks his lucky stars that GIR seems too brainless to ever reach this level of carnage. Dib’s seen the blueprints- that little guy is totally capable of mass destruction.
Wait. This isn’t relevant. Dib frowns, trying to reorder his thoughts. Maybe the shock is setting in.
Zim's eyes flicker downward to the alleyway between their rooftops, the motion easy to follow with the fake pupils.
Dib can see Zim doing the reasoning in his head: it’s a long drop, but one that Zim could probably survive if he spider-crawled down it. However, it’d be a major time loss, and the blob-thingy would probably catch up in the meantime, and definitely decimate the surrounding city block when it jumped down to the ground to follow.
The safer option would be to remain on the rooftops- to launch over to where Dib is, and then leave him to be crushed in the blob’s wake.
Either course of action will end with Dib dying, but the second one would still be the correct choice, as far as self-preservation goes.
Dib would be pissed about it, sure, but like, he’d do the exact same thing if their roles were reversed. Plus, Dib won’t be able to exact revenge once he’s dead, so it’s not like Zim would have anything to worry about.
But Zim… isn’t doing any of that, for some reason. He’s hesitating.
Zim looks backwards, one antenna still focused on Dib. He squints, probably judging the distance between him and imminent death by robot (about two buildings).
Then, instead of doing something reasonable, like running the fuck away, Zim pulls out the broken control remote for the nanotech.
Broken is a generous term, actually. What the remote really is, is smashed to hell and back. It’s a wonder it’s still in one piece.
Dib considers screaming at him. And then he remembers that he doesn’t give a shit about being polite to Zim, and shouts at the top of his lungs, “What the fuck are you doing?!”
“Solving a problem!” Zim snaps back, voice shrill as he strains to be heard across the gap. “Fitting that you do not recognize it! Meat-brained human can’t even land on his feet correctly…”
While he speaks, Zim moves one of his PAK legs closer to the remote, the top flipping open to reveal a screwdriver.
Or, a tool that looks like a screwdriver, but that Zim would likely screech is nothing like humanity’s rudimentary inventions, and is in fact beyond Dib’s comprehension. Or something.
“You’re not gonna-” Dib cuts himself off, attention snapping past Zim to the threat that’s gaining on them. Them? Since when are they a ‘them’? Whatever. More pressing shit to deal with. “What problem? That thing’s gonna kill you!”
“Yes, I’ll just run forever, until I run out of energy and it mashes me into a paste. Brilliant idea, Dib-smelly!” Zim accentuates this with an angry jab of his screwdriver-leg in Dib's direction, which seems like a horrendous use of his limited time. Not that Dib has any room to judge when it comes to a flair for the dramatic.
“Just do it while you’re running??”
“I’d have to leave-” Zim pauses again, then seems to realize he doesn’t have time for introspection and refocuses on repairing the remote. “Shut up, let Zim focus!”
Dib blinks. Even through the pain, he manages to process that one little word. “Leave? Leave what? Is there another weapon?”
This time, Zim doesn’t respond, risking a glance over his shoulder instead. One building’s worth between them, now.
No weapon. Dib wracks his brain. There’s nothing up here but them, he’s pretty sure of it. He’s been stalking out Zim’s base almost religiously, and he’s had nothing in the works besides this robot.
The only answer that remains is one that doesn’t make sense. And yet, Dib finds himself dying to ask.
And, loopy with pain, he truly can’t think of a reason not to.
“...leave me?”
Again, no response. But Zim’s shoulders tense, ever so slightly. And Dib has spent way too many hours of his life staring at Zim not to notice it.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I said, ‘shut up-’”
“Why would you care if I die? I’ve tried to kill you, like, four times in the past week!”
“I don’t care,” Zim says, but he’s still not leaving. Still trying to fix that stupid remote.
“Dude, that’s sweet and all, but I was totally ready to leave you for dead, so why don’t you just-”
Zim makes an offended noise that’s nearly a shriek. “Zim is not sweet,” he begins hotly, and then the robot jumps onto the rooftop with him.
He breaks off with a string of chirp-filled irken words that Dib likely couldn’t decipher with a tape recorder and eight years of study.
Shit. Shit shit shit fuck. Dib isn’t sure why, but the idea of Zim staying here for his sake is causing bile to rise in his throat.
Dib doesn’t have selfless motivations often, but there’s no other explanation for what he says next. “Zim, just go! I don’t need your help, okay?”
Zim laughs, and although he shifts closer to the building’s edge, he doesn’t run. Ten seconds left, max. “Liar.”
“I- so what, huh? You’re being an idiot, and- duck!”
There’s no reason for Zim to trust him.
But, immediately, irrationally, Zim retracts all of his PAK legs except the one he’s using for repairs, dropping to the cement with an audible thump.
The mass of cement and piping that the robot threw soars through the spot that Zim’s head previously occupied and slams into the low stone wall beside Dib with enough force to shatter the bricks.
Dib watches the bits of gravel crumble to the ground, feeling slightly ill.
Would… would Zim have been able to heal that?
Zim doesn’t have the luxury of feeling shitty about their mutually-distrustful relationship, though. Dib looks back just in time to see the robot backhand Zim into the air.
Dib landed that distance on his ankle, and it broke.
Zim takes the brunt of the impact on his back, body curled around the remote control. He screams, loud and startlingly raw, as his PAK hits, a sharp crack accompanying it. Dib isn’t sure which sound is more horrifying.
The alien tumbles a few feet further, momentum carrying him over to Dib’s side. Electricity sparks from his PAK.
Zim doesn’t get up.
Dib doesn’t think. He doesn’t grab the remote, either, despite the fact that the sentient mass of tech is slowly but surely extending across the gap.
No, he throws his whole body to the side and puts two fingers to Zim’s throat, ignoring the way the movement makes his ankle light up in red-hot agony. He has to find a pulse. Nothing else matters, not even stopping this stupid robot, because if Zim dies and Dib doesn’t, well-
Nothing else matters.
Thankfully, a light fluttering meets his fingers- faint, and one beat instead of two like a human’s, but there.
Dib draws in a shaky breath, not sure when he got so lightheaded.
Just unconscious. Although, each of Zim’s breaths is worryingly wet. Do irkens have ribs to break? Lungs to puncture?
A little hysterically, Dib notes, this is something that a full dissection would’ve prepared me for, but shoves that thought away just as quick.
There’s no time to check if Zim is in a stable condition. If Dib doesn’t act, they’re both going to die in the next thirty seconds anyway.
He snatches the remote out of Zim’s loose grip, flipping it to the back.
Zim was trying to fix it the real way, like an engineer would, but repair work has never been Dib’s strong suit. No, he’s always been the type to find a work around.
Zim’s single PAK leg is still out, so Dib grabs it, wincing when Zim’s breath stutters at being jostled. It’s a bad sign, but he can’t worry about it now.
The metal is warm in his hands. It should be a pleasant sensation, or at least an interesting one, but it feels wrong to touch and let his hands wander without Zim awake to yell at him for defiling the machinery.
He sets that thought aside. Not important.
Dib pries open the back panel, exposing a mass of mangled wires.
Back when it worked, this remote allowed Zim to control the nanotech’s movements and form, manipulating it through a magnetic field. Obviously destroying the remote didn’t destroy the field, but maybe if he can overcharge it instead..?
The nanobots have reached the ledge of their building, beginning to reform into something more suitable for murder.
Welp, no time to second-guess. If he’s wrong, he won’t live to regret it.
He rips out one end of the power wire (Zim always uses green for the power lines), quickly glances around the rooftop for a new power source.
There’s nothing up here, except for-
Dib’s gaze lands on Zim, and the awful, sparking gash that spans nearly his entire PAK.
It’ll have to do.
Dib shoves the exposed wire into the gash, which feels eerily like sticking his hands into an open wound.
Maybe it is like that- he’s never been entirely clear on how much of Zim’s machinery is organic, even the more mundane stuff, and this device is actually attached to Zim. It’d actually be more surprising if it weren’t organic-
He doesn’t pull back fast enough. Logically, he knew that no human (or alien, honestly) would be able to move fast enough to avoid electricity coursing through them, but somehow he’s still surprised.
Dib hears himself shriek, and everything goes black for a few seconds.
He knows it’s only a few seconds, because when he opens his eyes again, the blob of nanotech is still melting like a witch in the rain.
Useless machinery falls to the ground in pieces, a strange, twinkling sound filling the air.
Dib watches it die, unable to look away. His heart is beating too-fast, to the point of being painful. There’s a buzzing in his fingers, too, but besides those two things, he’s almost disturbingly numb.
“That was close,” he breathes, to himself. His voice sounds weird, far-away despite ringing in his ears.
Man, it’s a good thing he had-
All sense of relief leaves Dib at once, ripping the air from his lungs for the third time in what feels like as many minutes.
“Zim? Oh my god, Zim, are you-” just unconscious, Dib’s brain reminds him, but he can’t help but check for that weak pulse again.
His PAK has stopped sparkling like a bad outlet, and Dib hopes to hell that means it’s begun repairing itself and not that Dib drained the last vestiges of energy out of it.
Zim has a few smaller scrapes and bruises, all flushed pink with blood, but Dib can’t see anything else major, and he doesn’t dare turn Zim to check fully.
Besides, the PAK injury is the one that’s potentially life-threatening, and Dib wouldn’t know where to begin with medical care on it.
He’d certainly need to be in a lab. And based on past experience with broken bones, Dib is reasonably sure he’ll vomit or pass out if he tries to stand, let alone bring Zim along for the ride. And that’s not even accounting for the electric shock, which is a much rarer occurrence for Dib.
He tries pulling out his phone instead. It doesn’t turn on, because of course it doesn’t. The power surge must’ve short circuited it.
Out of options, Dib resigns himself to staying put until Zim wakes up or help randomly arrives.
Dib is still flopped onto his side from trying to reach Zim (and use him like a living battery to save their collective skins, but, semantics).
Seems kinda awkward. Zim isn’t facing him, which helps, but still.
Dib pushes himself up into a sitting position, going as slow as possible to avoid fucking up his ankle any further. This isn’t particularly effective, if the pain is any indication- but it’s the thought that counts, maybe.
He’s panting heavily by the time he manages to lean back against the low stone wall behind them, and Zim still hasn’t woken.
Which brings back Dib’s earlier anxiety about the alien dying while Dib wasn’t paying attention.
He knows, logically, that Zim is most likely in the same exact state as earlier. But he’s worried anyway, and after a full minute of trying to reassure himself, Dib resigns himself to checking again.
The pulse thing doesn’t really work from this distance, and his ears are still ringing too loudly for him to hear Zim’s breath. Zim’s facing away from him, too. Dib can’t tell if his sides are moving.
“Fuck it,” Dib mutters under his breath. He scoots closer, until his thigh is an inch from Zim’s back. He knows better than to touch it, but this is the easiest way to get close without standing up.
…Zim looks so small, like this.
And maybe Zim just is small, by human standards, but seeing him curled up on his side like this, it feels… different. Vulnerable.
Dib could kill him. Should kill him. With his bare hands, if necessary.
But he already knows he’s not going to. Because he’s a fucking idiot like that. A stupid, all-too-human idiot, with an inescapable, indefinable attachment to the one person in the world whom he could be idolized for slaughtering.
(If anyone asks- Zim included- he can just say he was too injured to try.)
Dib was planning to grab Zim’s wrist, but realizes halfway into the motion that irkens might not even have a pulse point in their wrists, and he really doesn’t want to deal with that possible freak-out right now.
So instead, Dib sets his hand on the side of Zim’s face, thumb curling under his chin to gently press against the carotid artery. Or whatever aliens call it.
Dib’s tried to strangle Zim a few times before, so he vaguely knows what the structures in Zim’s throat feel like, but Dib’s never gotten the chance to take it in before. It’s hard to focus on what someone’s skin feels like when they’re trying their damnedest to kick you in the liver.
Zim’s flesh is cooler than human skin, and stiffer too, but soft. Like a flower petal.
Dib doesn’t know how long he sits there, tracing the small lines of veins and cartilage along Zim’s neck, but he sure as hell feels creepy when he looks over to find Zim blinking down at his hand.
“Uh, I can explain,” Dib blurts out immediately, suddenly very aware that he can’t explain jack shit.
Zim cranes his head around to stare at him, the motion slow and catlike. Dib isn’t sure when he started thinking of Zim’s contacts as unnatural, but right now they’re setting him on edge. It’s just not right.
“Dib-thing,” Zim says, the words oddly stilted. He swallows.
Dib feels him do it, and finally gains the presence of mind to retract his hand. Once again, Zim doesn’t seem to notice.
“Hi,” Dib replies awkwardly. He folds his hands in his lap.
Zim lets out a pained hum. “Why’re you… I’m… where’d it go?”
“Your robot?” Dib asks. Zim makes an affirmative noise. He seems to be having some troubles with words, and Dib isn’t sure if that’s normal or not. “I wrecked it. We’re safe.”
We. The word leaves his tongue unbidden, a secret he didn’t mean to share. Dib bites his tongue, but doesn’t bother taking it back.
Hopefully Zim won’t remember this, anyway.
“Mm. Y’r-” Zim closes his eyes, then tries again, carefully articulating each word. It makes his voice sound clipped. “Your ankle?”
“Still broken,” Dib confirms, only mildly sarcastic.
“Oh.”
They both sit in silence for a moment. Zim isn’t attempting to move, so he must have some idea of how injured he is, and it must be bad if he’s actually adhering to an emergency protocol.
“Do you have a communicator?” Dib asks, when the quiet becomes unbearable.
Zim shifts, checking the watch on his arm. He frowns, then lets it drop. His next words are more ambitious, but jumbled, like he’s half-asleep. “Offline. But ‘s supposed to send a distress signal to Gir whenever ‘m unconscious.”
Great, Dib thinks. Placing their wellbeing in the hands of the one robot who’s capable of forgetting someone at a gas station. But it’s not like they have a better option, and voicing that will help nothing.
Changing the subject seems safer. “Man, you sound terrible. Are you gonna be okay?”
Zim waves his hand, the dismissiveness of it somewhat nullified by how little he’s able to raise it. “‘s the chemical secretion. Keeps me from going into shock.” Zim pauses then, and Dib gets the feeling that if he had a nose, he’d be wrinkling it. As it is, his antennae pin back. “Feels weird. I don’- don’t like it.”
“That does sound bad… wait, is it a painkiller? Or does it just regulate your blood flow?” Dib asks, then blinks, because this is actually a golden opportunity, come to think of it. Zim likely doesn’t have the wherewithal to monitor his responses. “Wait, actually, what is shock for you? Do you have a limited amount of this secretion, or does your PAK produce it?” Dib hesitates, a previous thought striking him, “uh, unrelated, do you have ribs?”
“It… ribs are… the pain is… ugh, Zim cannot think.” Zim’s eyes widen, and he quickly adds, “Don’t you dare attack me while ‘m like this, stink-brain. I’ll… I'll kill us both. Or something.”
Dib holds his hands up in surrender, despite Zim being turned away from him. “Hey, man, I can barely move. Scout’s honor.”
“Scout is a low position, usually given to those under irken subjugation,” Zim says dizzily.
“I wasn’t… nevermind.”
Zim hums again, accepting that at face value.
“Uh, Zim?”
“Yes? That is me?”
“Did you…” Dib swallows, throat abruptly dry. There are so many more important questions he could be asking, and yet- “You could’ve left me.”
Zim is quiet for several seconds. “Yes.”
“...why didn’t you?”
Dib looks down, trying to catalogue every expression on Zim’s face. Zim, for his part, seems to be determinedly focusing on a random point on the horizon.
After long enough that Dib assumed Zim was ignoring the question, Zim replies, “Why didn’t you?”
Dib opens his mouth. Closes it again.
The sun is starting to set. Hopefully GIR will get hungry enough to try to find Zim soon. Or that Zim’s PAK repair will kick in, but truthfully, Dib still has more faith in GIR not killing him than Zim.
Regardless, Dib lets his eyes close. Zim’s breaths are also starting to even out, no longer as labored.
“...Dib-thing?”
“Yeah?” Dib asks, without opening his eyes.
“Zim, uh. Was just checking. That the Dib hadn’t left.”
Dib almost makes fun of him. Really wants to, in fact. Zim is funny when he’s embarrassed, anger flushing his face dark green.
But he remembers checking Zim’s pulse, nearly frantic for reasons he can’t quite understand, and he just… can’t.
“Here,” Dib says instead, as if the words are coming out of someone else’s mouth, and sets his hand on Zim’s shoulder. “Now you'll be able to tell if I’m still here.”
He expects Zim to scoff and shake him off. And Zim does scoff, but the shake never happens.
Zim just says a quiet, “Okay,” and stops talking.
It’s not comfortable. The ground is hard and the city streets stink of gasoline and the pain in Dib’s ankle is steadily becoming more apparent as the adrenaline wears off.
He tries not to think about it, redirecting his focus to the alien beside him instead. It's been a reliable distraction since their very first meeting.
It's odd to see Zim like this, exhausted and vulnerable after a fight. It's a sight that Dib isn't privy to often; it makes him think of a late Halloween night several years back, Zim passed out on the front lawn after Dib decided to throw him to the metaphorical-slash-metaphysical wolves.
Dib doesn't regret his actions, but he doesn't really want to repeat them, either. This is better. Sitting here with Zim feels right, feels sweeter than the candy he'd shoved in his mouth that night.
Ah, how times change. Maybe he's been brainwashed.
“No more nanorobotics,” Dib ventures, out of lack of anything else to say.
Zim laughs, a little breathlessly but with genuine mirth in his voice. "Deal."