#Zim has exactly four people that he considers friends

[random-iz-stuff]

Headcanon:

Despite what he claims, Zim does actually have people that he cares about. It’s a small group, but a group nonetheless.

The first and most obvious person in this group is Gir. Although Zim saw Gir as just a regular (albeit stupid) SIR Unit at first, he quickly realized that Gir was a defective SIR Unit and had unrestricted sentience that other SIR Units don’t (even when given maximum sentence, SIR units aren’t fully sentient and can only do things that are beneficial to their mission. Gir can think and do whatever he wants.). And yet, despite invader protocol in this situation being “dismantle defective unit and return it to mission control to be given a new one”, Zim refused to do that. Maybe Gir had grown on him. Maybe Zim sympathized with Gir, being a defective himself. But for whatever reason (probably a mix of both options) Zim refused to get rid of or attempt to fix Gir.

And he definitely cares about the little robot. Zim clearly doesn’t like seeing Gir upset and even seemed hurt when Duty Mode Gir claimed that he didn’t enjoy working with him. Over time, Zim slowly learns to understand Gir more and speak his language in a way. We see this a couple times throughout the series, where Zim manages to give instructions to Gir in ways that he understands.

Although Zim hates to admit it, he’s grown to view Gir as a little brother figure of sorts. Which is a bit of a problem for him because that sort of connection to a defective object is considered “defective behaviour”.

The second person in this group is Skoodge. Zim’s best friend throughout smeet academy.

Zim is one of the only people that actually gives Skoodge credit for conquering Blorch and actually views him as a capable and effective soldier despite his short height. Zim treating Skoodge as an equal despite Skoodge being incredibly short is actually a long running thing between them, as Zim did the same thing all throughout his smeethood and continues to do so now, even though treating shorter irkens as equals is considered a minor (meaning fixable) defect.

Zim throwing Skoodge to the Hogulus wasn’t Zim being cruel or purposely sacrificing his friend. It was a calculated move.

For all regular trainees on Hobo-13, failing a course just gets you sent to a holding cell until the whole thing is over. Zim however, isn’t a regular trainee. There are people actively betting on his death in this situation, so it’s very safe to assume that Zim won’t be teleported to the safety of a holding cell if he fails part of a course and gets put in life threatening danger. Zim is aware of this.

Now, when trying to figure out how to get past the Hogulus, the most efficient course of action that leaves all but one person out of danger is simply throwing someone down to distract the thing. And out of all the trainees there, Skoodge, the conqueror of Blorch, has the most experience out of all of them and has the best chance of surviving against the Hogulus. Hell, Zim wouldn’t be surprised if Skoodge managed to kill the thing by himself. Plus if Skoodge is ever in real danger, he’ll just be teleported to a holding cell. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Skoodge has canonically completed training at Hobo-13 in the past. He’s already faced the Hogulus before and knows what to expect.

And the thing is, Zim is right. Skoodge not only survives the Hogulus, but manages to escape from it and even manages to get through the rest of Hobo-13’s gauntlet (which is made for a team by the way) SOLO. If Zim had just been a little bit slower Skoodge would have caught up to him and accompanied him during the fight against Sergeant Hobo 678.

Zim sacrificing his other teammates however, wasn’t a calculated move or anything like that. He just wanted to survive and if that meant sacrificing his other teammates, sure. He doesn’t know any of them and sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.

Zim holds a great deal of respect for Skoodge and vice versa. Zim openly treats Skoodge as an equal and friend and gives him credit for the conquering of Blorch. Skoodge also treats Zim as an equal despite knowing about Zim’s defects, and has even helped hide them from His and Zim’s superiors so Zim wouldn’t be deleted, despite the fact that treating a defective as an equal is in and of itself a defect and actively helping a defect hide their defects instead of reporting them is not only a defect, but minor treason.

Zim cares about Skoodge as well. When he saw the footage of Blorch’s organic sweep (he couldn’t watch it live because he was busy with the events of Battle of The Planets) with Skoodge not getting proper credit for Blorch and someone else claiming to be Skoodge, Zim was appalled and actually called the Tallest to tell them. The Tallest ended up telling Zim that it was a mistake and Skoodge had been confused for someone else, nothing more, and Zim believed them.

When he saw footage of the real Skoodge getting fired from a cannon into Blorch for the organic sweep, Zim actually put some of his takeover plans for Earth on hold, flew to Blorch and flew over all the areas where Skoodge could have landed, trying to see if Skoodge survived the fall. He was unable to find him. Seeing Skoodge alive and well on Hobo-13 was a massive relief for Zim, he just couldn’t show it because full emotional access is a major (meaning unfixable and worthy of deletion) defect and the Tallest were watching him.

After the events of Hobo-13, Zim took Skoodge out for a night of drinks, to celebrate his conquering of Blorch. This was a bit difficult to do, as the irken drinking age is 20 and Zim and Skoodge are both 15 years old, but luckily for them Earth is out of empire jurisdiction and caffeinated beverages (the irken equivalent of alcohol) are easy to acquire there.

There’s also the fact that the entire series can be partially attributed to Skoodge. Zim’s original intentions when escaping Foodcourtia to go to Operation Impending Doom 2 was to see Skoodge and one other person off before they were assigned to their planets. He only realized that he could ask for another chance at being an invader to make up for ruining Operation Impending Doom 1 when he was about halfway there.

Speaking of that other person Zim wanted to see at Operation Impending Doom 2, the third person in Zim’s group of friends is Tenn. His twin sibling.

It’s rare for irkens to have siblings. The only way for it to happen is for the smeetery to have some extra genetic material left over when making a smeet, which always results in a twin sibling. Zim is the result of a smeetery having some extra genetic material after making Tenn. So he’s the younger twin.

Just like Skoodge, Tenn was fully aware of Zim’s defects back when they were both smeets in the academy, and actually knew about them before Skoodge did, but actively helped Zim hide them. Fully knowing that doing so was both a highly defective act and treasonous to the empire.

Zim, Skoodge and Tenn were a tight knit group back in smeet academy. Frequently sneaking around in areas where they weren’t allowed and causing chaos both on purpose and accidentally. A major goal of theirs was seeing Irk’s surface, as smeet academies are kept deep below the surface of Irk and irken smeets aren’t allowed on surface until they graduate and are considered adults.

Skoodge was actually the responsible member of the group. Zim was still Zim back then (although he was almost a completely different person back then) and although nowadays Tenn is a capable invader that was assigned to the single most dangerous and important planet marked for conquest, they’re still directly related to Zim, and share his ability to create chaos the likes of which irk has never seen. The smeet caretakers still have nightmares about the time they left Zim and Tenn alone together with an open flame. Out of the three of them, Skoodge was the one with the most common sense and least desire to cause chaos, although he’s still fully willing to do so if the opportunity presents itself.

The three of them all were and still are defective, just by wildly different amounts. Zim is the most defective of the three. It’s impossible for him not to be considering that he’s the most defective irken of all time. Tenn isn’t even close to the level of defection that Zim is at, but she’s still defective. Skoodge is the least defective of all of them. He’s still defective, but it can be hard to tell at times.

Zim actually managed to stay in contact with Tenn while they were on their respective missions. Making the occasional call with one another to talk about mission stuff. Zim tried to do the same with Skoodge, but Blorch isn’t exactly the most technologically advanced planet and by the time Skoodge had a working means of communication, he had already conquered the planet.

Zim took Skoodge’s supposed death via organic sweep pretty well all things considered. Zim did not however, take Tenn being declared MIA on Meekrob well at all, although that may have been because of the circumstances of Tenn’s disappearance. With Skoodge, Zim saw him get launched out of a canon into Blorch’s atmosphere. He knew what happened to Skoodge. Zim had to dig through piles of classified information and jump through quite a few hoops to find out what happened to Tenn.

Tenn’s capture on Meekrob is a heavily censored part of Operation Impending Doom 2 for the same reasons that Skoodge’s takeover was heavily censored, but in reverse. Tenn was the highest evaluated invader and was sent to Meekrob because of that, as Meekrob is both one of, if not the hardest planet to take over and a long time archenemy of the Irken race. And now that their “best of the best” star invader has apparently failed their mission, the public aren’t allowed to know because that fact implies that the irken empire isn’t able to take over a planet. It implies that Meekrob is stronger than the empire’s best. Tenn was hyped up as “the empire’s top invader” and now them failing their mission throws the empire’s strength and the invader program as a whole into question. So it took several months for Tenn to even be declared MIA to happen and even then they were only declared MIA among the higher ups of the empire, who are now refusing to answer questions about what’s going on on Meekrob. According to them, Tenn is still there and is perfectly fine, but “complications in her mission have made communication impossible for the foreseeable future”. Said “complications” have also somehow warranted the parking of an entire irken fleet in the vicinity of Meekrob.

Zim noticed that something was wrong not long after the events of Megadoomer. Tenn hadn’t been returning his calls for a long time and after some investigation, Zim found that the entirety of Meekrob had suddenly gone silent, with no new empire news as to what was going on down there. Zim tried to figure out what was going on, but all his efforts came back with nothing, prompting him to go to the Tallest since they’re the “mission control” when it comes to high priority invader missions, like Tenn’s conquest of Meekrob and (at least according to him) Zim’s own invasion of Earth. (This was several months before Tenn would be declared MIA among the higher ups of the empire, so at the time, the only people who actually knew were the Tallest and a couple of the Massive’s pilots that were in the room when it happened. You could count the people who knew on one hand.)

The Tallest refused to give Zim any information on Tenn because:

This is heavily classified government information,

Even if this information was to be released, it would only be given to the higher ups, which Zim is not.

They believed that if Zim were to learn of Tenn’s capture (keep in mind here that Tenn is not only one of two irkens that Zim considers an actual friend, but also his SIBLING), there’s a non-zero percent chance that he could take it upon himself to go off on a rescue mission, and since this is ZIM, said rescue mission could potentially destroy large amounts of the armada and end up being more destructive to the empire than it would be to Meekrob, especially in the area around Meekrob, where the presence of the armada is now extremely important.

So Zim walked away from that meeting empty handed, but he still knew that something was up and wanted to investigate further.

And Zim got his answer soon enough. Turns out when Zim acquired the Massive’s blueprints and hacked into the thing, he wasn’t doing it with the sole purpose of bringing the Massive to Earth. That was still his main priority, but he also maaaaay have stolen a couple of confidential documents relating to Meekrob and Tenn’s mission, just while he had the chance.

The Tallest and those around them have actually discussed the possibility of telling Zim about Tenn’s capture and sending him on an official rescue mission (after getting the armada near Meekrob far away from the proposed “Zim Zone”), with the stated reasons being that either Zim comes back with their star invader and Meekrob in ruins, Zim comes back alone with Meekrob in ruins or Zim simply doesn’t come back. Plus it’s a mission that Zim is guaranteed to not refuse and if Zim does manage to accomplish something, all it takes is a simple video/photo edit that adds eyelashes and curled antennae to Zim and the story will go from “Local Idiot Zim heroically rescues Invader Tenn/conquers Meekrob” to “Invader Tenn finally completes mission after months of radio silence���. It’s considered a very stupid joke of an idea that should never be used on account of Zim being far too unpredictable and the first person that suggested it got thrown out an airlock, but the Tallest are running out of ideas at this point.

Unbeknownst to the Tallest however, Zim already knows about Tenn’s capture due to the documents they stole, and just like the Tallest feared when he first came to them looking for information, is planning a rescue mission. It’s one of his most elaborate and thought through plans as well, as Zim doesn’t want to take any risks. He’s got a small section of his base dedicated to his Meekrob rescue mission, containing weapons, maps of Meekrob (with Zim’s best attempts at figuring out the locations and constructions of Meekrob’s prisons and military bases on them), backup plans, technology he threw together specifically for Meekrob, medical supplies and anything else that Zim believes is necessary for said rescue mission. Zim has no plans to tell the Tallest about this mission because he knows that they’ll probably veto it, plus he learned about Tenn’s capture by stealing confidential documents, so it’s probably for the best that the Tallest don’t know that he knows.

The Fourth and final person in Zim’s group of friends isn’t an irken, but instead a Vortian. Prisoner 777 to be precise.

Back when Zim worked as a scientist on research station 13, he and Prisoner 777 were close friends. Their rooms were right next to each other, they frequently worked together on larger projects, Zim even attended the guy’s wedding. They were close.

That’s how and why Zim has his children. You see, back when Miyuki was Tallest, Irkens and Vortians were allies, but things were still tense between the two races. Prisoner 777 knew this back then and made a deal with his irken friend. If a war broke out in the future and he was ever killed or captured, Zim would take his children and keep them out of the hands of the empire, giving them to someone outside of empire territory and jurisdiction if possible. Zim agreed, but didn’t entirely know what he was going to do in that situation, since he was just a scientist back then and had no real desire to become anything else.

And then a few years later, Red and Purple became the Tallest, started OID2 and declared war on Vort. High value Vortians like Prisoner 777 were captured and imprisoned, and just like the two of them originally planned, Prisoner 777’s children were secretly brought to Zim, now an invader living on earth, located extremely far away from any irken territory.

Zim isn’t going to launch them into space. The button he has labeled “Launch Children Into Space” is actually the light switch for their containment pod. But he needs to make it SEEM like that’s the case. Harbouring Vortian children on an invader mission is super illegal since Vortians are now considered a captured race and those children should be in a prison instead of Zim’s base outside of empire jurisdiction, BUT if Zim pretends to use them as a bargaining chip to get information out of a high value and usually uncooperative prisoner, ie the father of those children, Zim gets a pass and what he’s doing isn’t considered illegal since he’s using them in ways that make them more useful with Zim then they’ll ever be locked up in a prison.

Not only are the children allowed to stay with Zim due to this, but this whole act keeps Prisoner 777 safe as well, as as long as Zim has his children, he’ll be willing to give the empire valuable information and is worth keeping alive.

Zim and Prisoner 777 and both aware of all this, but they need to put on a massive act and make it SEEM like 777’s children are in danger of being shot into space because those calls to Moo-Ping-10 and heavily monitored, and Zim can’t be seen being friendly with a Vortian prisoner.

Meanwhile, Zim is trying to find any possible way to give Prisoner 777 his freedom, through legal means if possible since Zim refuses to outright break into Moo-Ping-10 and bust him out, as that would be treasonous to the empire. So far, he’s come up short, but is still looking at possible loopholes that would let him legally (or at the least semi-legally) set a prisoner belonging to the empire free.

#invader zim #headcanons #zim #gir #skoodge #Tenn #prisoner 777 #Zim has exactly four people that he considers friends #that also consider him a friend at the same time

[shadowofthelamp]

More Together

Decided to finish off this thing I started back in Janury in honor of the Carnage trailer. Zadr Venom AU. Yes, Zim is named Doom, because how was I supposed to resist? Likes, replies, and reblogs appreciated!

Rated: T

Warnings: Mild mentions of gore/Venom canon-typical cannibalism, alcohol, and a brief moment where Dib remembers that he likes aliens a lot. 

Wordcount: 1175

In his twenty-four years of life, Dib had seen and been through a lot. He’d been knocked on his ass by more paranormal creatures than he could count, had lost six bs for one reason or another, and had worn his throat out screaming into three different pillows, two of which he’d then torn to shreds.

This, though?

This was new.

His arms rested against a creaking oak banister as a head made of a viscous substance that wasn’t quite black (but it was so deep of a red it may as well have been) settled on his arm, thick strands woven around his bicep underneath his sleeve.  That head had enveloped his entire body, had- had-

God, he could still taste the viscera sliding down his throat, still feel the crunch of skull between his teeth. He reached his free hand up, tugging his top lip up to make sure that he hadn’t grown shark teeth outside of the transformation. The sharpness of his canines wasn’t very encouraging.

There had been rumors of an alien crash. It had been dark, and he’d only had his flashlight and a taser, and yes, it was incredibly stupid, but that was what he did. Went off into dangerous places to prove the unprovable, to capture the uncapturable, to find the truth that no one else could or would. There had been searchlights, and he’d ducked behind a tree and cursed himself for forgetting to charge his phone. A cat had wandered past, and he’d only had seconds to consider how strange its eyes were when the searchlight had flashed on them before something had leapt forward and smothered him, an icy chill sinking through his skin and through muscles and bones to curl around his heart like a fist.

He’d run, ripped up his entire apartment for whatever food he could find, and then had started hearing voices other than his own. That was something he had been certain he’d grown out of, at least outside of hauntings. (Getting kicked out of the kid’s asylum three times meant you were either sane or so round-the-bend nobody could do anything for you anyway.)

An hour later, he’d turned into a monster, ripped a man’s head off, and stuffed it down his throat, so needless to say things had gone rather downhill from there.

The voice had pulled itself out of his skin with ruby pupil-less eyes and the most oil-slick and disgusting head Dib had ever seen, called itself Doom, declared they would be perfect together, and then passed out on his arm, half-sinking back into the skin. Which was where they were now, on the back porch of a bar that Dib had long since learned didn’t ask many questions as long as he paid his tab on time. He was glad he was wearing the trench coat that had both sleeves fully intact to hide his new “friend”, because even apathetic barmen may have been just a bit curious about the literal fucking alien chilling on and squirming under the skin inside a patron’s arm.

The porch had cleared out with the November chill, and Dib swigged a third shot of whiskey to wash the taste of guts from his throat.

“Stop that.” Oh, goody, the eyes were back.

“Stop what?”

“That horrible tasting sludge. I command you!” Dib’s arm jerked. He would have spilled the drink if he hadn’t already finished it, condensation dripping down and flattening a bit of hair on his wrist.

“I needed to-” There were other people staring at him. He narrowed his eyes, snarling, and they quickly looked away. Still, he dialed down the volume. “I needed to get the taste out of my mouth.”

“Intestines taste delicious, that liquid just burns!”

“Intestines taste like- like guts, guts don’t taste good raw!” Dib hissed back.

“They do, your unrefined human palate just has to adjust, then you’ll see.” Doom flopped Dib’s arm around a little more. “You need more muscle, muscle comes from meat!”

“Look, just because protein’s expensive-”

“Eating people is free,” the alien still hanging out on Dib’s arm said smugly, tendrils creeping down Dib’s other arm and shifting around his neck.  

“Eating people’s going to get real expensive if anyone catches us,” Dib said, fighting back his immediate monkey-brain xenophiliac responses to what felt like tentacles caressing his skin, pressing down just hard enough that it was clear Doom was only arguing as a formality and could probably regain control at any time. “Look. It’s not that there aren’t people who don’t deserve-”

“Of course there are! We’re on the same page!” Doom pulled back, reforming next to Dib’s neck, and the man pulled his coat collar up. “There is pain in you, Dib, rejection and fear, but together, we can fix it. Together, we hunt both man and beast-”

“-Sort out the frauds and the stupid cops and people who deserve to be eaten, and manage catch the real things,” Dib muttered as Doom purred, actually nuzzling against him. Like some kind of gooey alien cat.

“Yes, yes, exactly! You have strength and intelligence, I have power beyond your wildest dreams. Humans have rejected you-”

“Thanks a lot, goo-boy,” Dib interjected before Zim continued, one tendril tightening around his thigh as a warning but only drawing a rush of blood to his cheeks.

“-But I have not. On my planet, they misunderstand my genius, but here- here, I can be more. We can be more. You are the only being worthy of me, Dib-human. Be honored!”

There was something to the bright echoey timbre that Doom had that didn’t quite fit the fact that the only solid thing about him (them, it?) were the rows of razor-sharp teeth, but it was rapidly endearing Dib to the alien. Maybe it was the edge from the booze, or maybe that guy they’d ripped to shreds had been running high enough on adrenaline that the hormone was being digested and processed by now and making him go stupid.

“You know what?” Dib licked his lips, getting the last of the whiskey taste out as Doom gagged next to him. “I call the targets.”

“Is that a yes?”

“On a trial basis, understand? I can still find some way to fry you out of me, but I’m not about to look a superpowered gift alien in the mouth. Yet.”

He really hoped that the nip Doom made on his neck was supposed to be playful, but the fact that the alien was rumbling happily and pulsing joy through his body meant it was probably a good bet.

(Dib ended up puking up the whiskey twenty minutes later while Doom alternated cussing at him and crowing about being right. It was only remembering just how strong he’d felt when they’d been together that kept Dib from trying to make him stop with the blowtorch stuffed in the back of his closet.)

#invader zim #venom #zadr #feeling on the edge today and actually tagging things #shadow writes stuff #iz blogging #iz #zim #dib #zadr venom au

[faecaptainofdreams]

~~Laetus~~ Laetus, pronounced "lay-tuhs," is a Latin term for "colorful, joyful, glad," and most prominently, "lovable." This bizarre moth spirit was recently accidentally summoned to Earth-616 during a little magical mishap at Kamar-Taj. Sometimes opening portals invites in strange visitors, but given this one was so fluffy and seemingly harmless, Stephen allowed him to stay. As it is, he couldn't convince him to go back. Laetus is semi-sentient. A good example of how he behaves would be like a washed out, less insane version of GIR from Invader Zim, and even with a similar voice. But Laetus is considerably more intelligible, as his learning capability and memory retention are quite impressive. Still, this doesn't exactly make him intelligent. Consistently bearing a derpy, happy face and cheerful disposition, Laetus has been welcomed to residency in the Avengers facility, sharing run of the building, coming and going as he pleases. Strange would've kept him in Nepal, but the little imp kept getting into magical equipment, and so the Sorcerer Supreme deemed his presence unsafe for everyone. He's almost like a self-sufficient pet Laetus breaks the occasional thing, but isn't overly destructive nor does he take up space. His eating habits are various, with him eating more for pleasure and out of curiosity than real necessity. Sometimes he'll ingest that which isn't food, and thus he will puke it back up. "Lovable" comes quite befittingly, as Laetus has a secret power; the ability to pass his joy on to others, and typically make them laugh. With his almost hollow, wide moth eyes and high voice that bears resemblance to having some sort of impediment, his affect on others comes directly from his face and odd vocals. Not every word he says will make someone laugh, but much of what he says or learns to say, combined with his silly antics, more often than not causes most or all who witness to giggle or laugh. Laughter intensity varies among individuals, and though the effect may not last or create a permanent good mood, it's definitely good for breaking up tension and easing a troubled mind. After some exposure, Strange has noted that during a serious moment where he's trying to sort something out, whenever Laetus interrupts and causes him to laugh, once he becomes serious again the answers he sought become more clear. He speculates the moth's energy has a resonant mental cleansing capacity. Aside from causing laughter, Laetus' nature draws in those whom he encounters, which may or may not be a defense mechanism in its own right. He is charming and cute, and with that silly voice he appeals to most everyone, which in turn keeps him safe. Were he not so endearing, he would most likely be annoying otherwise, but there are people who do see him as annoying for the most part. But again, this all depends on individual personality traits, energy sensitivity, and comical preference. More serious or mentally damaged individuals are less likely to succumb to his charms, but even then, they often take too much pity in his nature to harm him. Whether or not Laetus is aware that his affects on others aid him remains a mystery, though it's popularly assumed that he is not aware. A side effect of his cuteness and magnetic appeal to others is that when he's trying to be serious, the adorable and comical voice tends to only make those whom he runs to for help laugh. Of course, no one laughs at him directly; they're laughing because his energy just brings them that unbridled joy, and they find him humorous. It's nothing intended to be insulting, or to make fun of him for being different. When times are serious enough, if he deeply needs someone to pay attention or is trying to alert them to trouble, he will quietly point to the thing he is warning of. Overall, Laetus is very accepted and loved, seen as something of a stay-at-home companion, though once in a while he will sneak into someone's luggage and stowaway if they leave for someplace else. On another occasional, he hid in Harlow (OC)'s backpack and infiltrated her school, causing the mutant a rather difficult day. ~~Personality~~ He is generally innocent in nature, blindly repeating things he hears on tv shows or YouTube videos, whether it's appropriate or not. He does appear to be conscious of the fact that he consistently makes others laugh just by talking to them, even when he's trying to be serious, but this isn't something he abuses. Laetus tends to refrain from being around 24/7, and he doesn't constantly butt in. He's friendly, generous and rather spontaneous. ~~Physiology~~ Laetus is plushy, covered in soft fur, and is roughly the size of a small dog. He has three fingers and a thumb per hand and four toes per foot. The antenna on his head are thick and long, indicative of his gender. His tail is fat and plump with an extended bone running through to the tip of it (he's a vertebrate). Unlike a standard moth, his intimate exits are not in his tail; they're where ours are. Laetus is 2 and 1/2 feet tall and weighs roughly twelve pounds. While moth and butterfly wings are covered in small, powdery scales, Laetus's are as well, but they're not so fragile, nor do the scales flake off. In fact, when he doesn't consciously need them to be stiff and fly-worth, they are flexible and very resilient, and can sometimes even be folded like paper. When he needs them to straighten out, they do it naturally. Because interdimensional moth spirit magic. When he flies, his wings beat rapidly, making a constant flapping sound. Like a regular moth, when his muscles need to be warmed up for flight, he will vibrate his whole person...which tends to make everyone laugh, especially considering he often hums while doing it. As you would imagine, Laetus is not overly coordinated when he flies and is susceptible to bumping into things -- most recently a ceiling light and blowing it up while trying to make off clumsily with a can of cheesy pringles he jacked from Sam and Steve in the kitchen. Needless to say, his attempt at pringle piracy was a bust, and it was hilarious. But just for his effort, the boys shared the chips with him, and made sure he didn't cut himself when he landed in the pile of glass from the shattered light. Though he flies similarly to a normal moth in terms of being a klutz, he definitely understands momentum and knows how to swing in its favor to get where he needs to go. Taking off is generally the hardest part of flight for him and is when he is most accident-prone, but once stable he can maintain consistent flight for hours, and even hover in place, and fly backwards or upside down. Laetus is surprisingly durable. This isn't to say he's indestructible, as he is a flesh spirit, but he can take a beating and his skin doesn't break easily. When cut, he bleeds blue, but heals quickly and naturally. Experience suggests he has an uncanny ability to absorb shock, for when he hits things at a high velocity he tends to just bounce straight off of whatever it is he hits. Considering his cuteness and apparent vulnerability and naivete, resilience to otherwise fatal encounters are extremely benefiting to him. Laetus doesn't appear to be strictly diurnal or nocturnal, as he sleeps off and on when he desires, preferring to nap occasionally as opposed to sleep hard for hours on end. This enables him to be awake day or night, though the others will note he seems particularly mischievous when the sun goes down. He isn't overly attracted to lights in a standard setting, but if he is in darkness and sees a single light, he will go to it out of curiosity. Laetus feels feelings just like us, including but not limited to satisfaction, curiosity, joy, sadness, pain, and fear. When he's afraid, he'll simply get quiet and lay flat with his antennae flat, and will say nothing. If Laetus is frightened, the entire mood tends to be brought down. It's ominous times if Laetus senses trouble and doesn't alert someone with a resounding "Oh no!" He can belch...like a man. It's not even a joke, but it is hysterical. He makes his friends proud every time... Most of them. ~~Preference~~ While Laetus has shown curiosity in anatomy, this is more childlike and immature. He has no real preference or urge to mate. He understands anatomy, though, and has a shockingly vivid grasp on sexuality, gender identity and reproduction.

#Marvel oc #MCU #moth #moth oc

[minaim-blog]

DaTr Date Night - Part 2 - Skool SNAFU

Second to last period before the weekend and Dib can’t wait for it to end. But before school lets out he gets a message from a certain someone. Can he answer the call or is this a problem that requires at least two people to solve?

“I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't.” Dib said, with as much enthusiasm as a sloth. He was all but drooling over his textbook, but it was from an attempt to remain conscious, as opposed to a profound interest.

“Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.” Replied his professor enthusiastically.

He was trying his hardest to breathe life into the reading while explaining what was happening every few sentences to a nearly comatose classroom. Unfortunately for the professor, besides a few members of the class, everyone was as interested in it as Dib was or worse. He was just barely paying attention so he knew when he had to read, as the professor had the brilliant idea of giving roles to the classroom to force them to pay attention. Today Dib was Bertram, Gretchen was Helena, Keef was Parolles, and the professor was the King. He only remembered this because he knew he had to speak if he heard one of them talk. English class was the only place Dib could be caught reading anything even remotely related to Shakespeare. It was also one of the few classes he questioned why the education system still deemed it necessary to teach in Skool, as he found it provided absolutely nothing to his “education”, if he would even call it that. The fact that it was his least favorite class didn’t help either, but thankfully it was also his second to last class for the day.

He was half paying attention while the professor and Gretchen exchanged lines between his. After he finished the professor explained to the class what was happening and thanked Dib for reading. This was his que that he didn’t have to read for a while, hopefully not for the rest of class, but it was dragging on like the horizon of the black hole Zim had thrown him into a month ago. The mere thought of which nearly sent him into a panic attack. Zim had completely brushed off his concern after he pulled him out of it, which Dib thought was so very typical of him. “You’ll be fine. You haven’t really space traveled unless you suffer from some mild time displacement.” Zim had said that to Dib after he saved him, and if he hadn’t been almost completely catatonic at the time he would have thrown Zim into the black hole himself. He did throw him into some space monster’s den later, but that was for the benefit of the mission they were on. The purpose of which was related to some disaster Zim had caused with an Eldritch abomination that Dib couldn’t even be bothered to remember completely. Even though he had made Earth his home Zim still had a knack for getting himself and the rest of the planet into a mess. Thankfully he was usually able to reverse the damage, and when he couldn’t Dib was there to help him. Not to say Dib didn’t mind, he was angry every time Zim put the Earth or themselves in danger, but saying Dib didn’t get a thrill every time they were in danger wouldn’t be close to the truth at all.

Since Zim had made himself his own force for good, and even well before that, Dib has admired him for his tenacity, creativity, and his own unique form of brilliancy. Now he could most definitely call Zim his closest friend, but if he tried to pinpoint when exactly they became friends, even when he was enemy of Earth, he couldn’t tell when that point in their relationship had happened. All he could say for certain is that they both thought of each other as friends, even if they got on each other’s nerves more often than not. It was for that reason that he got a pit in his stomach after he felt a vibration coming from his phone.

Only one of four people could be texting him right now, really only one. His dad would only be texting to remind him of a family gathering the same night, which he rarely ever did unless it was about a public event him and Gaz had to be at. More often Gaz would be the one to tell him about a family gathering and to keep his weird paranormal stuff out of it. He went over the family schedule in his head and couldn’t think of anything either one of them would message him about. His dad was out of the house for the weekend and Zim and Tak were coming over tonigh to play video games and watch movies, but he knew Gaz wouldn’t bother texting him about that. Tak never texted him when they were at Skool, even during break, so she was out of the question. That left the only possible person who could be texting him now to be Zim. The only time he ever heard a text from him was when something was wrong, apart from the occasional meme Gir sent him when he stole Zim’s phone. Considering that Gir was in Middle Skool now, and that Zim had been very strict about him not skipping class he doubted Gir was the culprit, especially since if he was his phone would be blowing up by now. His last class for today was chemistry with Zim as his partner. Meaning even before he started mixing chemicals Zim had figured out how to turn a baking-soda and vinegar volcano into a planet destroying bomb. He was just about ready to pull out his phone and text Zim that whatever mess he made today was his to deal with when he pulled it out and saw that it was Tak and not Zim who messaged him.

Her text read: [Can you sneak out of class real quick?]

Dib thought this was very unusual for her, she was too studious to be caught texting in class. If only for the sake of her disguise she would get A’s in all of her classes, even the dumb ones like English. He knew the only way she could do it was by cheating, not that he disparaged her for it, he just wished she would offer to do it for him too. The fact that she was messaging him now meant something was very wrong.

He texted back to her: [Maybe… I’m kind of stuck reading here. What’s going on? You okay?]

He stared at his phone while the icon for Tak ticked away indicating she was spending a lot of time working on or thinking about her response. Eventually after a few seconds she responded back.

Tak: [I’m fine, but I got a problem.]

“That’s vague.” Dib thought to himself. He wasn’t sure why Tak was being so ambiguous. She had mentioned to him before that her own “phone” allowed her to message him without the worry of outsiders listening in on their conversation, so they didn’t need a code language to discuss anything alien related. He had even asked her to make one for him so he didn’t have to worry about the CIA or NSA busting down his door in the middle of night for being in contact with aliens. She told him it wasn’t necessary for his phone to be off the grid as her messages wouldn’t even register on the system if she sent any to him. “Plus, we both know I’ll be the only one sending anything important.” Tak had said to him at the time, which he didn’t think was true, but knew it would be impossible to convince her otherwise. So he continued using his regular human phone the CIA was using to spy on him like everyone else on the planet. He was at least comforted knowing that her “problem” couldn’t be anything too serious because of that fact, he thought her indirectness was very out of character for her, but he had a hunch at what the reason was.

He texted back to her: [What kind of problem?]

Tak: [You know how I get an itch in a place I can’t scratch?]

The phrase, “An itch I can’t scratch” was practically too telling for Dib, and he was almost certain he knew exactly what her problem was. Over the years Dib had learned about the many intricacies of Irken antennas, and their particular quirks with grooming. One such oddity was that after periods of intense or prolonged stress their antennas would get extremely sore and cramped, which he assumed was caused by their muscle spasms in their antennas during those times. The soreness would eventually dissipate but the length of time it took varied from instance to instance, and it was a frequent problem Tak ran into where the soreness would last for almost days at a time if she did nothing about it. He had offered to help Tak with it once before,  but she was very hesitant to let him help her the first time. Eventually he learned what way to massage and not massage, and now Tak had become almost entirely dependent on him to help her. Just to be sure though (and because he loved to tease her whenever he could get away with it) he prodded her to be a little bit more specific.

Dib replied: [Should I lather up for your massage or are you feeling particularly royal today and want my mini-backscratcher and felt brush for your antenna?]

Tak: [NO! It’s not that, but I can’t talk about it.]

[What do you mean you can’t talk about it?]

There was another pause between her messages until she replied: [Because. It’s a very /personal/ area Dib.]

Dib replied: [Personal area?]

Tak: [More like every area, like all over.]

[It’s not what I think it is? Is it?]

[Yeah, it probably is. So I need you NOW!]

Dib felt his face blushing slightly before he responded back: [And you’re okay with it? With us going there and you yourself doing that? Or am I misreading this and all you need is just a bit more handsy kiss?]

Tak: [No just a kiss is not what I need! It’s a lot more than that, but I /really/ can’t talk about it.]

Tak has had a very difficult time dealing with anything emotional, at least for the first few times around. Their first few hugs when they started dating had been a major uphill battle for her. Even though the two of them knew she loved having them, she was always so awkward when she tried to be the initiator, or she would become embarrassed when someone else caught the two of them hugging. Half of it was due to her inhibitions she got from living under the Irken Empire about self-expression. The other half was just her negativity about feeling emotions, this was also rooted in her life in the Empire but it went much deeper than that. In the few instances that Tak had allowed herself to open up to Dib she told him that even something as simple as a hug, which she knew made her feel so good, would inspire within her a feeling of great discomfort and disgust. She told him that the disgust wasn’t in the act of hugging itself as she did enjoy it, but in the fact that she wanted the hug, and that her own feelings and desires were disgusting to her.

At the time Dib equated it to some feeling of inner shame Tak held onto for whatever reason, but looking back on it Dib found a lot of similarities to her statement and what happened to her at the arcade the other night. Tak had this problem of “feeling bad about having feelings”. Whether it’s a coping mechanism she developed from her hardships throughout her life or merely a part about living as an Irken under the Empire Dib was unsure, and he didn’t know what he could do to help her aside from supporting her in any way he could when she felt that way. He didn’t like that just being there for her was all he could do, since largely he just had to hope that Tak would be able to overcome any negative feelings she had on her own, but thankfully he knew she could. Tak had gotten very comfortable with hugging after they had been dating for a while, and eventually Tak built up the courage for them to try kissing, of course before that she had to build up the courage to talk about kissing. She was a mess the first time she ever brought it up to him, Dib wasn’t even sure what she was talking about as she couldn’t even mention kissing by name at that point, just that she wanted “A higher degree of physical closeness out of our relationship” as she had put it. He told her that he’d be ready for her to try whenever she wanted too, when that did finally happen he was caught completely off guard.

Dib thought Tak was mad at him right before their first kiss, but she must have been trying to build up her nerves. Tak had mentioned having a similar problem to the one in her text message, that a feeling was coursing through all of her body. Dib had remembered Tak saying that it felt like she wanted to completely envelop him, or have Dib envelop her. He had even started to get a little handsy with her and lifted up the back end of her shirt, but Mimi interrupted them with a bite to his hand before he could have gone any further. He wasn’t as angry at Mimi as Tak was at the time, but later he thought it was probably best Mimi stopped them then, as it would have made things more awkward for them after the fact.

It still was very awkward. For a while they didn’t kiss or even hug after their first kiss, part of it was Dib’s own realization that things were different now with him and Tak, and a lot of it was just Tak being Tak. Eventually they found each other’s comfort zone, and now they kiss each other regularly in varying degrees of intensity. Tak had even become the primary initiator of their kisses most of time, which Dib attributed to Tak’s emotional and physical-contact starvation.

All of this, and the text messages they had been sending to each other, led Dib to believe Tak was now asking for a closer level of physical intimacy between them. While Dib was excited for this he was also very embarrassed and unsure of himself, and was beat red as he typed:

[Can’t you wait until after Skool for this?]

Tak: [NO I CAN’T WAIT! I NEED YOU NOW DIB!]

“Shit Tak. Calm down a bit jeez.” Dib bit his lips as he whispered to himself. He knew Tak was starved for physical touch but this seemed extravagant to him. He still had some level of excitement over this new prospect, but the urgency with which Tak was treating it was giving him anxiety. Tak could already be a handful for him at times, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see her be as needy as she seemed now. So subconsciously, or perhaps purposely, he tried to weasel out of seeing her for the time being.

Dib: [Like now now?]

Tak: [Like I need you right NOW to come help me with it NOW!]

[But I’m stuck in class?]

[Then get out of class and come help me! I’m in the supply closet by my class. Don’t keep me waiting!]

Dib whispered another profanity to himself, but his school-boy arousal and alien fascination won out against his anxiety and trepidation. So in an odd combination of reluctance and eagerness he texted back to her:

[Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.]

Tak: [Good. Knock on the door when you get here and I’ll unlock it for you.]

With that their text messaging ended, and instead of getting up and immediately asking the professor to be excused Dib was hunched over his desk and looked down at his phone. “Are we really going to do it in the Skool broom closet? Should I grab something? Do I even need to?” Dib thought to himself as other more vivid thoughts raced through his mind that may have strayed a bit far from reality. He knew he did want to be on that level of intimacy with Tak eventually, he would be lying if he said he never once thought about it, but he was questioning if he was ready for it, and if Tak was ready for it. She definitely seemed sure of herself now but what would she be feeling next week, tomorrow, or even an hour from now? Would he find her locked up in her lab trying to create something to suppress everything all because she couldn’t handle how she felt? All of this was swirling around in his head, until something pulled him back to reality.

“Dib? Dib Membrane?” the professor all but yelled to Dib. He jumped up out of his seat at the sound of his name and dropped his phone out of his lap without noticing. He looked up to his professor who said, “Did you finally fall asleep on us?”

Dib was completely dumbfounded and embarrassed from both his situation with Tak and from being caught unawares in class, the entirety of which was now staring at him. He knew there was no way for any of them to know what he had been thinking, but he was caught like a deer in headlights from all of the class’s eyes being on him. Knowing not what else to say he opened his mouth and said, “Could I uh…be excused?” and almost immediately regret saying it as a few of his classmates chuckled in response.

The professor looked at him disappointed, “It’s a bit late for that now Dib, we’re waiting on you to read your lines. And didn’t you go to the bathroom at the beginning of class?”

“No that was for… something else. Now I have to use the bathroom.”

His professor sighed, “Finish reading this act, and then you may be excused. Don’t take too long this time.”

Either he was getting annoyed with him and just wanted Dib out of the class, or the class’s un-enthusiasm was beginning to rub off on him and he didn’t care. Dib thanked him and looked down on his book, hoping to get done with his lines as quickly as possible and see Tak. He looked down on his book but he didn’t see any lines for his character and flipped a few pages trying to find them. His professor saw him flipping through pages and said to Dib:

“We’re on line 1170 Dib. Lafeu has just left the stage leaving Parolles on when Bertram enters. Did you find your place?”

“Yes I did.” Said Dib.

“Good, you can start when you’re ready.”

Dib read his lines, with a bit more bounce than before, “Undone, and forfeited to cares forever!”

To which Keef replied with much ado, “What's the matter, sweet-heart?”

“Although before the solemn priest I have sworn, I will not bed her.”

* * *

Dib wandered through the halls of High Skool’s science department. Tak’s current class was anatomy at room S129, and there was only one supply closet a few doors down from it, which Dib assumed Tak was in. He felt lead in the pit of his stomach as he walked towards it. He was going over in his head whether he wanted to just go with whatever Tak wanted and sort out any mess that it makes later, or sit down and talk with Tak about their relationship and how she was feeling. He hadn’t even come close to making a decision when he made it to the supply closet, he tried the door but it was locked. He waited a moment for Tak to unlock it but she never came. He was about to start looking for another closet or text message Tak to ask her what room she was in when he remembered she had asked him to knock. Not knowing what else to do and still hesitant about meeting up with her, he leaned against the wall next to the door and knocked on it.

“Tak, you in there? It’s me.” He said trying to sound calm. He heard the door unlock and open a crack, he tried to see what was inside but the lights were off.

“Dib?” Tak’s voice said meekly.

“Yup. It’s me.” Dib said rubbing the back of his head, trying to force himself to be energetic. He went for the doorknob and began opening it, but before he could move it another centimeter the door slammed shut and Tak screamed out, “Wait!”

Dib jumped out of his skin at Tak’s action and screamed back to her, “What!?” He wasn’t as loud, but he was much more annoyed. After a second the door reopened a crack and Dib heard Tak say,

“The other night, when we were at the arcade? I was feeling bad so you got me a stuffed turtle to make up for it. What color was it?”

Dib didn’t hide his confusion as he spoke, “I didn’t get you a turtle. I got you a mongoose. And it was brown, I’m pretty sure. Why-?” Before he could finish speaking the door opened just enough to let him squeeze in as a gloved three fingered hand grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him inside. Tak threw him into the wall as she pulled him in with one hand and closed the door behind them. She heard him bang against a shelf and grunt in pain in the unlit room.

“I’m sorry.” Tak began in between quickened breathe, “I should have told you a password for you to use when you got here but I wasn’t thinking and panicked when you tried to open the door.” Her breathing subsided a bit as she continued but it was still laced with stress, “But that’s okay. You’re here now. So now you can help me fix this.”

“Yeah, and uh Tak, about that…” Dib started sheepishly while rubbing his side that hit into the shelf, “I know I said I’d help you and all, but don’t you think maybe we ought to think about this?” Tak then grabbed onto the front of Dib’s shirt, and wouldn’t let go.

“What do you mean think about? There’s nothing to think about! You said you’d help me! You have to help me! You can’t leave me like this!” Tak spoke quickly in a hoarse whisper, with a touch of desperation and betrayal in her voice.

“I mean yeah, and I am. It’s just…aren’t we kind of -you know- going through this kind of quickly?” Dib stammered out as he was trying to put his own conflicted feelings into words. He was thankful the lights weren’t on in the closet so Tak couldn’t see him blush.

“Quickly? Yes, that’s how I want it! Help me fix this mess now, then we’ll worry about how it happened later.” Tak’s voice was racing as she spoke, and she sounded like a convict bargaining on death row. Her face was close to Dib’s and he could feel her breathe on his face.

“But I don’t think quickly is what you need right now.” Dib pleaded with her.

“What makes you think you know what I need better than I do? I know what the problem is Dib! I just need another set of hands.” Tak’s concern in her voice transformed as she spoke, turning into frustration and anger. She began to shake him as she spoke, “If you won’t help me then-Then I’ll get somebody else who will! Gaz! She’ll help me! I’ll get Gaz!”

“Gaz!?” Dib said absolutely thunderstruck, “But isn’t she-aren’t you-aren’t we-”

“Friends?” Tak interrupted him while he rambled. She stopped shaking him, but held onto him tightly with their faces close to each other’s. She spoke with deep contempt in her voice, “I thought so too Dib. But friends help each other when they’re in need. And if you don’t want to do that, then I guess we’re not friends anymore!”

Tak said this with such ferocity and desperation in her voice that Dib didn’t know how to process it. His mind raced over everything Tak told him and then he said, “I-I mean I… Aww fuck it.” Dib decided whatever hesitation about being intimate with Tak he was feeling earlier he wasn’t feeling now. Since Tak was being so persistent, and very clearly stressed beyond belief, he thought it was best to appease her at least partially and then work out whatever problems she was going through when she calmed down a bit. He brought his mouth to hers and began kissing, but was surprised when she didn’t kiss back, and speechless when Tak pushed him off of her.

“What on Irk do you think you’re doing?!” Tak yelled back to him.

“What, you called me here for?” Dib said slowly, and confused.

“I didn’t call you here for that! I told you this wasn’t for a make-out secession!” Tak said infuriated, and from the tone of her voice Dib could tell she wasn’t here for what he thought she was.

Still confused he said, “It wasn’t-Then what did you call me here for?”

Tak fumbled around in the dark for the string connect to the lightbulb. After she pulled it Dib could make out all of the items in the cramped closet. It had shelves of cleaning supplies, a mop, a dirty sink, a broken mirror, and Tak without her disguise on and an angry look on her face.

She pointed to herself and said, “This is the reason I called you here for!”

Dib just stared at her without her disguise on in the supply closet for a second, still confused at what exactly was the problem. Then suddenly he grasped what was going on and almost yelled as he blurted out his realization,

“Your disguise isn’t working!”

“Yes! That’s what I was trying to tell you! What did you think I was talking about?” Tak raised her hands into fists as she spoke to him.

Dib wasn’t sure how to tell her, or if now was the best time to do so, or if he even wanted to admit what he thought she was talking about. He fumbled through his words as he tried to decide while he spoke, “I mean uh…the way you were saying it…it made it sound like…like…Why didn’t you just text me that your disguise wasn’t working?”

“Why do you think?” Tak shriek out, “My equipment doesn’t just stop working for no reason Dib. Someone or something has sabotaged me. One second I’m sitting in class, minding my own business, the next my disguise is malfunctioning, and now it won’t even turn back on along with anything else.”

“Wait, but even if you think someone managed to compromise your disguise why not just text me that’s what happened? Didn’t you tell me before your phone’s off the grid?”

“Dib, if they can hack into my system remotely and deactivate it, they can definitely pick up any message I send through a modified earth phone!” She yelled back at him.

“Did anyone see you without your disguise on?” Dib said looking towards the door, his own set of paranoia setting in. He didn’t think the faculty had a policy for aliens on Skool property, but considering he once had to spend the night in quarantine at the Elementary Skool for a lice infection he wouldn’t put it past them.

“I don’t know.” Tak said nervously, “Someone definitely saw my disguise glitching out before I was able to excuse myself. I was going to the bathroom to try and fix it but it crashed on me as soon as I stepped out of class. I ducked in here to save myself and now I’m too scared to leave in case they catch me.”

“But what about your cloaking device, or Mimi?”

“Didn’t you hear me Dib? They got everything!” She yelled at him and then hunched over, sounding like she was on the verge of crying as she finished, “I can’t even use my communicator to get in touch with Mimi.”

“But then how did you text me?”

“My phone is not the same as my communicator Dib! But it doesn’t matter.” Tak stepped away from him as she spoke and turned towards the wall, “She’s as good as dead out there, we both are.”

“Tak relax, we can fix this.” Dib said approaching her. He tried to reassure her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

“No Dib you don’t get.” She swiped Dib’s hand off of her and said, completely hopeless, “Mimi’s disguise is broken too, and I haven’t heard from her since I messaged you, not even static.” Her voice changed as she went on, going from hopeless to a full panic, “That means she’s out there with her parts strewn out over this ugly planet, or she’s been captured by whoever’s after me, and then they’re going to break her apart and cannibalize her for scraps. Then they’re going to find me and cut me open on a dissecting table, and put my organs in glass jars for me to look at while I’m still awake, or they’ll torture me until I tell them everything I know, and then they’ll lobotomize me or my pack and barely keep me alive so I can  just do what they tell me to- and then- and then…”

Tak ended her monologue with a string of profanities as she clutched both of her antennas in her hands. Her voice and breathing accelerated as she went on, to the point where she was hyperventilating. Seeing this Dib immediately grabbed Tak in a tight hug and tried to calm her down with words of reassurance and an attempted plea for her to try to slow down. He tried breathing slowly and told her to focus on his breathe but it seemed to do little for her as she wasn’t able to match his. She tried to match his pace but all that did was put her into a cough, and Dib wasn’t sure but it sounded like Tak was crying in his arms. He tried to assist in massaging her antennas, and shushed to her as she leaned into him. That ended up working and the two of them stayed that way for a moment. Tak leaning into Dib in a deep hug while he massage an antenna with his free hand. Finally, after how long neither of them where sure, Tak had managed calmed down.

“Okay.” Said Dib still hugging her, “I think now’s a good time for me to take a look at your system and see what I can do to help.”

“What makes you think that you can fix it when I can’t?” Tak said angrily as she brought her head up to look at him.

“What reason did you call me here for if you didn’t want me to help?” Dib asked, not angry just confused.

“I…” Tak started as the anger faded from her eyes. That was the reason she called him over, but her mind was a mess from everything and she was so very confused. She brought her head to his chest and look down from his face as she brought her left arm up to it. On it just below her wrist was what looked like a touch screen about the size of a fist.

Dib activated the interface and said optimistically, “Alright, so what’s causing the problem?” He was trying to sound positive to help Tak’s mood.

“Don’t know.” Tak said flatly, her voice muffled by Dib’s chest.

“I thought you said you knew how to fix this but needed help?” Dib said looking down at Tak surprised.

Without looking up and her voice still muffled she said, “I panicked when you said you weren’t going to help me and said that to try to get you to stay.”

Dib didn’t say anything else to Tak after her explanation. He wasn’t sure what he could do that Tak couldn’t to try and fix it but he figured having a second, and calmer, set of eyes inspect it couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t his first time handling Irken technology, or even his first time handling Tak’s, but it was his fist time handling anything recent of hers with as much free reign as he had now. He was perplexed by how closely the Irken operating system, and Irken technology in general, match Earth’s. The first time he realized it the fact went completely over his head as a twelve year old; though to his credit he was also just concerned with escaping Zim’s trap alive at the time. Tak’s system wasn’t completely offline, but all of her systems reported a fatal error and could not operate. He attempted to diagnose what was wrong with it and troubleshoot but to no avail. He folded his hands on attempting to fix the problem, but from what he could tell it at least didn’t look like a malicious attack which comforted him a little bit.

He didn’t say anything to Tak after he was done looking at her system, but Tak took her arm in her other while she inspected it and responded, “I don’t know what I was thinking when I called you here to help. Like I said, I panicked and called you over without thinking.” When she was done talking another look of hopelessness washed over her face.

“Hey we’re not done yet, there’s still more we can try.” Dib said trying to bolster her spirits.

“And what exactly do you plan on trying?” Tak said arguing for her own defeat.

“Well” Dib began, dreading the argument he knew his suggestion would start, “We could ask Zim for help.”

Dib was surprised that Tak didn’t immediately berate him for even thinking about asking Zim for help. Not too surprisingly, she crossed her arms and responded, “I think I’d rather go to the dissecting table then to him.”

Dib didn’t say anything to her statement but looked at her exasperated beyond belief. Tak didn’t respond to his grimace, but she softened her own as she looked at him. She knew herself that she would rather ask help from Zim than go to the dissecting table, but she could never admit that. Dib was about to open his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by the Skool Bell for the next class, which earned a slight wince from Tak.

“That’s the bell for the next class! I’ll text Zim and tell him to meet us here.” He reached for his pants pocket where he kept his phone but Tak grabbed his hands before he could.

“No, don’t call him! He’s probably the one who caused this.”

“What reason, what benefit, would Zim have in turning you in? If they find one Irken they’d be crazy to think there’s only one.” Dib thought this was a unprecedented level of paranoia against Zim for Tak, but he thought it must be the stress of the situation that was getting to her.

“I don’t know but I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s the only one here who has the means to break my system, and even if he didn’t, messaging him would draw too much attention to us. I already think it was a bad idea for me to text you on my phone if they got everything else.”

“But Tak when I looked at your stuff it didn’t look like it was from an attack, just a system failure.”

“But that’s exactly what someone who knows what they’re doing would make it look like! We can’t take any chances in using anything that can be traced.”

“If that’s the case then I’ll go get him myself.” Dib said confidently.

“No! You can’t leave me here!” Tak pleaded again before she softened her demeanor and squeezed his hands tightly, “Please don’t go.”

“But what else are we going to do?” Dib asked her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. He turned her face to his and raised their hands together as he said, “I’m going to get Zim. Lock the door and keep the light off until I get back. The password will be ‘mongoose’, don’t open it for anyone unless they use it.” He let go of Tak’s hand and went for the door but Tak was still pleading with him not to leave. Dib said, “Text me if anything happens, I won’t keep you waiting.” He made sure to only open the door enough to let himself out and closed it shut behind him as he went to find Zim.

The other students had already made it to their classes so the halls were empty. Dib remembered he left his backpack in English class, but he hoped someone would turn it in to the office so he could get it back later, as he had more pressing matters. The walk to his Chemistry class wasn’t too far as it was still within the science department of Skool. He was sure Tak’s malfunction wasn’t caused by outside forces, but he still founded himself scanning the halls for anything suspicious in case Tak and Zim were both targets. He made it to his Chemistry class without incident and looked inside, the professor was writing the lab’s agenda for the day, and a few of the students took this time to either goof off or prepare in advanced. He scanned the room and found Zim at their usual station with his disguise working fine, so if it was an attack Zim was not a target as well. A few years back when Zim’s and Tak’s banishment was made official Tak insisted (really forced) Zim to dump his old wig and contact lens disguise in favor of her hard-light hologram. Barely anyone questioned when Zim came in to Skool one day wearing normal clothes, not green, and not missing ears, and the ones who did were satisfied with the explanation that Zim’s skin infection got better. His disguise gave him a pink sweat-shirt with red jeans and a backpack where his pak would be, he had a few prefabricated outfits he cycled through but he never went overboard with it. As opposed to Tak who seemed to have an entire virtual wardrobe of clothes she went through each day. Now he was wearing lab goggles and delicately attending to the inert chemicals they were working with today.

Dib approached him and said as casually as possible, “Hey Zim, got a sec?”

Upon hearing this Zim jumped up from shock and responded, “AAAh! Dib do you mind? I’m trying to secure these chemicals so they don’t melt our faces off!”

“It’s vinegar Zim. It’s not going to melt anything.” Dib had always been surprised the lengths Zim went to in the lab, whether at Skool or his real one. He always dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s when following lab procedure no matter how redundant it was. Unless he was in one of his creative moods, in which case he threw all caution to the wind. Dib guessed his time as a technician on Vort must have imprinted on him a real sense for the laboratory, and he thought Zim and his father would get along great in the lab if they were ever able too openly discuss it.

Zim removed his chemistry goggles from his face and said annoyed, “Well sure, it might not melt your face off Dib but after the incident with the raw sewage last week I’m not taking any chances.”

“Oh yeah.” Dib laughed, earning a glare from Zim, “I almost forgot about that. Did you ever get that mark off your arm where the sewage hit?”

“Eventually. After a week of nightly salt baths and chemical cleanings.” Zim Shuddered, “It still smells like filth. How do you and Gaz survive on this stink planet?”

Dib shrugged, “It’s just a part of life here. Plus having our own filter system courtesy of our dad means we only really deal with it outside the house, which is okay I guess.” Dib got close enough to Zim after saying this so he could whisper to him. “Do you think we could hold off on Chemistry until we fix something?”

“I didn’t break anything.” Zim said aloud, not bothering to whisper.

Dib cringed at Zim’s abrasiveness, and still whispering to him said, “I know you didn’t, Tak did.”

Zim asked relieved, “Oh. What did she break?”

“It’s her…” Dib started to say, but looked around the room and thought it’d be better to be discreet. He brought his forearm up and tapped on it with his other hand, mimicking a keyboard.

“Wrist?” Zim asked confused.

“Her disguised.” Dib whispered flatly, he could be there all class playing charades until Zim got it.

“Oh. Tell her to fix it then.” Zim said dismissively as he waved Dib away while taking a seat at the counter. Dib took a seat next to him and continued whispering,

“She can’t fix it, we need help.”

“So she wants my help?” Zim said skeptically, whispering now.

“Well…she says she doesn’t, but you know her. I at least want your help.”

Zim looked away from Dib with his head resting in the fold of his arms on the counter. He tapped his fingers, thinking about what he wanted to do but didn’t say anything. Finally Dib asked, “Your disguise hasn’t had any problems at all, has it?”

Zim replied annoyed, “I would have told you if that was the case. What’s even wrong with it that she can’t fix it?”

“We don’t know. But it’s not just her disguise, it’s her whole system. Tak thinks it’s an outside attack, but I thought it just looked like a system error.”

“It could be a disguised attack.” Zim said looking up from his arms intrigued.

“Tak said the same thing, but she also said you could’ve caused it.”

“She thinks I did it?” Zim whispered shrilly, still not lifting his head off the counter.

“No, but even I can’t think of anyone who’d know how to attack it, besides you.”

Zim growled and Dib replied hastily, “I know you didn’t do it. But what could have made it just stop working?”

“Weirder things have happened to us before.” Zim groaned out.

“Or we’ve been the weirder things. You’ll help us?”

Zim sighed, “Chemistry sucks anyway.”

The two of them excused themselves from class and made their way to the closet Tak was cooped up in. When they got to it Zim tried the handle and was annoyed when he found it locked and shook it violently. Dib calmed him down and apologized for not telling him the password. He knocked on the door and cleared his throat before he said, “Mongoose” and then they heard the door unlock. Dib opened it just enough to let himself inside, then Zim opened it almost completely as he let himself in. Tak berated him,

“What are you doing Zim? Do you want people to see me like this?”

Zim said, “What could they possibly see? I couldn’t see anything in here with the door open, let alone now.” Zim squinted in the dark but no one could see him do so. Tak replied with pulling the string connected to the light, illuminating the closet along with everyone in it.

Zim saw her without her disguise and said jokingly, “Wow Tak. You know I always thought you wouldn’t be caught dead without your disguise on in public.”

She replied hostile, “If you caused this, I swear to Irk I’ll-”

“I didn’t, okay.” Zim replied irritated, “Even Dib thinks so, and he’s the ones with all the crazy constipation theorems.”

“Conspiracy theories.” Dib said placing a hand over his face, exhausted by the two of them.

“Whatever.” Zim said “Let’s just finish this up so we can all go out tonight.”

Tak extended her left arm out to him, “Fix it.” She commanded curtly.

“A simple ‘please’ would be nice.”

“Please fix it.” Tak said, her tone unchanged.

“Like you mean it.” Zim said playfully.

“I’ll show you what I mean you little shit!” Tak said advancing toward him, but Dib stepped in preventing her.

“Tak-Zim. Come on. We’re supposed to be working together here.” Dib said to the two of them while he wondered if the CIA knowing about Tak would be worse than whatever they would do to each other if left alone.

“I am helping!” Zim said offended, “But is it too much to ask for a little ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ for all the bullshit Tak’s given me over the years?”

“It’s going to be a lot more than some Earth shit exploding all over you if I ever make it out of here alive!”

“That was you!” Zim said furious as he turned from Tak to Dib, “Did you know about this?”

“I-I mean I didn’t know.” Dib said trying to play innocent. He didn’t know what exactly caused the raw sewage incident last week but he did have his suspicions.

“In that case I want an apology too before I help.” Zim said.

“Right after you apologize for causing that blackout on Devastis!” said Tak.

“Not like I’ve never said that before but sure. Sorry I caused that blackout that made you miss your test.”

“Now apologize for ruining my life!”

“I did not ruin your life. Or if I did I’m not the only one, your life would have sucked without me or not.”

“I would not be stuck on this miserable dirt ball of a planet if it wasn’t for you!”

“Yeah but you’d be stuck somewhere. We both know why.”

“DON’T YOU DARE EVEN SUGGEST THAT YOU MISERABLE LITTLE-!” Tak was about to mention the unutterable, but was interrupted when Dib stepped between them again.

He said, “TAK-ZIM! Both of you shut up! You’ve both been through shit and a whole hell of a lot has happened to you in the past six years. You both came here to destroy Earth, then got banished here together, then I thought you two got better with each other after you gave up on conquering and just set on living. You’re both a far cry from Irk now and a few things have come and gone here. From you both getting taller for whatever reason, to the us all becoming friends, and to Skoodge coming and leaving.”

“And Mini-Moose.” Zim said, sadness in his voice.

“Yeah. Mini-Moose too.” Dib said a bit gentler than he had been speaking. He often forgot how much Mini-Moose meant to Zim, he was almost as close to him as Gir was. Dib continued, “The point is that if we’re all going to live here without killing each other or letting other people do that for us we got to start working together.” Everyone was silent for a moment as they reflected on what Dib said. Zim was the one who broke the silence he said,

“I still want Tak to ask me nicely to help.”

“You’re not getting anything-” Tak started to get angry again but Dib grabbed onto her and said between his teeth,

“Tak. Just let him have this.”

She shoved Dib’s hand off of her but seemed to resign to Zim’s request. After a brief pause she said, “Please Zim… Please help me fix my disguise so I can go home and not end up on the dissecting table.”

Zim nodded in affirmation and said gently, “Okay. Okay was that so hard?”

Tak only groaned and gave him her left arm to examine her device. Zim navigated through her interface and brought it to what resembled a BIOS. After looking it over briefly he said, “Geeze Tak. What did you do to this thing anyway?”

“Nothing. Like I told Dib: one minute I’m sitting in class perfectly normal, the next my disguise starts acting up, and now nothing on it works.”

“Where’s Mimi?” Zim asked, some concern in his voice.

“Radio silence.” Tak said emotionlessly.

Zim was still looking over her device quietly after she spoke, and after a moment he said, “If she doesn’t turn up by the end of the day I’ll send Gir out to find her.”

After a pause Tak genuinely said, “Thank you” and it last thing any of them said for a while. Zim continued looking through her system’s BIOS and after exhausting any solutions through it brought out his tools from his backpack which included a pair of magnifying goggles and some electrical probes. He opened up her device without request, and the three of them stayed in the closet in silence while he toiled away at it. Dib watched Zim work his alien tools on the device, he hadn’t removed his disguise the whole time they were in the closet and was surprised by the lengths Tak went for them. Irkens only had three fingers, but he wouldn’t have known that just by looking at Zim’s hands as he worked, as the extra two digits seemed to flow perfectly into whatever finer work he was doing and they never seemed to blend into one of his other fingers like he would have expected. After a fair amount of time Zim finished whatever work he did to Tak’s device, and after putting it back together tried to boot it up. The three of them saw Tak’s human disguise show up briefly and then fade away into distortion as it completely destabilized and collapsed. After seeing this Zim turned to Dib and pointed behind him to Tak with his thumb as he said,

“Shit’s fucking broken.”

“We know it’s broken.” Tak said, her annoyance returning, “How do we fix it?”

Zim shrugged and said, “Don’t know, it could be anything from hardware to a coding issue. I’d have to take the whole thing apart in my lab and analyze everything before I’d find out what the exact cause was.”

Tak brought her hand to her head as she groaned, “Augh, useless! Why did we even call you here? I already knew that.”

“Relax Tak, it’s not the end of the world.” Said Zim.

“Maybe for you it’s not, you’re not the one with an alien hunter on your ass!”

“I actually don’t think it’s that. Nothing about your system seems out of the ordinary, apart from not working anyway.”

“If it’s not someone messing with my system then what? What could possibly be causing my system to just fail suddenly?”

Zim shrugged again, “It could be sun spots.”

Tak gawked and struggled to find words before she said, “Irken technology does not fail because of sun spots on planet with a hair thin O-Zone layer.”

“That’s what the Empire wants you to think Tak, our stuffs good but it’s far from perfect. All it takes is one rouge gamma ray to pass through imperfect plating and change a zero to a one or vice versa and your whole system collapses. I’ve seen it a hundred times when I was a technician on Vort.”

“You’ve seen this before? This exact thing?” Tak said with a mixture of skepticism and optimism.

“Well…” Zim dragged on, “When I say a hundred times it’s really only once or twice. We ran into this problem where a computer we were using had a complete system failure for no discernible reason. I suggested it was rogue gamma rays but no one believed me at the time, and we never figured out what the problem was.”

Dib chimed into conversation, “That sounds more like Vortians purposely sabotaging the Empire’s work than sun spots Zim.”

Zim said, “No, the Empire was working together with the Vortians at the time as a collaborative. Tallest Spork was the one who brought us to war, and eventually enslaved them, which was a policy Red and Purple maintained.”

“That still doesn’t apply to me. My device is not made by obdurate Vortians.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Zim said in sing-song and then continued normally, “Like I said that was a problem even before they started making bad stuff for us. And your tech isn’t much better than the Empire’s.”

“I know it’s not, it’s vastly superior.” Tak said proudly.

“Sure, once you get past all your coding redundancies.” Zim said.

“Redundancy? You’re one to talk. How many times have you tried fitting a square peg into a round hole before you broke something?”

“Guys!” Dib groaned to the two of them.

Tak shook her head back and forth as she said frustrated, “Alright, alright fine. It’s sun spots. Great! What am I going to do then? It’s not like I can just leave School grounds as an alien!”

“Well that’s the real reason you called me here then isn’t it?” Zim said proudly as he reached into his backpack again, “You always know I’ll pull through for you.” He pulled out a pair of blue eyed contact lens and a long mangy black wig as he finished speaking and presented it to the two of them.

“No. No, no, no. No.” Tak started, “I am not wearing one of your greasy wigs and old pair of contacts.”

“Do you prefer losing your organs on the dissecting table or your pride?” Zim taunted.

“This has nothing to do with pride Zim. They’re not going to be fooled by this.” She said pointing to the items in Zim’s hands.

“I don’t know Tak.” Said Dib with regret while rubbing the side of his arm, “I…Think it might work.”

“Maybe for Zim it might. But my disguise was flawless when I first came here.”

“Tak, your skin color was an off shade of green and you had only three fingers when first you came here.” Dib said peeved.

“My knowledge of human anatomy was a bit incomplete at the time, but I’ve seen students at our school with twice that amount of digits on their hands. I could’ve been one with only three. And need I remind you that it fooled everyone on this planet.”

“Yeah and so did mine.” Zim said shaking his wig and contacts in front of Tak.

“I am not wearing that.” Tak said pushing it away.

“You got a better idea?” Zim said as he pushed it back.

Tak groaned and grabbed both of her antennas as she dragged her hands across them towards the back of her head. “Give me that!” She said as she snatched the disguise out of Zim’s hands. She went over to the mirror and put on the wig, trying hard to hide her antennas underneath it. She looked at the inside of the contact lens and gaged before she turned on the faucet to wash them. Before she put them under the water Zim let out a concerned moan, he tried the same thing a long time ago and it had very negative effects. “Right, not the lab, bad idea.” Tak said as she shut off the faucet. She tried scrubbing the inside of the lens with the back of her sleeve and spit on it to clean it better.

“Hey, I’ll want those back.” Zim said concerned.

“Then you can clean them when you get them back.” Tak said discomforted, “Why do you even have this stuff?”

“You know Tak I wouldn’t expect you to understand style.”

Tak scoffed at Zim’s remark as she continued getting the rest of the disguise on. She opened her lid with her opposite hand as she guided the lens over her eye. It took her a few attempts and her eye got puffy and teary until she was able to fit the first one in. She blinked a few times as she adjusted to the feeling of it, then she put in the second one which went a bit better than the first. After she finished she starred at herself in the mirror while adjusting her hair and then she said, “This isn’t going to work.”

“We already told you it will.” Zim said unconcerned.

“No it won’t, I’m green!” Tak said turning around to both of them. “I can hide that I don’t have ears under my hair but there’s no way they won’t notice anything.” She nervously adjusted her hair as she said this, trying to hide the tube connected to her head.

“I think you’ll be fine Tak.” Dib started to say, “I mean I tried to expose Zim for years but nobody noticed anything. And they didn’t even care when he walked into Skool one day without a skin infection.”

“But just look at me!” She said pointing to herself, “Everything about me screams alien!”

“What’s your great idea to get you out of here, huh? I’d love to hear it.” Zim said sick of Tak’s nervousness.

“Maybe…” She fumbled around with her hair and hands as she started, “Maybe we can wait until tonight for the school to close to sneak me out.”

“Oh! Should I get a laundry cart to smuggle you out of here too?” Zim said mockingly.

“That might work.” Tak said, she was so tense she didn’t even notice Zim’s sarcasm.

“With the Skool’s night watch? No thanks, I don’t want to get shot.” Zim said leaving, “You and Dib can mess around in the closet all night if you want but I’m going home. And I’m taking my wig back, you can keep the contacts.” He said while snatching the wig off Tak’s head, she grabbed onto it as he pulled it away and the two of them were in a grapple while they shouted at each other.

“No I’m keeping this!” Said Tak.

“What for? You said it’s not going to work.” Said Zim.

“It’s better than nothing!”

“Careful! You’re going to tear it!”

“Guys! Both of you stop!” Dib said watching them, not sure what to do.

“If you want it so badly then take it!” Zim said as he let go of the wig and pushed Tak away from him with his foot. While the two of them were in a grapple they spun around the closet and Tak ended up crashing into the door as she went back. She had managed to place the wig back on her head but the door wasn’t closed properly which caused her to open it as she landed out in the middle of the hallway. From inside the closet out of view Dib and Zim heard a shrill scream from someone other than Tak outside. They looked at each other for a second as they shared a look of shock and concern before they both ran to the entrance. Outside was Tak hunched in hiding and Zita standing over her catching her breath, papers and books were scattered on the floor around them. Zita had her hand over her chest and said in between breathes,

“Oh…Tak.”

Tak looked up to her unsure of what to say and how she recognized her, “Y-yeah…?” was all she said.

Still puffing for breath Zita said, “Sorry, you came out of now where.” She bent down reaching for her papers but stopped midway to examine her. “Hey Tak, did you do something with your hair?”

“Uh…” Tak said as she looked to the side and spied her antenna sticking out past her wig. She tucked it in hastily without saying anything else.

“Did you get hair extensions? And your hair’s black. Is this your natural hair color!?” She ended he statement thrilled.

“Uh, yeah.” Tak said, still barely making eye contact with Zita.

“It looks really good on you!” She finished picking up one of her papers and straightened up, looking to the closet where Tak came out of with Dib and Zim still in the doorway looking at them. “Uh…What where the three of you doing in the closet?” Zita said, some concern in her voice.

“None of your business.” Zim said rudely as he came out of the closet and carelessly picked up a pile of the papers on the ground. “Here, you dropped this.” He said pushing the pile into Zita’s hand.

“Alright, asshole.” Zita said, trying to catch the papers but most of them fell out of her hands again. Dib came out and helped pick up the papers.

“What are you even doing here? Class isn’t out yet.” Zim said dubiously to her while raising an eyebrow.

“Well it’s none of your business Zim!” She said to his face while taking the papers handed back to her by Dib. “But I have an appointment today so my professor let me out early.”

“Finally getting your brain examined so you can stop losing your house keys?” Zim said.

“More like you’re getting your head checked so you can stop being a freak.” Zita said back to him.

Zim pointed to her and said, “Watch it.”

“You watch it. I liked you better when you were green.”

“And I liked when you stopped talking, but we can’t get everything. You have your papers, go to your doctor’s appointment.” Zim said as he picked up the rest and pushed Zita along.

Zita pushed him back and started going, “Alright asshole I’m going. Bye Tak, see you Monday in English class! Be careful with the freaks over the weekend.” She said back to them while waving to Tak who was hardly looking up at her.

“Yeah you watch yourself. Bye, bye now.” Zim waved her away and looked to Dib and Tak. Before he could say anything else the Skool bell rang for the end of the day and all the students poured out the classrooms. Tak froze into place as the hall filled with students making their way. People brushed up against her and told her to watch where she was going and all she did was meekly standby and apologize quietly. They were doing the same to Zim who boldly told them to watch where they were going themselves, thankfully nothing happened and the sea of people brushed past them without incident. After the students left the hallway Tak’s anatomy professor came out of his classroom and addressed each of them by name. He said Dib’s, then Zim’s, and then stared for a moment as he addressed Tak, but he was staring in disappointment as opposed to some sense of suspicion. He then left the three of them in the hallway without saying anything further and when he was out of line of sight Tak raised her head, Dib could see total disbelief wash across her face.

She went a bit ahead of the group and raised he arms in exasperation as she said, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Told you it would work.” Zim said flatly as he pulled out his phone from his pocket and began texting on it.

“But I’m green. I have three fingers. I’m wearing an outfit I’ve never worn before!” Tak said as she turned around to look at them.

“You really think the last one should be a sign you’re an alien?” Dib said confused.

“Zita noticed that I had a different hair style, but not that my skin was green, or that my eyes are just giant contacts, or that they’re the wrong color!” Tak said still completely stunned.

“You know Tak, last time I checked humans don’t have purple eyes.” Zim said still not looking up from his phone.

“They’re not purple they’re violet! And they do too. Elizabeth Taylor had them and so did Helen Rivers from I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Tak said with her arms crossed.

Zim looked up from his phone and said to Tak, “You know when you put it that way it sounds like your disguise is just some edgy OC I’d see on the internet.”

“It is not! And what are you doing on your phone?”

“Texting Gir. Also in case you were wondering I was being an ass to Zita so she didn’t pay attention to you. Thought I’d tell you cause you know, she’s your friend or whatever.” Zim said as he finished typing. “Are we done here yet?”

Tak didn’t say anything but a look of concern came over her face again. Dib walked up to her and grabbed her hand and said, “Come on, we’ll be fine. Let’s go find Mimi.” This seemed to calm Tak, and at mention of Mimi she found a new purpose. So the three of them, with Tak holding tight onto Dib’s hand out of nervousness, made their way out of the High Skool. When they got outside they heard the soft sound of a cat mewing from the bushes along the side of the building.

Tak gasped, “Mimi!” She let go of Dib’s hand and ran to the bush were the sound came from and said softly, “Mimi, Where are you? Tak’s here.”

Dib and Zim ran around to where she was looking into the bushes and saw Mimi without her disguise on hiding in the bushes still acting like a cat. She mewed again to Tak who said, “Oh Mimi, you poor thing.” She then petted her as she mewed. “What happened? Did you see anyone?” Mimi mewed again, “You didn’t see anyone? Nothing at all?” She mewed again. “Well okay, just stay here until I can fix this. We’ll have to cancel tonight.”

“You don’t have to, Gir should be-” Zim started to say but was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“ZIIIHIIHIIIM!” Said Gir as he grabbed onto Zim, pulling him into a tight hug. He continued with tears in his eyes, “I’d thought-that I’d never see you again.”

Zim replied annoyed, “Gir you were in Skool, remember? It lasts the same amount of time everyday you’re there.” Since Zim and Tak had started getting taller Gir pestered Zim to upgrade his design so he could be taller too. After ages of persistence Zim finally gave into Gir’s request and updated both his design and disguise from his dog to his little brother. Zim was still a full head taller than him, which made Gir the shortest one in the group after Zim.

“I know.” Said Gir a bit more cheery, “But sometimes it feels a lot longer than that.”

“I know Gir.” Zim continued impatiently, “Did you get the disguise I told you too?”

“I did! Where’s Mimi?” Gir said as he rummaged through his green dog backpack and pulled out a small black cat disguise. Mimi mewed in excitement and Gir called out her name ecstatic as he ran over to her in the bushes. He pushed Tak aside and helped Mimi get her disguise who was more than happy to oblige.

“Where do you get these things?” Tak said bemused as she turned to Zim.

“It’s one of Gir’s old disguises, and he likes to keep things in his locker. And it looks pretty good on Mimi.”

Tak turned around and saw Mimi already in the disguise as she attempted to groom herself. Since the disguise was only a felt suit it did not have a tongue, so all she did was brush her arm against her mouth before rubbing it across her head.

“No. You are not wearing that, you look like a toy!” Tak said to Mimi.

“Then just have her pretend to be a toy. You’ll be able to take her home that way.” Dib suggested.

Tak then scooped up Mimi in her arms and said to her, “Don’t move a wire until we get back home and don’t say anything.” Mimi growled in response but Tak was satisfied with her answer. She then turned to Dib and asked him where Gaz was to which Dib responded that he didn’t. Almost on queue the three of them heard behind them,

“Alright, what’s this I hear about Tak’s disguise not working?” It was Gaz, and the three of them turned around to face her. Gaz saw Tak in her wig and Mimi in her felt suit and turned to Zim to say, “Oh. My God. You actually convinced her to wear one of your crappy disguises?”

“Hey it’s not crappy! It’s an ingenious disguise which just so happened to fool everyone on this planet. Except you and Dib.” Zim said defending himself.

“Yeah but everyone else on this planet’s an idiot.” Gaz said.

“Everyone? Even your father?” Zim said teasingly pointing to Gaz.

Without changing her blank expression she grabbed onto Zim’s hand and started squeezing, causing Zim to bend over in pain. He struggled for a moment before Gaz said, “You were saying?”

“Ah, I take it back. Your father’s a brilliant man. I love him!” Zim said in between groans of pain.

“Good answer.” Gaz said releasing him. Zim grabbed onto his other hand and massaged it.

Tak let out a giggle before saying, “Thanks Gaz.”

“For defending my dad?”

“No, but don’t get me wrong. Your father’s a credit to your entire species. But seeing Zim in pain always brightens my day.”

“Yeah, yeah, same to you.” Zim said, “If we’re all set I just want to get out of here before-” Again, Zim was interrupted.

“Oh hey Zim!” Said Keef with two backpacks slung over his shoulders.

“Oh, Keef. Great to see you.” Zim said regrettably, “But don’t you remember me telling you I needed some personal space for a while? Like forever?”

“Oh yeah I remember Zim, sorry. But I’m here for Dib.” Keef said this as he took one of the backpacks off and handed it to Dib. “You forgot your backpack in English class and when you didn’t show up I thought I’d make sure you got it.”

“Aw thanks Keef.” Dib said a little hesitantly. He was thankful for him getting his backpack but Keef was always a strange one. He was especially weirded out by Keef’s red eyes, and wished Zim could give him his old ones back, but Zim told him that would be impossible.

“You’re welcome Dib. But Zim while we’re all here do you think we could hang out some time?”

“Ah yes we would, but I’m afraid we’re all rather busy.” Zim said while trying to push Keef away.

“I’m not! We could hang out!” Gir said excited.

Zim was about to chastise Gir for even suggesting to hang out with Keef but before he could say anything Keef said, “That would be great! I’d love to hang with you, uh…?”

“My names Gir!”

“Gir? Gir, that’s right. You’re Zim’s little brother. But I thought Gir was the name of your green dog?” Keef said looking up to Zim.

“We named him after Gir.” Zim said not even bothering to look at Keef.

“Which one? The dog or your brother?”

Gir wailed and grabbed onto Keef as he cried, “My doooooog! Oh why? I loved you doggo!”

Zim pulled Gir off of Keef as he said, “Gir! Great, you set him off! Now I have to take him home so he can calm down.” He looked to the rest of them and walked off with Gir crying on his shoulder as he said, “Sorry guys, I’ll see you all after the weekend. Come on Gir.”

Keef followed after them and said, “I’m sorry I made you brother sad Zim. I can make it up to both of you though! Gir, do you like Pokémon? We can play together on the bus ride home.”

“I love Pokémon!” Gir said as all sadness left his voice, he jumped onto Keef’s arm after he said this and Dib, Tak, and Gaz could see the two of them fight for Gir during their walk to the bus. The three of them watched them in silence until Gaz asked,

“He knows we’re all hanging out tonight? Or is that cancelled on account of Tak?” She said turning to the two of them.

Dib said, “No, I just think he doesn’t want Keef to know about it. But, how did you know about Tak’s disguise?”

“She texted me.” Gaz said.

“When was this?” Dib said to Tak, to which she responded.

“After you went to get Zim. I know I said it was too dangerous to use our phones but I panicked. Again.”

“Yeah well whatever. I told you everyone’s dumber than a sack of bricks.” Gaz said as she pulled out a GameStation hoodie from her backpack and tossed it to Tak. “Here’s my sweatshirt I promised.” Tak thanked her and put it on. She then placed Mimi inside of it much to her disapproving, and she poked her head out at the top so she could see.

“This should make my walk home a little less nerve wracking.”

“Right, so are you two going to walk home together cause I’m going to catch our bus before it leaves.” Gaz said. Tak never liked riding the Skool bus with the others, so she always walked home herself, even though she lived further into the city.

“That won’t be necessary. I should be fine on my own now.” Tak replied, much to Dib’s surprise.

Dib said, “Are you sure? I don’t mind walking you home and we can look over your system together.”

“Yup.” Tak said as she pulled the hood over her face and pulled the strings in each hand to close it tight. This pushed Mimi deeper into the hoodie, putting her out of sight. “I should be fine.” She said muffled behind it.

“Well okay.” Dib started, some concern still in his voice, “But if you need anything just text me.” He reached down for his phone but didn’t feel it in his pocket and then a realization came over him. “I left my phone in English class. Or Keef has it. Shit!” Dib said sharply through his breath.

“She can text me or Zim if she needs anything, alright? Are you coming Dib?” Gaz said annoyed.

“You go on ahead I’ll catch up.” Dib waved her away.

“Okay, bye Tak.” She waved to the two of them, a small bit of concern going over her face as she did, but it only lasted for a second. She walked away to the bus leaving Dib and Tak together.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Dib asked still concerned.

Tak pulled the hoodie down to free her mouth and said, “I should be fine, you go on ahead.”

“Okay, just text Gaz or Zim if you need anything, okay?”

“I heard Gaz fine Dib, you don’t need to repeat for her.” Tak then leaned into Dib and kissed him lightly on the lips, it lasted for a moment before Mimi let out an annoyed mew.

“Shush Mimi! You’re a toy. Toy’s don’t talk.” Tak said, but Mimi mewed back, “I don’t care if you think the disguise is good enough. Do as you’re told!”

“You’re going to be okay Tak?” Dib said again.

Tak started walking away and replied annoyed, “Yes, yes. I’ll be fine. We’ll see you tonight okay?”

Dib and Tak said goodbye and went their separate ways. Dib slung his backpack over his shoulder and went to his bus, and Tak began her long walk to her base. She looked around to make sure no one was watching her and then said to Mimi,

“Status report: my system’s still down but my pak and all its defensive capabilities are operational. Are your defenses operational as well?”

Mimi mewed and responded, “Yes Ma’am. All defensive systems are operational.”

Tak responded, “Good. Let’s just hope we don’t need to use them.” With that, the two of them began their long walk to their base. Tak had been looking forward to their meetup tonight all week, she hoped she was still going to be able to attend it.

* * *

This work is inspired by a piece of fan-art by an nameless doodle anon.

#invader zim #zim #gir #dib #gaz #tak #datr #tadr #datr date night

[snappedsky]

Fanatics 53

Pepito has a moral dilemma. Previous! Next!

The Break-in

              The kids are in health class. To avoid actually teaching, the teacher has just set up a video for everyone to watch. It’s about the changes a teenage body might go through. Nobody’s really paying attention; Dib is reading a book- probably about the supernatural- Pepito is throwing pencils into the ceiling, and Squee is writing in his notebook.

            The only one watching is Zim. He can’t look away. It’s like seeing a dead thing on the side of the road. It’s disgusting and disturbing but also really fascinating.

            After class they walk to their lockers. Zim shakes his head, as if he’s trying to shake out the memory of that video.

            “The human body is so gross,” he groans.

            “Come on. Like your species is so much cleaner,” Pepito scoffs.

            “Excuse you,” Zim snaps, offended, “Irkens are all about neatness and cleanliness. We despise filth.”

            “I have to agree with Zim on this,” Squee says, “humans are gross.”

            “See, Squee gets it.”

            As they arrive at their lockers, they slow to a stop when they see Kat standing there with Gaz.

            “What do you want?” Zim demands.

            “Pepito,” Kat replies, “I’m calling in my favour.”

            “What, now?” Pepito asks, “we’ve still got like two more periods left.”

            “Relax,” she grunts, “I’m only going to tell you what I want you to do. The actual favour will be completed another day.”             “Alright,” he shrugs and leans against the lockers. “What do you want?”             “Not here. We will speak in the washroom,” she orders.

            “Fine,” he groans and waves to his friends. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

            He and Gaz follow Kat through the sea of students into the girl’s bathroom. There are two kids making out on the counter. They flinch and scurry out when Kat shoots them an evil look.

            “Alright. Gaz has informed me that tomorrow, Zim will be spending the day with Dib at his house,” Kat says.

            “You said that?” Pepito asks.

            “She asked,” Gaz shrugs.

            “This means that Zim’s lab will be unprotected,” Kat adds.

            “No, his security system will still be running,” Pepito points out, “also Gir, Minimoose, and Skoodge should still be there.”

            “That’s where you two come in,” Kat states, “I’ve seen in my surveillance that Zim’s security system does not see you two as a threat so you can just in waltz into his house without so much as knocking on the door. You’re also friends with his minions. So I want the two of you to break me into Zim’s lab.”             “What? No way!” Pepito snaps, “I wouldn’t betray Zim like that!”

            “You don’t have a choice,” Kat retorts, “you owe me, remember? I helped you guys with your stupid video game war.”

            “That Gaz’s thing, not mine,” he points out.

            “Yes, but didn’t you owe a Gaz favour? And she made that favour helping me with whatever I wanted. Are you so dishonourable that you won’t return your favour?”

            Pepito flinches. “But…that…”

            Kat sighs. “We won’t go through with the plan until tomorrow. You have until then to think about it. Be at my house by nine with your answer.”

             She walks past them and leaves the washroom.

            Pepito stares at the wall with confusion, thoughts swirling around his head. Gaz watches him curiously.

            “Do you really care about Zim that much?” she asks.

            “Doesn’t matter how much I care about him,” he replies, “he’s still my friend. I can’t betray his trust like this.”

            “Well, what about me? Am I your friend?”

            “I guess.”             “Then shouldn’t you help honour my debt.”             Pepito looks at her with surprise and groans. “Why do you gotta be so manipulative?”

            Gaz just shrugs. “I don’t like it either but it’s not like we got a choice. We owe her.”

            The bell rings.

            “We should get to class,” Gaz says, “and don’t mention this anyone.”

            Pepito stares after miserably as she leaves before following.

            Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Zim keeps asking Pepito what it is Kat wants him to do but he won’t say. He just answers every question with “I can’t tell you.” Whatever it is, Zim can tell it’s clearly bothering him.

            Later that evening, Pepito approaches his mom nervously.

            “Um, Mom, can I get your advice on something?” he asks.

            “Of course,” she replies.

            Pepito takes a deep breath. “Okay, so let’s say I kind of owe one of my friends a favour, right? And she owes someone else a favour so she basically made me also owe that person a favour. But in doing that favour I would betray another friend. So I gotta choose between not honouring my debt to one friend and betraying another. How do I decide what to do?”

            Rose rubs her chin. “That’s a tough one. Either way you could end up hurting a friend.”

            “Exactly. That’s why I don’t know what to do.”

            “I’m not sure my advice would be helpful here,” she admits, “I don’t know what I would do if I were in your shoes.”  

            Pepito sighs. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone.”

            “I know,” Rose smiles sympathetically as she squeezes Pepito’s shoulder. “But all you can do is follow your gut. And whatever happens, I’ll be here for you.”

            Pepito smiles gratefully. Then he goes up to his room to consider his dilemma.

            He really doesn’t want to hurt Gaz or Zim. But this whole situation is practically pitting them against each other.

            He likes Gaz. He doesn’t want to not help her. But Zim’s his friend too. And he made Pepito second-in-command of the Battalion. In the real world that might seem useless, but it still means a lot. And what sort of commander would he be if he betrayed his leader to his worst enemy?

            Pepito sighs. Isn’t there a way he can do this so he doesn’t hurt anyone?

            He blinks with surprise as a thought enters his head. Wait. Maybe there is.

            The next day, Pepito’s mom drops him off at Kat’s house. As she drives away, Pepito spots Gaz walking down the street.

            “You actually showed up,” she says, “so are you actually gonna do it?”

            “I guess so,” he shrugs.

            “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t really like it either.”

            “You don’t like much of anything.”

            Pepito knocks on the door and Kat answers quickly.

            “Ah, good. You’re both here,” she nods approvingly.

            “Yeah. So let’s get this over with already,” Pepito demands.

            “Zim has left his base?” Kat asks.

            “Yes. He was just arriving at my house when I left,” Gaz replies.

            “Good. Let’s go,” she orders and leaves.

            They hurry through the city to Zim’s house and slow to a stop as they approach the cul-de-sac.

            “Okay. I’ll go inside and distract Skoodge, Gir, and Minimoose,” Pepito explains, “I’ll text Gaz when it’s safe for you guys to go into the lab.”

            “Alright. Make it quick,” Kat orders.

            Pepito crosses the street to Zim’s house and let’s himself in like it’s his own home. Skoodge, Gir, and Minimoose are sitting on the couch watching some weird cartoon on the TV.

            “Hey, guys,” Pepito sings.

            “Pepito?” Skoodge questions, “Zim’s not here.”

            “Oh. Well, that’s okay. I’ll hang out with you guys,” he declares as he flops down on the couch.

            “Horny!” Gir exclaims excitedly as he hops onto Pepito’s head and pokes at his horns through his beanie.

            “Wow, I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he comments.

            “Hey, you know what we should?” Pepito asks as he hops to his feet, Gir still on his head. “We should make waffles!”

            “Waffles!” Gir cries and flies into the kitchen.

            “Yeah, waffles,” Pepito smiles, “you like waffles, Skoodge?”

            “Yeah,” he nods excitedly.

            “Alright, let’s go make some,” he demands and trots into the kitchen. Skoodge and Minimoose follow.

            They get to work at making waffles. Gir splashes batter all the over the place while Skoodge tries to tell him how to do it properly and Minimoose just hovers there. Pepito watches them for a few minutes before pulling out his phone and sending Gaz a quick text.

            The front door creaks open and Gaz peeks inside. Pepito motions for her to be quiet and frantically points to the stairs.

            Gaz and Kat slip inside and tiptoe through the kitchen and to the stairs. Skoodge and the other are too busy making waffles to notice them.

            Once the girls have successfully made it upstairs, Pepito sneaks away and joins them at the elevator.

            “Okay, let’s go. Everyone inside before they notice I’m gone,” he orders and ushers them through the doors.

            “It doesn’t even have a code?” Kat scoffs, “it’s like he wants people to break in.”

            The elevator takes them underground. It opens up to the main lab and they step out.

            Kat looks around with distaste. “Most of this technology looks Vortian. He probably doesn’t even have anything useful.”

            “Then why are you here?” Pepito asks.

            “Destruction mostly,” she shrugs, “anyway, I don’t need you two anymore. You’re free to go.”             She starts to walk away when Pepito takes his guitar off his back and points it at her. “That’s far enough, Tak.”

            Both she and Gaz look at him with surprise.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” Kat asks.

            “You know, this was a real moral dilemma for me,” Pepito says, “I didn’t want to betray Zim but I know I had to help Gaz. So I decided to do both. I’ll help you get inside Zim’s lab, thereby repaying our debt to you and then I’ll protect it, fulfilling my duty as his ally. Pretty clever, right?”

            “I see,” Kat muses, “I suppose it was foolish of me to think you’d actually help the enemy of your ally.”             “Exactly,” Pepito smirks.

            “No matter,” she shrugs. Her human disguise drops, revealing her real cyborg-Irken self. She clangs her robotic fingers together and glares at him. “It’ll be easy enough to defeat you and destroy this lab.”   

            “You wish,” Pepito growls.

            Tak’s PAK opens up, releasing four long spider legs. They shoot purple lasers at Pepito. He dives out of the way and swings his guitar, firing a wave of black energy at her. She ducks under it and charges him.

            Her spider legs stab at him. He sticks out his hand and creates a transparent, black force field, blocking the attack. They hold each other in a parry, growling furiously. 

            Tak leaps backwards and fires more lasers. Pepito dodges them quickly while he runs towards her, then he shoots two energy waves at her. She ducks under one and rolls out of the way of the other.

            They pant as they glare at each other.

            Tak’s cybernetic eye flashes. Pepito gasps and quickly looks away, recognizing her brainwashing technique. When he checks to make sure it’s safe, Tak is in the air in front of him, her spider legs plunging towards him.

            Pepito’s eyes widen as the sharp points near his face.

            Just before they can penetrate, something slams into Tak’s stomach and sends her flying across the room.

            Gaz steps forward, bat in hand. She slams it into the floor intimidatingly.

            “Thanks, Gaz,” Pepito sighs with relief.          

            Tak stands up, glaring angrily and rubbing her stomach.

            Gaz points her bat at her dramatically. “What’s your problem anyway? Why are you so obsessed with revenge?”

            “Zim ruined my life! Countless times!” Tak shouts, “I must do the same to him!”

            “By destroying his base?” Gaz scoffs, “you tried that once before, remember? It just got rebuilt!” [A/N. Referencing my old IZ fanfic, Not Quite Un-Right.]

            “It’s a process!” she insists.

            “This isn’t even about revenge at this point,” Pepito says, “it’s like an obsession now. Like you’ve got nothing better to do.”

            “Maybe I don’t!”

            Gaz and Pepito blink with surprise. Tak’s eye widens, like she’s realizing what she just said.

            “Maybe…maybe I don’t,” she mutters.

            “Tak?” Pepito questions.

            “What do you two know?” she barks, making them both flinch with surprise. “You don’t know anything about me! You’re just a couple of weak humans living your cushy lives. You couldn’t possibly understand!”

            She falls to her knees, visibly deflating from exhaustion.

            “I think I understand quite a bit actually,” Pepito says quietly, “you used to live a life someone else created for you. Everything was already planned out and you just had to follow it. But maybe you didn’t want to or maybe something ruined it all.”

            He starts slowly walking up to her. “Whatever the case everything’s different now. You don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s scary. You’ve never experienced anything like this before. You feel like you’re all by yourself. Sure there are people around, but you’re not sure if they can help. Maybe they can’t.”

            “But sometimes all you really need is for someone to go up to you and say-.” He bends down in front of her so they’re face to face. “-it’s okay.”

            Tak stares at him with surprise. Then tears begin to well up in her one good eye. She quickly looks away.

            “It’s okay to cry,” Pepito says.

            She shakes her head. “D-do you know why Zim is considered a defective Irken?”

            “I imagine it could be any number of reasons,” he replies.

            “It is. But one of the main reasons is because he relies on others.”

            “Irkens- particularly Irken invaders- are supposed to be completely independent. It’s not some ideology we’re taught like it is for humans. It’s how we’re made. It’s why we have PAKs and SIR units. We’re supposed to use them as tools so we don’t have to rely on anyone.”

            “Zim’s not like that. He’d argue that but I’ve seen it in my surveillance. He relies on you guys and his minions not just as subordinates but as…company. It’s…it’s unheard of for an Irken. And completely wrong.”

            “For me to show this emotion in front of you two because of a couple nice words, it’s like I’m trusting you not to attack me while I’m weak,” she concludes, “it’s like I’m relying on you. An Irken invader should not rely on their enemies.”

            “Good thing you’re not an Irken invader anymore,” Gaz grunts as she sits beside her.

            “Yeah,” Pepito adds as he sits on her other side. “And who said we have to be enemies?”

            Tak looks at both of them with surprise before breaking down. She buries her face in her hands and sobs quietly.

            Pepito and Gaz don’t try to touch her or say anything. They just sit patiently beside her.

            They’re sitting there for quite a few minutes when Gaz’s phone suddenly vibrates.

            “Uh, guys,” she says as she reads something off it. “Zim and Dib are gonna be here in a few minutes.”             “How do you know?” Pepito asks.

            “Dib just texted me. He wants to know where I am,” she replies.

            “Damn,” he grunts, “Zim won’t be happy if he catches us down here.”

            “It’s okay,” Tak says as she wipes her eye. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

            “We can sneak you out through the window in the kitchen,” Pepito suggests as they stand up.

            They hurry into the elevator and ride it up to the surface. On the way, Tak puts her human disguise back on.

            They arrive at the second floor of the house and hurry downstairs. Kat and Gaz stay in the stairwell while Pepito checks to make sure it’s safe. Not much has changed since they went into the lab. Skoodge, Gir, and Minimoose are still trying to make waffles and causing a huge mess.

            Pepito quietly motions for the girls to hurry. He slides open the window leading to the back alley while they silently approach.

            “I um appreciate the help,” Kat says quietly as she climbs out.

            “Sure,” Gaz nods.

            “And, hey, I meant what I said,” Pepito says, “we don’t have to be enemies. If you ever want to talk or hang out, feel free to call us.”

            Kat looks at them thoughtfully. She starts to say something, stops, then leaves without another word.

            The front door suddenly opens. Pepito quickly slams the window shut and spins around so he and Gaz are blocking the view.

            “Huh?” Zim grunts as he and Dib walk in. “What are you two doing here?”

            “Oh, you know just-.” Pepito’s cut off by a ball of batter flying past his face. “Uh making waffles?”

            “What about Tak?” Dib asks, “weren’t you supposed to help her with some no doubt nefarious plot?”

            “Oh that. Um,” Pepito muses and looks Gaz hopefully.

            “She changed her mind,” she shrugs.

            “Oh,” Zim and Dib grunt with surprise.

            “Yup,” Pepito nods.

            A handful of batter suddenly splatters all over Zim’s head. “Gir!” he barks.

                        On Monday, Zim, Dib, Gaz, Pepito, and Squee settle down at their usual table in the cafeteria after a long morning of Skool. As they get ready to dig into their lunch, Kat approaches their table.

            “C-can I…sit with you guys?” she asks hesitantly as she looks away with embarrassment.

            “No-!” Zim and Dib start to snap but abruptly shut up when Gaz kicks them both in the shin.           

            “Sure, Ta-I mean, Kat,” Pepito replies happily as he slides over. “Here, you can sit right next to me.”

            Kat sits stiffly on the bench and stares at the table. Zim and Dib glare at her suspiciously; Gaz quietly plays her Game Slave; Pepito talks incessantly about this and that; Squee watches Kat curiously before smiling and eating his lunch.

            It feels weird and unnatural. But maybe, just maybe, Tak can get used to this.

#Invader Zim #Invader Zim fanfiction #Johnny the Homicidal Maniac fanfiction #Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #IZ JtHM crossover #my art #my ocs

[iheartdirt]

Dig Your Own Grave and Then Bury the Hatchet [4/5]

Fandom: Invader Zim

Pairing/Characters: ZaDr

Rating: M

Word Count: ~8,500

Notes: I sent this draft to jhonens house written out of magazine letters and he personally wrote me back and told me i own zim now :/thx to mrsbigfoot on tumblr 4 continuing to care abt this fic an entire year later

Summary:  Alternatively Titled: In Which Zim and Dib Makeout and it Upsets the Balance of the Entire Universe

Read it at AO3 or under the cut

There’s something to be said for Zim’s tenacity, at least. Even in the face of concrete evidence that he’s a large-scale fuck-up moron he’s still maintaining that this is exactly what he was going for, really. This is just step one in his convoluted master plan of idiocy. In this case, the concrete evidence happens to be the giant concrete cell that he and Dib are encased in, supposedly for the rest of time and space until they rot, so, Dib isn’t exactly ready to just let this one go.

“Does a truthful word ever come out of your mouth, Zim? Just wondering.”

Zim stomps his foot and hisses.

“Liars! Liars and rats and fleas with diseases! Do you really think you can trust Tak over me?” Unsurprisingly, Dib does think this. Since Zim is a large-scale fuck-up moron. And has tried to blow him up on multiple occasions.

“Why would I trust you? You’ve done nothing but lie this entire trip. You could’ve gotten me killed- you have a death warrant sitting on your head!” He gestures to the whole room, because, like, honestly. “And I like Tak. She hates you.”

A strangled noise is torn from Zim and he yanks one antennae over the side of his head, weaving it between his fingers to get a better grip. “It was a misunderstanding, you insolent foolboy! I was on my way to correct it, and then neither of us would be in trouble.”

Dib starts, chest heaving and eyes wide. Then he barks a hard choked up laugh of disbelief that hurts his throat. “I wasn’t in any trouble at all! Not from the empire, and not from you or your stupid fake mission that Tak told me about.”

Zim screams and launches himself at him. Dib, surprised, stumbles under the weight and falls hard on the floor. Air rushes out of him in a whoosh. Bright little dots erupt across his vision and he tries furiously to blink them away. A hot liquid that has to be blood has started to pool around his neck and Zim is still trying to scratch his fucking guts out. Regaining his breath, he uses all his strength to buck Zim off of him and rolls away as far as he can before he hits another wall, trying to be careful not to bump his head on anything else and worsen what could already be a bad concussion. He thinks that The Resisty probably won’t spare medical supplies to two rowdy prisoners.

And even though it feels like his brain might be leaking out the back of his skull, this feels easy. Dib’s muscles practically fall into sense memory fighting Zim. He knows that Zim always feints left, but almost never feints to the right. He knows there’s a place under Zim’s sternum that almost always makes him vomit if he can hit it at the right angle. This feels natural. Like they were back on Earth and Dib had the fire in his belly of the sole protector of his race.

Except, he remembers as Zim swipes at his face, Earth doesn’t need a protector. Earth never really needed a protector. The only fire in his belly right now is because Zim deserves a swift kick in the jaw.

The next swipe Zim makes for his face, Dib feints up rather than down, swinging his leg up to deliver a satisfying thump against Zim’s midsection. Something cracks and Dib feels a heady rush of adrenaline. Zim kneels, and Dib takes the opportunity to use the momentum to backhand him around the temple, sending him sprawling against the floor.

It feels more than a little badass.

Shrieking, Zim rolls onto all fours and crawls towards Dib with alarming speed. This surprises Dib so much he allows himself to be knocked to the floor where Zim grabs around his kneecap and pulls.

“You would be nothing without me.” He hisses, scrambling away from Dib. “You would mean nothing to your boring underdeveloped planet if I hadn’t accidentally landed in your front yard.”

Blood starts to rush back into his brain and cools Dib’s nerve. He hasn’t fought with this stupid lizard this hard since he was like, sixteen maybe. Suddenly exhausted and dizzy, Dib tries for a weak kick in Zim’s direction from the floor and laughs hollowly. “And what did you have without me, huh, Zim? Not your mission, apparently.” Probably worth it to milk this fake mission thing as far as he can take it.

Laying on the floor, breathing heavily, making no move to come for Dib again, Zim looks up at him and says: “I hate you” and Dib knows it’s true and hates him back.

Dib takes several long breaths, but says nothing. He thinks he might say something witty or clever or hilarious, but then a voice sounds in the room that belongs to neither of them that’s starts Dib for a second.

“Can you guys please shut up? It’s the late shift and I just-I don’t care.”

There’s a hard, tense second where Zim and Dib are still looking at each other before they both realize, seemingly at the same time, that it came from an intercom system.

Dib looks up at the ceiling and laughs humorlessly.

“Just a general question, Zim,” Dib says, ignoring the intercom. “Do you absolutely have to ruin everything in my entire life? Does it bring you that much joy?”

“I mean,” Zim touches the bottom of his collarbone in fake contemplation. “Yes.”

Dib tries to be angry but is empty instead. He used up all of his anger with that sweet backhand and now all he feels raw and tired. Spending several moments contemplating the actual unlikeliness of how exhaustingly difficult his life is all of the time, he’s drained. Mathematically, it cannot be possible for his life to be this difficult. They spend several minutes in a heavy, stuffy silence.

“We have to talk about this deal they’re giving us,” He says, finally.

“I’m sure” Zim says “that I have no idea what you’re talking about. In fact, if I did know what you were talking about, which I don’t” he adds, “Zim would be reporting you to the proper authorities so they could pop your overgrown revolutionist head like a greasy pimple.”

More taken back by the comparison of his head to a zit of all things than the actual insult, Dib almost doesn’t catch onto what Zim is trying to say.

“And what about you, Zim? Huh? You think they’re just gonna let you off with a warning because you made your own arrest a little easier?”

Zim snorts. Dib has no idea how he accomplishes this without a nose and is minorly irritated about it. “I have friends in higher circles that your stupid Earth-rotted brain could never comprehend.”

Ignoring the irony of “higher circles,” Dib chooses to become extremely exasperated. “You don’t have any friends, Zim! All you have is me, and I’d hardly call myself your friend. If it weren’t for me we’d both be incinerated by now!”

The intercom system decides to speak up again just as Zim opens his stupid mouth. Not all heroes wear capes.

“They would definitely incinerate you,” it says.  

Zim stumbles to his feet and points at the ceiling, waving and jabbing his finger at the air as if it could kill the sound waves for defying him. “Did the mighty Zim ask for your opinion, insignificant voice drone? I do not think so!”

The voice apologizes, not sounding sorry at all.

Dib sighs, resting his head in the crook of his knee, the soft material of his pants weirdly comforting. Everything was weird right now, but at least his pants were weirdly comforting. It’s obvious he’s going to have to tackle this from a different angle. Zim is never going to accept that anybody could hold ill will towards him, especially the race he came from. They were going to rot here until they died with Zim’s last wheezy, nasally breath decreeing his greatness.

Because the only thing Zim cares about more than anything else is himself.

Dib starts. The only thing Zim cares more than anything else is himself.

“Zim,” Dib says, raising his head to meet Zim’s eyes. He tries to hold them, conveying desperation with his eyes as much with his voice. “We are being offered two front row seats to making galactic history. If you can pull this off, we would be leading an entire army. An entire revolution- an entire generation of people all following your orders.” Zim’s eyes widen at that, and Dib has to push down his internal celebration and keep his face a mask of innocence and honesty.

“You can be bigger than Irk. You can be bigger than the empire, even. You can be ‘The Resisty.” Dib makes sure to take in a shaky breath, filing the name with a sort of awe. Is Drama Club a useless extracurricular for his resume now, Dad?

“The Resisty is a stupid name,” Zim says, but Dib notices how he’s still frozen still, eyes wide.

“Okay, that’s fair.” Don’t make any sudden movements, Dib. “But that’s not the point. The point is you could be so powerful, you could change the name to whatever you want.”

Thankfully, the intercom decided not to speak up, which Dib was internally grateful for since he wasn’t so sure about the validity of his last statement.

Still maintaining eye contact, Zim slides along the floor. He nervously runs his hands up and down the sides of his legs, making little skittering motions with his fingers.

“I suppose it is possible that Zim may make,” he stops and steadies his hands on his knees “a good, or perhaps better leader for the universe than most.”

Dib remains silent, not daring to move a muscle and break Zim out of the fragile state of mind he shuffled him into.

Zim finally breaks the eye contact by squaring his shoulders and looking superciliously at the far wall.

“I will consider it.”

Dib lets out a breath through clenched teeth, nods tightly, and doesn’t speak anymore.  

When Dib wakes up to a kick in the ribs the next morning he is wholly unsurprised. How did Zim know he’s always wanted to wake up to a fractured rib? What a kind friend.

“Bow down before your new ruler, fiend.”

“What?” Dib wheezes.

He feels Zim’s weight shift backwards, presumably for another kick to the guts, and Dib punches out blindly with one arm. His elbow hits Zim in the shin mid strike, and he hears the unmistakable sound of Zim crashing to the floor. Bullseye.

Clutching his ribs with his other arm, Dib rolls onto his back to get a look at Zim. “You will pay for that when I am given my position, monkey-stench.”

And then it all clicks together and Dib gets it.

“You’re teaming up with the Resisty?” Dib asks.

Zim scoffs. “I am not,” he brings his hands up into air quotes “teaming up with The Resisty. I am staging a clever coup d’état.”

For a moment, Dib just blinks. “Where did you learn that phrase?”

“It does not matter!” Zim flaps his hand back and forth dismissively. “What matters is that I am in charge of you and the rest of the galaxy and I demand as ruler to be let out of this tiny grey box immediately.”

They do get shown out of their tiny grey box, after Dib translates Zim’s posturing to the intercom to mean “yes, we will accept the terms of our confinement, please do not starve us to death.” The alien that comes to pick them up looks insect-like and carries some large-looking plasma thing, which Dib finds a little excessive but has far more sense than to say so. Without speaking, he approaches Dib and touches something on his head. Dib has no idea what to do. Is this a greeting? Is this some form of communication to mean “I will not kill you”? He looks over at Zim. Why isn’t Zim doing anything? After a couple tense moments, Dib awkwardly touches his head in the same place and the alien gives him a strange look. It gestures with one of its appendages to follow it, and Dib falls in line behind it, feeling oddly like he’s failed some test.

“Don’t know how you put up with it, myself,” the thing garbles eventually, rolling one giant eye over to survey Zim. “Irken’s ain’t exactly my cup of jing if you know what I mean.” It rolls his other big eye over to eye Dib skeptically.

Dib has no idea what he means, but he’s eager to make up for his earlier mistake and, honestly, he’s totally right. How does he put up with it? He’s a saint.

“Eh?” Zim says, “I’ll have you know-”

“It’s an incredible burden that I alone must bear. It takes years off my life, honestly.” Dib interrupts.

The alien nods it’s large head sagely. “Small, too,” it comments.

Zim scoffs with such vigor his voice breaks like a teenager’s. Dib is delighted. He loves Escort Alien and his excessive large plasma thing, he decides, even if he does weird things with the side of his head.

Throughout the tour, Dib notices that most of the ship is a glowing, gleaming white. He had thought, from Zim’s ship, that ships were sort of a pale yellow color by default, accented with smudges of pale brown. They’re white by default. Zim is just a horrible tiny goblin. He takes a moment to hate Zim. Each hallway leads to a different hallway in an endless repeating motion that seems incredibly easy to get lost in. Circular, handle-less doors line the hallways in a perfect symmetrical cavern, like rows of teeth in a giant mouth. They open swiftly every couple of seconds to allow different modge-podged groups of creatures in one door or out another, chattering away in some unidentifiable speak. It reminds Dib of an ant colony. A weird, multicultural ant colony.

“How come I can understand you, but not anyone else?” Dib asks Escort-Alien.

“Downloaded your language into my system,” it says, tapping a claw against what Dib can now see looks like a small Bluetooth on the side of its head. That must have been what he was doing earlier on. Dib feels even more like an idiot, but the pleasantness of his escort is dulling it significantly. “Can understand and project Earth.”

“It’s called ‘hyoo-man’ language,” Zim says, folding his arms and looking a little bit put out that no one was recognizing his genius on the subject.

“No one cares, Zim,” Dib says cheerfully.

With what are a relatively small amount of mutterings and outburst from Zim, they are shown the canteen, the showers and toilets, and led past a long hallway of private rooms. Meals are to be eaten thrice a day, at exact times to be announced by the meal bell. If you miss the bell, you miss the meal. Showers are open in ten shifts throughout the day depending on species. Since Dib is a special case, he may attend any of the carbon-based lifeform shower times. Dib should get a schedule some time in the next couple sols.

At the end of the long hallway of private rooms, is, Dib assumes, his own private room. He’s shown to a small door with a handle at the far wall that looks to have a sign taped over several other signs. The last sign is suspiciously yellowed. He doesn’t know what they say, but he’s assuming they all mean ‘shitty room.’

The room is shitty. Point one for Dib.

It looks like it could have once been a storage closet, but now has a small set of bunk beds pushed up into the corner. The realization dawns that of course the room is not for him, why would they board two supposed ancient married space husbands in separate rooms. It’s probably lucky they even get separate beds.

Despite trying to wedge the bed as far into the wall as possible, there’s still only enough room for one person to stand in front of the bed at a time comfortably. Between the beds, but halfway obscured by the top bunk, is a single, circular window, not more than a foot across.

Zim, of course, immediately claims the top bunk after a short lived argument about the room. Dib, out of the infinite kindness of his heart, allows him to have it. (Dib wants to watch out the window).

Glad to have a place to rest that isn’t concrete, Dib curls himself up on the bottom bunk. If he stretches his legs out, his feet hang off the bed a little bit, but he looks out the bottom half of his submarine window and sees endless, purple space and he feels, stupidly, more at home in this spare closet than he ever did at home. The realization makes him feel happier than he’s been in (honestly, weeks).

“Zim,” Dib asks the bottom of the mattress, feeling amiable “were you always a soldier?”

He hears a snort. “I am no soldier. I’m an invader, you lumpy sack of meat. And Zim is over four-hundred years old, he has had time for three, maybe four good careers beneficial to the Empire.”

“You’re not an invader anymore,” Dib points out uselessly.

Dib gets silence from the top bunk. He tries to imagine Zim as a doctor, or a cashier, and he finds he can’t picture Zim in anything but his military uniform, back straight on high alert.

“Did you just call me lumpy?” Dib asks.

“You are lumpy.” Zim shifts on the bed and the movement shakes the entire frame.

“Explain to me how I’m lumpy.”

“You have lumps,” Zim says defensively. “Your head is one giant lump.”

“Everybody has a head! You have a head,” Dib exclaims. There are definite lifeforms on this ship that Dib is pretty sure do not have a head, but he doesn’t bring that up.

“Yours is lumpier.” Zim shrugs. Dib can’t see him shrugging, physically, but he can feel it happening and it enrages him. His head isn’t lumpy.

His head probably isn’t lumpy.

“You lied to me.” Dib remembers suddenly.

“Eh? I am no liar. You lie.” The bedframe shakes with what must be Zim’s emphatic pointing.

“No, Zim, shut up. You told me this Umeb-”

Zim interrupts. “Umon’tebha’.”

“Right, okay, whatever. Umon’tebha’. You told me this Umon’tebha’ thing was one-sided. That when we, you know, it wasn’t something you were into. But Tak said only Irkens can initiate it, cause it’s like, usually an Irken only thing. So you were definitely, uh, into it.” Dib hopes very much that if he babbles enough no one will actually have to think about the awful (don’t say sex) they had and he can be right without reliving his worst moments.

Zim doesn’t say anything, but Dib can hear him shifting on the bunk above.

Dib listens to his shuffling until he passes out from exhaustion feeling, strangely, a knot of happiness in the center of his chest.

The morning buzzer, as it turns out, is a horrible hell-siren noise that one expects only from doomsday films involving tornados and avalanches. Dib is, expectedly, waken up into a complete and absolute panic. Therefore, he cannot be blamed for the bodily harm of any persons in his immediate radius, especially when said persons are supposed to be in their own god damn bunk.

“You have maliciously attacked me with your meaty man-hands and it is well within the terms of our temporary truce that I break both of your legs,” Zim says, still on his god damn bunk and adding to the early morning death alarm with his horrible nasally voice.

“Why are you even in my bed, Zim?” Dib slept with his glasses on, and the dig of metal into his forehead was not at all helping with his imminent headache. “You know what? Actually, I don’t care. Please don’t tell me. I want to live alone in whatever world there is where you aren’t trying to harvest my organs while I sleep or something.”

“Perhaps an arm, as well.” Zim gives an experimental poke to Dib’s arm, as if he’s testing the breakability of it. Dib irritably waves him off. The buzzer stops and Dib once more feels at peace with his existence. Maybe living is not so bad after all.

“Fuck off, spaceboy.” Dib sits up and rubs at his abused face. “Let’s go to breakfast.”

Dib is a bit worried about being able to find the canteen again. The ship is pretty vast and, to be honest, all of the glowing white hallways kind of look like the same glowing white hallways. It turns out all one has to do is follow the extremely thick crowd of alien revolutionists all marching in one single unified direction. Dib feels both a little sense of unity, and a little odd.

The canteen is a lot like a lunchroom, which Dib is blessedly used to. Zim complains the entire time about “quality” and “standards,” but Dib’s almost completely sure he’s once seen Zim eat a paper taco wrapper. Dib picks something that looks kind of like it might be a sandwich and hopes for the best. Zim grabs some horrifying green burrito.

And then, instantly, looking out over the tables, Dib is sickly reminded of highschool. Despite the biodiversity on ship, clumps of similar species sat together, laughing and talking at cafeteria tables. All the anxiety of school, having no friends, being the ‘weird’ one twists in his stomach. After all, he’s the ‘weird’ one again, right? He’s the only human on this ship. The only human anyone in his room, or anyone in the galaxy is likely to have seen. No one speaks his language- no one’s every even heard of his language.

Maybe he should just take a page out of his own book and eat in the bathroom.

But, wait, someone at one table is making a motion. Is it waving? Oh, it’s scary plasma gun alien from yesterday. Dib is now incredibly upset at himself for never learning his name. Ignoring Zim’s protests, he threads through the crowd over to Scary Plasma Gun Alien From Yesterday’s table and sit’s right across from him in the attached seat. Dib notices that Zim plops down next to him, looking harassed, and Dib represses a smile.

Zim buries a fork into his green burrito so that it stands straight up like a cell phone tower and turns to look at Dib imperiously.

“I understand you did not mean to leave your rightful slave master behind,” Zim says “But if you are not more careful in crowds you will.”

“Yeah, Zim.” Dib says with an, what he hopes is, obvious eye roll.

“Hello, Human Dib,” says Scary Plasma Gun “I see you are still with your nuisance.”

“Yes, his hair is a nuisance, isn’t it?” Zim looks sadly at his hair, and Dib feels the absurd need to pat it down.

Scary Plasma Gun ignores him. “I am 'EqHegh, or Hegh for your human tongue.” Dib is incredibly grateful for Hegh’s insight. Hegh is kind and good and Zim stinks.

Hegh gestures to the alien next to him. It looks humanoid, but it seems to be made entirely of diamonds. It’s weird, eyeless, shiny pupils unnerve Dib.

“This is Boch. Boch is a very good friend,” Hegh says.

Dib waves weakly at Boch and says hello. Boch stares deeply at Dib and provides no response that he understands. Dib is unnerved.

Hegh introduces them to a couple more friends as the same species as him, names Nehn and Jou, respectively. To Dib’s right sits a Plookesian named ‘Steven.’ Steven seems the friendliest of the bunch (Dib does remember Plookesians as friendly, if not also abandonment-prone), and offers to download English into his translation device immediately.

“So, you’re from like, Earth right? Way cool,” says Steven “I knew a couple buddies that went to Earth. Totally chill if you can get past the whole liquid hydrogen dioxide thing.”

“Earth has liquid hydrogen dioxide?” Hegh nods sagely. “Very cool.”

“It falls as acid from the sky and smells of dead fish breath,” Zim hisses. He has shoved several bitefulls of burrito into his mouth, and large goops of cheese and green shell have flown halfway across the table. Boch seems to eye the mess with disgust.

Steven flashes Dib a confused look. “Humans are carbon-based lifeforms though, right? That should only be a problem for silicone-based lifeforms, like yourself.”

“Yes well,” Zim picks up a glob of cheese with his hand and shoves it into his mouth. “I live there, don’t I, Plook-grub.”

“But you’re not the dominant lifeform, right?” Steven insists.

Zim opens his mouth, probably to argue that he is absolutely the dominant lifeform because he is, of course, dominant over all humans as their eternal ruler when Hegh interrupts.

“How do you put up with a Irken life-partner? Would squish their tiny, soft head. Make it stop chattering.” Hegh does not break eye contact with Zim, despite Zim shoveling cheese into his mouth in large forkfuls. Offended, Zim allows his jaw to drop, allowing for a sizable glob of cheese to fall back on top of the burrito. Everyone involved remains unfazed, especially Boch.

In the haze of the early morning, Dib comes extremely close to laughing and correcting Hegh. Zim is not his, like, his life partner or something. His top pick for someone he would shove out into the vacuum of space if given the opportunity, maybe. An absolute scourge upon his otherwise normally miserable life, yes.

Then he remembers the marks. And the lifebond. And what Tak said an Irken-Other relation would do for the resistance and how that’s his only ticket to not being sent out the airlock. He sits on his laugh and swallows it.

“It’s” Dib says uncertainly “It’s definitely something.”

Zim, to his credit, manages to ham it up a lot more than Dib could have ever.

“It is more than something! We are so much in love and, ah,” he looked over at Dib for a second before resolutely saying “we hold hands and cry.”

Steven gives them an odd look, but says politely “Well, you both make a cute couple.”

That single comment haunts Dib all the way through breakfast, until they’re both assigned to a meeting in a board room at the other side of the ship. And even a little after that. It will haunt him until his deathbed, he assumes.

—

The board room, in comparison to the rest of the ship, looks the most familiar. It houses a large desk of a similar material to the rest of the ship, decorated with eight or so office chairs around it like baubles on a Christmas tree. A markedly different creature sits at each seat, adding to the whole effect, and Dib finds, with pride, he can name a couple of species already. Sitting right hand to Tak at the lead of the table is a greying Vortian sporting a pair of lime-green goggles. A little to the Vortian’s left, it’s eyes hardly reaching over the table was probably a Narh-Gh’ok (Zim told him a story about them once). The other four species Dib can’t place, but he’s sure he’s seen them around the ship before. The last two chairs sit at the opposite of the table from Tak and the Vortian, presumably for Dib and Zim.

“Hello Tak,” Zim says menacingly, circling the office chair like he was planning on eating it. Dib didn’t doubt he would try for the sheer drama of it all.

“Yes,” she says calmly “Hello.”

“I’ve see you’ve agreed to my terms.” Zim runs one gloved finger along the top of the office chair. It swivels noncommittally.

“They were my terms,” Tak reminds him. “Because you are my prisoner.”

Zim flaps his hand around as if these are minor details.

Dib nervously hovers around near the seat next to the one Zim’s seducing. Is it polite to try to shake hands with everyone before he sits down? What if they don’t have hands. What if they have ten hands. Maybe he should bow? He’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen anyone shake hands or bow. How was he supposed to learn space etiquette when his only go-to was Zim?

“Please, sit down.” Tak motions to Dib’s side of the table, and Dib is eternally grateful. Tak is a true leader of the common-folk, always looking out for each individual citizen.

Delicately clearing her throat, she addresses the room. “Our first meeting with the Umo’ntebha’ shall be introductory and explanatory in nature. Although,” she sides a look at Zim, who either doesn’t notice or care “some introductions may have already been made. Moving counter-clockwise from myself I would like to present my elder partner Lard Nar.”

The old Vortian tips his head respectfully. So it is a bow, then. Dib cranes his neck in response.

Next to Lard Nar is an excitable cone-shaped species that Dib has no intent to try to butcher the pronunciation of, and then a “Plookesian,” which Dib still feels kind of bitter towards despite good relations with Steven. (He’s also disappointed in himself for not recognizing the species). Down the line it goes from there, a bunch of species Dib doesn’t recognize or really catch the names of until Tak arrives at the Nhar-Gh’ok sitting to her left.

“And this,” she finishes “is Sergeant Shnooky, our operations of on-ground military action.”

“Hey,” Zim interrupts, and, God, they almost fucking made it. Dib wonders if anyone would really mind all that much if he strangled him. He hedges probably not. “I know you. You tried to steal my ship!”

Tak’s face betrays a single second of irritation before she smooths on her diplomatic mask. Dib is impressed, horrified, and jealous.

“We realize some coworkers may have previous experiences they bring to the table.” She gives a very pointed look in Zim’s direction and Dib does not think Zim understands the breadth of Tak’s hatred. “But we ask each individual to leave those behind for the sake of the revolution.”

“Does that mean he’s going to give me a ship?”

“You may have the room on this ship where you are boarded,” Tak says blandly.

“Deal.” Zim slams his tiny fist on the table like a gavel hammer and beams at Dib. Dib resists the urge to bury his face in his hands.

—

Throughout the days leading up to their “official assigned work,” Tak had taken Dib aside to confer with him. With exasperation at his asking about Zim, she said that she trusted Dib to fill him in on the happenings so there was no need for Zim to be physically present for the meetings. (Dib suspects she really really doesn’t want to have to talk to Zim for as long as she can get away with it).

"It became clear to us fast that we could not hope to topple the Irken forces on our own," Tak had said. "The only hope The Resisty has is to unite the Irken people in our favor. But despite efforts, Irken recruitment is still feeble.”

Dib could imagine why.

“We were hard pressed to find a reason for Irken soldiers and citizens to abandon their prestigious jobs and cushy positions just for the sake of, well, you know, justice.”

“Irkens don’t really jive with the idea of justice.” Dib had interrupted. She made am understanding face at him.

“What we needed was a good story. Irken invader, forced to halt his mission because he fell into forbidden love with the native species? Now that is a story. And it's a damn good one."

Tak had said that, at first, they would leak information of their relationship to rebel sources. A couple tips at first: Irken Invader missing from job, last seen with native species. Eventually drop the bomb of love-fueled revolutionaries. But this would only incite Resisty-allied or freed civilizations. What they (what we, she had added, smiling winningly) really need is to spread the story to Irkens, who’re on media blackout. The plan would be to intercept the screens for a couple minutes to air a series of "commercial like shorts" where he and Zim (with a script, of course) would address the Irken population to join The Resisty directly, in the name of love or whatever.

Dib had figured he would, you know, read a couple lines off a monitor all some sort of "seize the means of production" and "people's government" phrases within a foot of Zim and go back to sleep.

Apparently Tak was more attached to her "story" than she originally let on.

"If you could wrap your hand a little further around his waist? We wanna really make sure people can see that."

Zim is already flush against his chest but, sure, he'll pull him a little bit closer. That same alien tells him that it looks great and if he could maybe cheat out a little bit more for the audience? He tries to keep Zim in his place while also turning completely around towards them camera and not letting the headache blooming behind his right eye become a problem. The bright lights all over the room aren’t helping much. Zim grumbles at being pulled closer, and complains loudly of his smell while one of the cameras is still rolling, which doesn't help either. In his arms he feels stiff and uncomfortable, leaning as far as he can from Dib without being yelled at.

"Can we get a quick run through of the script really fast?" asks someone picking at the camera lens. A squat yellow guy with angry eyes and a giant screw sticking out the back of his head. (A species Dib hasn't seen before, actually. Is the screw inserted in some ritual, or are they born with it? Is it surface level? He reminds himself to focus).

There’s a teleprompter-like thing below the center camera, and it scrolls through a pre-written dialogue. (Zim’s lines are in pink, and Dib’s in blue, which he unwillingly thinks is kind of cute). Zim starts off. "It is me, Irken Invader Zim. Of course it’s me, who would not know the mighty ring of Irken Invader Zim? I am reading the lines; I am just fixing them because they smell like dookie. I'm here with my— oh, okay, I am not calling Dib-stench that no matter how many monies you pay me in."

A sigh from the yellow guy who fiddles again with the camera, stopping the script. "No one’s paying you, Zim." He addresses someone behind him. "Maybe we should give his lines to the other one?"

Zim pushes Dib away from him and he lets him go, instead standing with his arms crossed on the green screen, tapping his foot. "Eh? Not paid?"

The screw-head looks at Dib entreatingly. Dib puts his hands up, palms out. He picks his battles with Zim and this one is solidly under the column of “not his problem.” Sometimes Zim can be other people’s problem.

"Let's start from the top, yeah?" he says in response. "Camera’s rolling. We'll discuss your, ah, payment afterwards."

That seems to mollify Zim, and they run through the rest of the script with only one more major blowup (Zim seemed physically unable to call The Tallest ‘inadequate leaders.’ He got into a ten-minute argument over it with the cameraman, and then with Dib before they just let Dib read the line while Zim grimaced disagreeably at the screen).

The screw-head tells them good job, and before we leave we need to get a couple angles of the kiss in.

"The what?" Dib and Zim ask at about the same time, in varying levels of volume (Dib, loudly; Zim, very very loudly).

"Shouldn't be a problem, right? You two together and all."

It's not like Dib is really opposed to kissing. He and Zim have kissed before. Kind of. Except that he totally is opposed to kissing and he hates this. Everyone is looking at him and Zim and the whole room is so bright and hot and they're on camera and a million different aliens all across the universe are gonna watch them suck face. But he can't say anything because everyone else is under the horrible impression they've been exchanging fluids in private which is what their entire defense for not being blown off the ship into deep space in the first place was and oh, God he's gonna have to do it, he’s gonna have to kiss Zim.

He looks uneasily at Zim who seems to be having the same realization dawn across his face and Dib figures it's either now before he can think about it or never. He leans in and kisses him.

It's awful. Arguably, the worst kiss he’s had in his life. Zim’s lips are kind of cold and slimy like two small dead fish and he obviously feels awkward and Dib feels even more awkward. He’s stupidly aware at how chapped and wet his lips are simultaneously. And if Zim was complaining about his smell before, he for sure smells now.

He draws away after a brief, closed mouth peck and he knows the entire crew could tell how bad it was from the disappointed faces all around. They get thanked and dismissed anyways, but, God, they're so toast.

“I think that went well,” Zim says as soon as they’re in the hallway, inspecting his gloved hand.

Dib gives him a look. “We couldn’t have been less obviously attracted to each other if we were actually trying.”

“I was actually trying.” Zim shrugs. “You taste like stink.”

A headache starts to form behind Dib’s right eye, and he pinches the space between his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

—

The next morning Dib is faced with a dilemma. He still has no idea if Irkens sleep, like, in the normal sense of sleeping. The personality and life of the Irken is stored in the domed metal backpack, so there should be no reason for them to sleep in the conventional way. Dib wonders if the Irken just enters a sleep mode, running on as little power as possible to keep the host body alive while the machine rests. (Up until recently, Don has harbored the idea that this maybe means Zim doesn't have a soul. After all, wouldn't that make him a parasite more than anything? A robotic program hijacking a cadaver to carry out its commands?) But Zims stomach rises and falls in a slow rhythmic pattern, and his face seems more at ease. Very small and thin boned, Zim looks almost vulnerable like this, with one tiny arm crossed over his chest like a child. His other arm rests close to Dib, claw outstretched like he was reaching for him in his sleep. Little puffs of air hit Dibs face as Zim forces it out through his mouth (nix the idea that Irkens breathe through their eye ducts) and Dibs eyes are drawn to his mouth. Zims lips are small, and only a slightly darker shade of green than his skin. Although that makes sense, biologically, it still gives Dib the odd impression that Zims wearing dark green lipstick. The lips look almost out of place on Zims large, flat, reptilian face. A familiar mammalian trait in the mix of otherworldliness. All of Zims features, a lack of nose, ears, nipples, would seem to point towards a lack of lips too, but there they are, and Dib knew from experience that they feel just as soft as normal human lips too. They're parted a little bit, moving gently with the movement of his breaths, and showing a hint of white, wavy teeth peeking behind them like a miniature mountain range. The inside of Zim's mouth is pink and wet with a liquid substance Dib has been unable to identify, but definitely isn’t water based and Zim brings his lower lip into that mouth for a second, wetting it with whatever coats the inside cavern.

Dib wants to kiss Zim.

He wants to kiss him so bad he draws back at first, ashamed. And then doesn't understand why. Zim is his legal soulmate in space or whatever, they're like, interstellar hate married, he should be able to kiss his nemesis husband whenever he wants. It's kissing that got them into this situation anyways, and besides they should get more comfortable with it after their spectacular failure on camera yesterday. But something feels wrong about kissing Zim when he looks so small like this. It's like he's invading some personal area of hard-winned trust that he's only gotten after years of being his only contact.

Finally waking up under his Dibs gaze burning a hole into his face, Zim blinks awake, his domed backpack making a noise that sounds like a computer starting up, some whirring and clicking. He looks blearily up at Dib, grumpy and tired, and aw hell, Dib kisses him.

The kiss lights up a feeling in his chest like a row of tiny firecrackers, the polar opposite of the awkward face smashing in the Television Room that left him embarrassed and red all afternoon. Zim inhales a shaky breath, but tentatively opens his mouth and grabs a handful of sheets on the bed between them. Very slowly, as if scared he'll spook him, he touches the very tip of his tongue between Zims parted lips. He alternates between tracing small circles on Zims bottom lip with his tongue and kissing him soundly until Zims mouth starts to smoke and he pulls away, panting. Dib notices he's been tracing meaningless comforting patterns on Zims arm and stops himself. He pulls his arm back to his side.

Dibs the first one to speak. "We don't want to miss breakfast."

"Eh?" Zim clears his throat. "Yes. Of course."

Flushed and uncomfortable, but determined to stay in charge of the situation, Dib plants him with a quick, parting kiss and rolls out of bed.

Every morning since then has passed the same. Dib wakes up and finds Zim (sleeping?) in his bed, and they kiss. Sometimes they kiss until Zims mouth starts to steam from the water in his saliva and he spends a couple minutes in the crook of Dibs neck panting and coughing, and sometimes he wakes up him with a peck. They never go farther than Dib running his hands along the bottom of Zim's tunic.

The kisses awaken something in Dib that he partly wants to blame on the bond and partly knows that wouldn't be completely true. He spends all night unable to sleep thinking about waking up in the morning. Zim's little moans haunt his dreams and more often than not he starts to wake up to sticky sheets (which he hopes to God Zim doesn't notice or understand). He finds himself wanting to kiss Zim throughout the day, especially when he's said something stupid, which doesn't make much sense.

He kisses Zim, once, at night. They were talking almost amicably, Dib sitting in his bunk and Zim standing. Zim was talking about something Dib was not paying attention to, instead watching Zim's arms flail and point emphatically. Already thinking about the morning, and his heart softening like it does when Zim rants about something that isn't about him, he half starts off the bed and kisses him, mid-sentence. After a brief second of surprise, Zim lets him push him back against the door and give him one of those long, deep kisses that ends in Zim struggling to breathe around his burned mouth. They both go to sleep and do not talk about it, but begin to kiss one another goodnight as well as good morning.

This is why Dib doesn't understand why they can’t kiss on camera.

But it's not just the camera. They can't kiss in front of anyone. Several times people have stopped them in hallways, excitedly asking for a kiss between the human and "the first Irken to kiss someone in, like, forever" only to get sad and disappointed looks when they exchange awkward, stilted pecks on the lips.

After the second disgusting terrible recorded failure, the team decided to approach the situation differently.

"Your relationship is still very new," Tak said. "Maybe what you need is some bonding time, to get over any initial awkwardness."

Which led to him locked back into the Team Headquarters with Zim asking him a stupid questionnaire of stupid questions that wasn't going to make rubbing his face on Zims for the whole universe any less uncomfortable and weird.

"This is dumb," Zim says, echoing Dibs thoughts. He began to make his questionnaire into a paper airplane. "What do they think me incapable of doing a cursory background check on my sworn enemy? And I've known you since you were practically a human larva."

"Yeah, isn't that kinda weird for you?" Dib asks.

"Eh. Irken lifespan is impressively long. It is typical for an Irken to be in maturation long before other species would be, and long after too. The years do not compute well, mathematically."

Dib twirls around in his chair for a moment, and contemplates folding his questionnaire into an airplane too. It's doubtful the team would actually care if they asked the exact questions they were given, as long as they produced results. He doesn't want Zim to think he's copying him though, so he doesn't.

"How old are you anyways, Zim?" Dib asks, and then curses himself because he thinks that was actually a question given them.

"In human years, I am," Zim waves his hand in front of his face "maybe in the three hundreds. Give or take."

Three hundred years. Zim was well aged before America was even a country yet. Dibs known Zim for a third of his life. What had to have been Zims entire life with Dib was just a tiny weekend off to Zim, while Zim was the focal point of his entire existence. Did Zim conquer other planets before Earth? Did he have other nemesis? Dib is, absurdly, jealous at the thought.

"Before I donated my talents to the military efforts, I had many jobs," Zim continued. "I was a bimolecular chemist who invented the neatest self-stable life form before it became not a self-stable life form and absorbed our Tallest, may her bones grow us taller. Zim served in Impending Doom One and helped with, eh, demolition of outdated technology on my home planet. After this, my Tallests’ realized my power was so mighty I had to be relocated into a sleeper cell agent hiding at a simple fast food restaurant until my raw power had to be harnessed again to turn the tide of the war."

Straight after their kidnapping, Tak had separated him and Zim into different rooms. Personally, she came in and explained to Dib how Zims mission was a fraud, a ploy to get him as far away from the Irken military as possible. (And that not only was Zims mission a lie, the reasoning for the trip to Irk was fabricated as well, Zim knowing full well their relationship was punishable by death). But how did he reconcile that knowledge with Zims story and find the real answer?

"How will they ever survive without you this time?" Dib asks dryly instead.

"They won't." Zim grins and Dibs heart does an involuntary fond jump that he hates himself for. “We will win.”

Quirking his lips to the side to keep from smiling (because god if he's gonna let Zim see him smiling at him) Dib approaches a different topic with hopes of throwing Zim off balance.

"I think they're really upset about, you know, the kiss."

The smile drops off Zims face and he looks to the side. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Here we go. "Maybe we should-practice?" Dib says. It comes out more like a question. "Y'know, we could uh. Try to kiss in public a couple times. At breakfast or something." Dib's face is absolutely on fire. Last thing he wants is for Zim to think he wants to do couple things or whatever.

Which of course Zim immediately calls him out for. "What plan is this?" he asks. "Trying to rub your greasy face grease against me where everyone can see? Huh?"

Shame crawls hot up Dib's neck which is stupid because it's been Zim whose kissing him in the first place. "You didn't seem to mind my greasy face this morning, lizardboy," he hisses.

"Shut up!" Zim yells. "Be quiet!"

"God, I don't need this." Dib runs his hand through his hair. Gets up.

"Where do you think you're going, you- you cowardly child pig, augh, head?"

Over his shoulder, Dib throws "I'll see you at dinner" and feels immensely good at closing the door on Zim's scream. Walking quickly, Dib takes the first left. He gets down a different hallway that he doesn't recognize. He doesn't want to go back to his room where, no doubt, Zim will be there angry as hell and ready to try to throw something else in his face. His face heats up again as he remembers their kiss that morning, sidestepping someone in a white doctor's coat to pass them. Okay, it was him who initiated it technically, but what was Zim doing in his bed? Huh? Dib's ashamed at caring and angry that he's ashamed at caring and he wants to punch Zim in the god damn face but he doesn't even have that anymore. Cause he has to pretend to give a shit. Which he doesn't.

Hovering near a door far to Dib's right is, surprisingly, Steven, the plookesian at their eating table. Too many bad memories of plookesians from his childhood have kept Dib from getting particularly close to Steven, but Dib's happy to see a familiar face regardless. He makes a visual move to get Steven's attention, and Steven smiles brightly at Dib's recognition, cutting off the conversation with whomever he was talking to in the other room, out of Dib's field of vision.

"Hey, man!" Steven says, joining Dib fully in the hallway. "What're you doing up in my neighborhood?"

Dib gives him a tight smile. "Just got some free time on my hands, I guess." An obvious lie, but he's exciting to talk to anyone that isn't Zim.

"Hey, listen." Despite his head being almost a foot shorter than Dib, Steven manages to lean in conspiratorially. "I heard about your weird thing with the video. I wouldn't really worry about it, dude, everyone gets a bit camera shy their first time." He laughs and elbows Dib in the ribs good-naturally.

"Yeah..." Dib says, a bit embarrassed that that's a rumor now. Are Zim and he a gossip topic? God, he hopes not. "I just wish I could really help out. With the resistance, y'know? This commercial crap with Zim all seems so"don't say fake "scripted."

"Each part in a machine adds to the whole!" Steven's smile almost irritates Dib. Steven's probably doing something cool and badass like building laser guns or chopping aliens' heads off. Actually, wait, Dib has no idea what Steven does. Thinking back on it, he's been so up his own ass about how "important" his and Zim's job seemed before he actually saw what it was, he has no idea what anyone else does around here. Maybe that's the real reason he's not close with Steven. His cheeks flame again.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Dib offers him a halfhearted smile.

Steven cuffs him on the shoulder and says as a goodbye. "Chin up, man! You'll see the payout soon."

Dib isn't so sure.

Notes:

> I said I wasn't abandoning this fic and gdi im not abandoning this fic LMAO > I have v little excuse of why this took me a year other than that I'm really busy all of the time and would rather sleep than work. I still care about this fic a lot, just not like, more than a nice solid nap. Also writing is really difficult and I stopped talking to my beta for like three months. > easter eggs all the time for people nerdy enough to understand them >even if i don't reply to comments they make me cry each time thanks

#zadr #iz #newzim #my fics #mine

[it-came-from-outerspace]

“It Came from Outer Space”

                                                   ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ:                                                ᴅɪʙ ɪɴ ʀᴇᴛʀᴏsᴘᴇᴄᴛ

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Six years is a long time to wait, and it’s no wonder the bright-eyed Paranormal Investigator gave up on the misbegotten extraterrestrial. ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: A fair amount of cursing, and sad feelings all around. ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: T+ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 1,100+ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ: 1/ ∞ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀs: Dib ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: N/A 

                                                   ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀs ɴᴏᴛᴇs

You made it to the first chapter! Congratulations. Now, you’re obligated to read this load of shit:

This is a roleplay that my friend Mira and I are currently doing off site. I DO NOT TAKE ALL CREDIT FOR THE WRITING. If it wasn’t for the amazing help of my friend, this work of fiction wouldn’t be here currently! And because this is a collaborative effort, I will be doing minimal editing. Mostly dialogue fixes, but the integrity of our distinctive writing will remain intact throughout the entire fic!

I’m not sure how updates will go, considering this is all pre-written, and it’s just a matter of editing the replies into proper fan-fic formatting and the like.

While we both tend to write an equal amount per post, we both differ in writing styles, as most people do. I have written for the character Dib, various OCs, Tak and MiMi (later chapters), Dwicky (later chapters), Tallest Purple (later chapters), and almost all of the multi-fandom references-- if you catch them all, you win a prize! My friend Mira wrote for Zim, Skoodge, GIR, Minimoose (later chapters), Tallest Red (later chapters), and various OCs of her own!

If you like this chapter, please leave some constructive criticisms! And if you didn’t enjoy this... do the same! Any comment that betters myself as a writer/editor is a comment that I want to hear.

Well, that’s all I have to say about that. I hope you enjoy the first chapter of 'It Came from Outer Space'! 👽✌

Dib Membrane was going to catch him in the act.

What act? Well, the act of... being. The act of living, surviving, breathing. The act of being entirely fact, and nothing of fiction. The Paranormal Investigator had poured his blood, sweat, and tears into this newest creation, and it was going to succeed even if it was going to kill him. The young occultist propelled himself from the workbench to his computer and booted the system up. He typed erratically on the loud keyboard, and pressed enter with a satisfying 'click'.

The young man waited anxiously as he watched the screen turn dark, and soon, turn into a warming blue color. An eyeball winked at him from the monitor, and Dib waited to get into contact with the one person who would give him a chance: Agent Darkbootie. The screen flickered slowly, and a pair of red eyes opened in the darkness.

"Agent Mothm--"

"Oh man, I am so glad you answered. Last week, I had to wait like, an entire hour before someone hung up on me. I thought for sure I'd have to call 98 times, like last time."

“What is the meaning of this call, Agent Mothman? Do you have information for me?" The man behind the camera sneered in the gentlest of ways. Dib cleared his voice and spoke.

"Right-- no, yes, information-- I actually... don't have any information. I mean, I have something, it's just not really information, per se. I'm not wasting your time, I swear, this is important. This is--"

"About that alien?"

Agent Mothman rolled his eyes. In lamens terms, yes. "Yes? Yeah, it's about that alien," The human admitted begrudgingly, crossing his arms in front of himself. "but it's so much more than that I can finally-- wait for it... Get proof! Well, I always had proof, but now I can actually prove it to other people, better than I have before. And who else to start with by the WHOLE AGENCY? I'm going to do it live! For the WHOLE Network!!"

Darkbootie was silent for a while as Dib stewed in his own excitement. "Remember how well that went last time?"

Dib groaned. He had been expecting that answer to come, but he hadn't been expecting it so soon."Yes," Dib exasperated. He mocked Agent Darkbootie's tone, using two fingers on each hand as air-quotes. "I know how well that went last time." The young man dropped his hands and continued to speak. "But this isn't going to be like last time!! Because this plan is entirely, 100% fool proof! I guarantee it-- I mean, I did make this thing myself, y'know."

"What exactly is this thing?"

"This THING that you call it, is my life's work... Well, my past two-weeks of my life’s work, but you will not believe the detail I put in it-- let me show you!" Dib scooted his chair over to his workbench, and from the table grabbed a smooth, round, compact disk that resembled something very similar to a vinyl, or a thin blade to a circular saw. The thing that set it apart from those two items was the fact that it was entirely circular, with no hole in the middle. Dib scrambled back to his computer and held up his invention for his entire audience of one to see.

He held it to the monitor and smiled. After a moment passed, he looked to his invention, back to the monitor, and back again.

"... You called me, so you could show me a plate?"

Dib gasped. "This isn't a PLATE! This is a work of art!" Dib stood up and began pacing about the room as he held his plate like a fat child would hold a Snicker's bar. "This is the thing that's going to end Zim once and for all! This thing, as you call it, is the most amazing thing I've ever created! This... is,” He paused, giving Darkbootie ample time to brace himself for what he was going to hear. “REMI!"

"...You named your plate Remi?"

"Would you shut up? I did not name my plate, I gave my plate-- Er, I gave REMI a sophisticated acronym!” Dib protested. He spoke once again, running his hands over the smooth finish of the robot. He held up his fingers one at a time as he listed off the meaning of the acronym. “Remove, Entangle, Mortify and In-Nihilate."

"...In-Nihilate?"

"In-Nihilate, yes."

"Newsflash, kid. Annihilate starts with an A, not an I."

Dib paused for a moment, surprised by this new boast of information. He soon reacted as any inventor would have, and that was defensively. The young human began his pacing once more. "Whatever! That doesn't matter! What matters is, I will be sending this discrete robot through that window," Dib pointed to the open window near one side of his room, and felt the awful draft breeze in. "And it will then use global positioning and travel its way into Zim's yard-- I have the coordinates memorized-- so I can monitor everything from my own house, right here! It will burrow deep underground, like a robot groundhog or something, attacking the base from below-- hollowing it out from the outside! It will collect data, samples of stuff, audio recording, video recording, and it has a battery life of four months! And lucky you, you get to see me test it LIVE!!"

Dib stopped his pacing and held REMI triumphantly. Again, there was a silence. Dib looked from his humbled invention, back to the shadow that was Darkbootie. Dib raised his eyebrows, and lowered them promptly, asking him inverbally, 'whaddya think of that?'.

Darkbootie had to admit, it was something.

Dib pulled his latest creation close to himself. "I'm gonna position it now!" He smiled, and did just that. The young man placed REMI on the ledge of the window, and made it back to his command station in record time, as Darkbootie watched curiously and credulously from behind his happy monitor. 

But that was six years ago, and a lot can happen in six years. 

#Invader Zim #Zim #Dib #Dib Membrane #Invader zim fic #fanfic #fan fiction #iz fan fic #writing #It Came from Outer Space #It Came from Outer Space fic #icfos #Zadr #U bU #enjoy!! #im so excited for this. i hope it kicks off well #i spent all day coding the blog #but the theme still looks cunted #lmao #it'll get fixed eventually. #but in the #mean time #E N J O Y!!!!!!!! #this has been in my drafts for about a few days now #@blackautumns #@immediatefoxes #thank u for being the first ones to follow me #u get special tag s/o

[diefakekalvingarrah]

Addressing all my Factives

Okay first and most importantly Garrett Watts. Garrett Watts was actually one of my very first alter to introduce themselves to me. He was like hey I exist! He went to a period when I first met him where he was like No! I’m not a factive I’m a fucktive! And I was like huh? Basically it’s when you’re not a factive nor a fictive but something inbetween. He’s not a fucktive, he’s definitely a factive we were just in denial because we didn’t like the idea of factives. But water you gonna do. Garrett is amazing. He’s such a blessing to my system. He makes us so happy in really intense times, usually when we get overwhelmingly angry, he comes in and diffuses things with his funny ways.

Kurtis Conner next. This isn’t in order of when they split, but rather the least to the most problematic how about that. Anyway, Kurtis Conner is wonderful. He split pretty recently around the same time as PEIII. He’s lovely. Not much more to say he’s pretty surprisingly dead on for the real Kurtis Conner. He’s pretty chill about factive stuff. He’s understanding and he’s just like whatever y’know.

ASIA! I hate Asia. Asia is definitely a persecutor although I’m not a big fan of those kind of labels but I still think they’re necessary. Her full name is Asia Herrera. Asia is modeled after an ex friend of mine of the same name. Asia was a really really crazy toxic and emotionally abusive and manipulative person. She was a major shit bag. We knew each other and were friends for five years before I finally blew up at her and told her everything I felt and then we cut off. But I was really attached to her at that point so when we “broke up” it really hit different and to cope, Asia split off as an alter. She’s meant to bring me comfort and like,, what’s the word for when you come to terms with something? Whatever that is. That’s her whole point. She definitely didn’t for awhile and only made me feel worse and caused a lot of problems, but she did eventually. I still don’t like her though. I have a few prosecutors and persecutors, and the only ones I would ever confidently say I hate and wish had never formed are her and JJ and that’s it. 

Moriah Elizabeth is a pretty recent split. Don’t look her up or you’ll make fun of me, let me just tell you her deal and you take my word for it okay? okay. It’s dumb. You’ve probably never heard of her because as far as I’m aware none of my followers are seven years old nor mothers of little babies. Moriah Elizabeth is a YouTube well known for making art and crafting related content aimed towards stereotypical little girls. Just a lot of unicorns and rainbows and sprinkles and glitter. Her main gig is a series called “Squishy Makeover” where her child fans send her their old fucked up squishy toys and she fixes them and makes them new and interesting. And she has the maturity level of a little elementary school girl. Uh. Anyway. Yeah. She’s amazing. So Teter, resident little, went though a pretty rough patch of nonstop stuck fronts and tantrums when her favorite caretaker alter (Denis, RIP) integrated. And during that time her favorite thing to do to distract herself was watch Moriah Elizabeth and SimplyNailogical (with Zim because he loves that channel for some reason?) and videos of independent music producers because it reminded her of Denis. Anyway. Moriah developed and took on a very motherly role in taking care of Teter and making her feel better, kind of replacing Denis. She’s a blessing. And my god she paints on fucking everything.

Okay let’s get the obvious one out of the way. Kalvin Garrah. Oh Kalvin. Kalvin Kalvin Kalvin. Fuck you. So I developed Kalvin maybe two years ago?? I was having a mad hard time with my dysphoria and I would watch his videos religiously smh. I was a giant fan and took his advice for trans men as gospel. I was such an asshole haha. Anyway, when he inevitably formed, he kind of soaked up a lot of my dysphoria and gender related trauma. I thought he was a good alter! I was like oh cool! This absolute chad is gonna held guide me on being a Real Boy™️ like my own little SQUIP or sum. Yippee. And y’know he kind fo did for awhile. Ad everything was peachy. But then, I grew up! And I developed a personality of my own and became my own person and realize I’m not just some stereotypical manly man nor and I 1000% male either. And now he despises me. He always kind of did. But whatever. He hates me. And he made me feel like shit for exploring my identity for a long time. But, as a system, we figured out how to deal with him and make him a little better, and now I’m fine with him. We get along like brothers, which is to say sometimes we get along. 

Okay so before I talk about the next two, I want to mention the fact that I have this issue, and I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but I tend to get very obsessed with certain people I will hyper fixate on these people and try to worm my way into their lives one way or another. I’m pretty good at being a people pleaser and being about to understand exactly what people want and then become that without separating myself too much from myself. The people I become obsessed with I will go to crazy lengths to get into every facet of their lives. I’ll follow them, I’ll follow their friends, I’ll follow their families, I’ll save everything and log it all in one place, I’ll pretend to be people they know and figure out their pasts, I’ll learn whatever I can and just obsess over it. I don’t know. It’s only really extremely happened with four people, but minority with some others. SORRY I KNOW ITS WEIRD BUT YOU ALREADY KNOW SHIT IS WRONF WITH ME OKAY YOU FOLLOWED YOU READ THE CARRD MOVING ON

Mars! Yahoo! So I won’t linger on this for long because Mars is very easily triggered to front, and doesn’t like being talked about. Mars (aka NyadChild now @nyadcircus ) formed during the height of the whole dysphoria debate back when he was the poster child of tucutes and trenderism . Lovely. I looked up to him ( not really at the time but when he formed I was a fan ) and I was kind of obsessed with him. Oops.

Ash! Okay! So ash, lovely ol ash I’ve been getting into a bit of a heartbreaking dram with you my lovely ash. Idk if someone’s gonna rat me out to you but whatever I’m gonna continue regardless. I won’t leave an @ so no one CAN rat me out. So ash is an influencer I guess? A nonbinary sworker who I FOUND through instagram way back and have been following for the longest time. And like a product of being obsessed with someone is checking their account obsessively. I’ve made so much fan art and little snippets of what could eventually become fanfic. That I’d never show anyone. I’ve had like six dreams about them? Maybe I’ll talk about them someday. It really ties into religious stuff too so it would be worth discussing. ANYWAY. I’m super enamorado con Ash, but not really a romantic or sexual attraction. It never is. Just a hyper fixation I dunno. I downloaded that ONE youtube video they made that one time a million years ago back when they were in the hospital and I’ve watched it so many times I practically have it memorized. Shut up get back to the point. Ash developed as a factive! Inevitable! But my ash factive is lovely. They’re really nice and pretty accurate and close to reality, aside from the weird one off fact that they use she/her tambien and I’m pretty sure Ash doesn’t considering I once used she/her for them and they called me out for it my bad. Whatever I’ll leave it at that I’lll leave a note for our ash to post sometime we’ll see moving on

Here’s an honorable mention before I get into the worst one of them all. Twiggy Ramirez! He went dormant some time ago. Out of all my factive and fictive, he was the most crazy unlike the real Twiggy Ramirez. And I’m pretty positive it was because he was modeled less after the actual Twiggy, but more after this guy that kinned Twiggy Ramirez that I was deadass obsessed with way back in 2014. I knew literally everything about that kid, I knew what school he went to I knew who his friends were, I knew every single social media he ever had even the super secret ones I managed to follow by pretending to be his friends, and at one point I even found his exact location on google maps and through that found his home address and his separated father’s home address, not to mention I learned everything about his abuser. I never ever spoke to him, nor attempted to get close to him at all. I never did anything with this info mind you and I never planned to. I was just obsessed with him and that ended eventually.

Alright!!! The best one! Rachael! Rachael Stair! AKA Randy Stair! AKA ANDREW FUKCING BLAZE. Sound familiar? Yeah look it up I won’t go into detail because I literally hate having this alter and I’m so ashamed of her but like she’s done so much for me and I appreciate her very much as a protector but not so much as the IRL equivalent. Shut the fuck up. Just don’t talk about it.