Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They still fight. Always have, and probably always will to an extent, but Dib cannot help but notice that something is a little bit different nowadays.

In his defense, he didn’t even come over looking for a fight. But Zim is as predictable as he is a wildcard, and so the paranormal investigator was not surprised in the slightest when the alien interrupted his sudden house visit to unveil his newest and latest plan in world domination: experimenting on Gir until he was the strongest magnetic force on the planet, throwing off the Earth’s natural magnetic pull from the core and causing mayhem and destruction from the consequences of that order disrupted, and the earth would eventually implode in on itself as per said in Zim’s long tedious monologue.

Though, he didn’t get very far before Dib showed up. Gir sits on the couch, a couple of spoons and a interesting looking alien gun stuck to his head, eating out of a chip bag as he watches TV, completely ignoring the two nemesis fighting in the corner of the room. The robot doesn’t even flinch as Zim’s head meets the tile floor with a concerning crack noise.

If it damaged something, the alien didn’t say, only baring his teeth up at the human above him and snarling. Dib would have probably been impressed if he wasn’t trying to focus on keeping all his weight on the Invader, less his head meet that same fate and he doubts his skull is that resilient. “Will you just-!” A claw misses his ear by an inch and Dib shifts his knee to pin down his enemy’s shoulder. “Will you just stop for a minute?!”

Zim’s answer is a well cued growl. “Stop what? Me from taking over your pitiful planet?” He cackles, his spit nearly reaches Dib’s face with the laughter. “NEVER! Zim will never stop until this filthy planet and all of it’s inhabitants are under the thumb of the almighty Irken Empire!”

Dib deadpans. “Ok, first of all, that’s never going to happen. Second, that’s not even what I’m talking about-”

Zim knees him in the stomach and Dib lurches back, a cough rising from his throat as his mid-section reveled in pain. Suddenly his back hits the cold floor, A weight increasing on top of him and claws surrounding his neck. Dib sputters by instinct, body going tense and teeth gritting as the alien hovers over him with a victorious grin, the tables having turned. An elbow juts out in an attempt to thwack the Invader off, but it’s futile as his head whips back, smacking against the tile (oh, that was going to give him a headache) and amber eyes are glaring wide up into red.

Zim presses his palm against Dib’s neck, more subtlety his third digit and makes a low noise from the back of his throat. “You see, Dib-Stink?” He presses the pad of his claw to his jugular. “I already have you underneath my thumb. Easy.”

Now, normally by this point Dib would have had some pretty gnarly gash marks in his skin, maybe thin cut along side his throat or a raking claw down the side of his face, even taking off the skin on his ear. But the alien is more dramatic show of power, much more threatening than when they were younger, sharper and probably deadlier. Years of isolation from his race doesn’t deter him from keeping up with Invader Training, so it’s not surprising that their battles have gotten more and more gruesome, and dare he say it, ‘personal’ as they aged.

But Zim looks down at him and seeks reaction. Fear, stubbornness, whatever happened to flash across Dib’s face in the moment. He’s one swipe away from being rid of the problem, spilling blood all over the floor that he’ll probably get Gir to clean up later (said robot was watching the commercial breaks with blissful ignorance) and yet his grin twitches higher with every heartbeat that drums against his thumb, waiting.

Their battles have changed, Dib notices. He doesn’t know how, only he knows he’s going to have to address that someday. But that day was not going to be that day.

The teenager goes still, mouth thinning into a line and raising his palms facing upwards towards the ceiling. A universal sign of surrender. The flash of surprise in Zim’s eyes melt into satisfaction and immediately Dib feels his guard being dropped. “Okay, okay, hear me out.” Dib starts, still annoyingly aware of the Invader’s grip not loosening.  “I didn’t come hear to foil your evil plan-”

“And yet, my day is ruined.” Zim snarks.

“…That was just a bonus.” He has to crane his chin upwards and away from Zim’s disapproving hiss immediately as the comment leaves his mouth, taking a subtle breath and resisting to frown at the way his own exhale hits him back after he huffs into Zim’s face. “I came with a request.” The alien cocks a hairless eyebrow. Dib searches for another word. “A favor?”

Gir is screaming something about fish-monkeys in the background. The sound of spoons rattling fill the living room. Zim squints at him. “And you came here honestly thinking that I’d be willing to hear such an outlandish thing out?” He scoffs. “You’re an idiot.”

One of Dib’s hands reach for a pocket in his shirt until Zim snarls at him, urging him to still and unmoving. The teenager frowns, but makes no further movement. Not yet. “It’s worth a shot.” He says, ignoring the eye-roll the alien sends him. “Swollen Eyeball received a couple of weird reports, sent me the info and put me on the investigation. They want me to go check it out in person, but it’s pretty far.” He watches the alien’s expression twitch with the slightest mix of irritation and interest. Not something he would have seen a few years ago, but something he could use to his advantage.

Zim narrows his eyes still, and for a moment Dib thinks he’s going to be dismissed and kicked out. But there’s a pregnant pause, the gears in the alien’s head whirring until his mouth twitches downwards with a inkling of an question. “How far?”

“All the information they sent me is in my pocket.” Dib nods downwards to his chest, the inner compartments of his trenchcoat. “See for yourself.”

Claws drum against his throat and Dib hopes that Zim doesn’t feel the skip in his pulse as his plan falls into place. The alien hesitates, eyes falling downwards to where the paper is barely jutting out from the fabric and stares at it. Then, Zim takes one hand off of Dib’s neck and reaches for the paper.

Dib acts quickly and the motion is sudden, hands coming upwards and pushing the alien to the side, causing said Invader to yelp out as he’s shoved back to the floor, Pak clacking against the tile in a way that Dib knows must hurt. A claw catches in the fabric of his trenchcoat and Dib sheds the clothing article in record time, adrenaline moving fast enough to grab one wrist with one hand and the paper with the other. Zim’s free hand finds a nick in his shirt and tears at the cotton, but Dib is grateful for no bloody slashes across his chest.

Zim’s cursing in Irken and opening his maw to presumably spew vile things in English, threats and the whatnot, before Dib presses him (or more importantly, his Pak) into the ground and speaks louder over the alien’s furious bellowing. “Let me use your Voot!”

Whatever insult the Invader had in the back of his throat dies down so a look of shock and offense coat his expression. “You revolting TRASH. Unhand Zim or face my wrath!”

It’s a stretch, but he’ll try his manners. “Please let me use the Voot.”

Zim kicks his legs out, high enough to where Dib has to sit up higher on his stomach unless he wanted a boot-print in his skin. “You ugly, conniving worm! You dare assault your future overlord and demand the use of his vehicle? You have your own, stupid, smelly human truck!” Zim’s tongue’s slithers out when he yells this viciously and it almost hits Dib’s chin. “Don’t you have your own garbage spaceship?!”

“Tak’s ship won’t make it that far. Trust me, I gave it a shot.” Dib jolts backwards when Zim makes a reach for the paper and holds it above his own head. “I think I’d crash and burn in the ocean before I ever make it there.”

“Years of tinkering with that ship and you still can’t bring it back to it’s full potential.” The alien’s voice is partially a snarl, partially a mocking laugh. “An Irken Smeet could have had that ship back to functionality within a week!”

Dib’s mouth turns downwards, leaning forwards and glaring at the floor beside Zim’s head. “Sorry I don’t have a fucking super computer attached to my spine since birth.”

The alien pauses in his thrashing just to send him a smug look. “Jealous?”

“Hardly. I’d rather die before I let one of those things get attached to me.” Dib pauses, and shudders at the memory. “Again.”

Zim’s antennae twitches in the slightest. His mouth opens like he’s going to say something but shuts closed again. He rocks upwards until he’s supported by his elbows, no longer fending Dib off, but glaring at him with an intensity that would make metal melt. “You can’t just take an Earth plane or train or-or whatever your stupid planet’s primitive transportation is called?” He snarks. “Your race needs to work on building functioning teleporters.”

Dib ignores the jab and continues. “I need something that will get me there and back in one night. I can’t exactly disappear for long without my family noticing.” A pause. “…Dad won’t notice, but Gaz might, and she’ll tell him. They’re still nervous about my investigations, especially after...you know.”

He sees the slightest, hardly noticeable flinch in the alien’s antennae. It twitches towards him and downwards and the red eyes that glare at him narrow further until Zim shakes his head and returns to sending him a vile glare. His expression was quick to flush away, like someone refusing to dwell on a bad memory. “And this is my problem how?”

Dib’s nose twitches, feels a funny feeling in his chest and ends up swallowing his pride. “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come with me. You know, so you don’t have to follow me in secret like some sort of creepy stalker-”

Zim snorts at him. “Bold words from a-”

Dib cuts him off. “And you can consider it a favor. So…I’ll owe you one, whatever you want, I guess.” A pause. “Anything except letting you take over Earth. Or humiliating me on live TV. Or dissecting me. You know the rules.”

The Invader goes quiet, mouth still curled up into a snarl but his claws drum across the tile making tippy-tap sounds as he thinks. Dib looks up in the silence to see Gir stuck to the television, face planted across the screen that muffled his giggles as various spoons, screws and bolts scattered across the floor and nearly levitate to his magnetic pull.

A clearing throat and shift underneath him brings his attention back to Zim. The aliens stares at him with a stoic expression.

“How far?” Zim repeats.

Dib hesitates, before shifting just a little to bring the paper down. He takes his hand away from pining the Invader, but doesn’t move off of him. “France.”

Zim blinks an deadpan expression. An unspoken demand to keep explaining.

“It’s pretty much half-way across the world. Tak’s ship won’t make it that far otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” Dib watches the Invader open his mouth but continues with curt speed. “Flying over the city of Paris, there’s supposedly a forest on the outskirts, where there’s a secret entrance to an underground castle.” Hearing the words leave his mouth, it’s not the most absurd things he’s ever said. “Apparently like to go there on a whim, for dares and stuff, but when they leave, it’s like they come back as a different person.”

“But they return alive, meaning no one has died.” Zim interjects.

“Not exactly.” Dib leans back, allowing the Invader to sit up more. It’s hardly an improvement, as the teenager is still planted on the alien’s mid-section, but only to hold the paper between them and point to certain bullet points written on it. “Whatever kids go there and come back, their families reported them acting weird days afterwards. Doesn’t eat, doesn’t talk to anyone, locking themselves in their room-”

“That just sounds like you.” Zim gives him a mocking grin.

Dib frowns and briefly thinks about head-butting him. “Not funny.”

“Zim is hilarious. Now continue, Stink-boy.”

“When the kids come back,” The paranormal investigator continues where he left off, shooting Zim a look as he purposely presses his weight down a little further just to see the offended look flash across the alien’s face. “They end up killing someone. Either they commit murder or off themselves. Swollen Eyeball got reports that it whatever is in that place could be responsible for a total of 13 deaths already.”

“Eh.” Zim looks unimpressed. “I’ve done worse.”

Dib’s eye twitches and thanks whatever power he can muster up to resist the urge to smack him. “Anyways. I need to get there as soon as possible, and back just as quick.”

A jolt, and Zim is trying to sit up straighter only for Dib to press him back down. The alien sneers at him, fully capable of pushing the human off and yet stills for a moment, foregoing the chance to shove Dib away and instead places a clawed hand at his knee. An unannounced threat, but a restrained one. “You have no sense in that humongous head of yours if you think I’ll let you wipe your disgusting, grubby stubby hands all over my Voot without my supervision.”

“So is that a yes or what?” Dib huffs. Part of him knows that Zim has the strength to push him off, the other part wonders why he hasn’t yet.

“Zim will accompany you on your investigations, Dib-Stink, that is already established.” The alien curls a claw on the underside of Dib’s thigh and the human tries to restrain the wince at the feeling of blood prickling through his jean. “But you will owe Zim for the use of his Voot.”

He’ll take that as a yes. That’s probably the best answer he was going to get and there was no use in pushing his luck for anything else. Was sitting in the Voot for a couple of hours something Dib was going to dread? Oh, certainly. But that thought doesn’t stop a victorious smirk from stretching across his face.

Zim glares at his smile like it’s the most offensive thing he’s ever seen. “The weight of your head is crushing me, Dib-beast. RELEASE ZIM!”

Just to annoy him, Dib shifts and makes himself more comfortable resting his back on the Invader’s knees. “Hmm. Nah.” He waves the paper up with a shit-eating grin. “We still have a couple of pointers we should probably go over.”

The floor hits him quicker than the realization does and only then does Dib question why, oh why does he keep pushing his luck. A Pak leg extends out and rises high as Zim taunts him, claws curled around his shirt collar and the usual amount of monologue beginning when the alien is suddenly yanked backwards by an unseen force.

Dib sits up, rubbing the newly sore spot on his head and burst into laughter at the sight of Zim’s Pak stuck to one side of Gir, the alien flailing in anger as he quickly makes his escape.

He packs the bare essentials and then some. Ghost hunting equipment small enough to carrying in a backpack, rations, a spare change of clothes, and a couple of other items he stashes inside the extra pockets of his bag and forces the zipper to close up on it’s weight. Better to be safe than sorry, especially when you’re about to be traveling with a alien hellbent on Earth’s destruction for a couple of hours in a spaceship that couldn’t be much bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle.

Gaz is in the living room when he comes downstairs, too consumed with her current in-game match to notice him creep steadily towards the door. He’s got half the mind to tell her he’s leaving when he decides against it, starting at the back of her head and the headset a little too big for her that he got for her last Christmas. She curses something fierce when her team loses the match, and Dib shuts the door behind him right as she starts throwing the controller.

The walk to Zim’s house is uneventful and tedious. Dib has walked this route enough times that he could probably walk it blindfolded by this point. He sticks in his earbuds and hits shuffle on his phone, his steps becoming automatic. He’s only about two or three songs in when gnomes come into view and he stops at the fence of the property.

They swerve their vision to watch him. They don’t shoot at him, not quite, but their weird, googly eyes still shoot a spike of anxiety in his chest every time the object’s head creak in his direction. Zim’s defense gnomes haven’t shot at him in a while now. He doesn’t know why they stopped, or when they did exactly (trying to roll back the calendar in his mind makes the days count up to around a year since his last lazor scar) but he still sticks a foot out on the sidewalk, wiggling it in plain view of the gnomes. Just in case.

All the heads have swiveled to keep track of him, eyes wide and lifeless. The next song starts playing in his ears and out of pure human need for entertainment, Dib plants his foot on the sidewalk in the beat of the music. One step after the next, a wiggle, staring down the gnomes the same as they do to him. He spins in his spot and snorts under his breath when he catches the plastic eyes faltering, stepping in a beat around one in particular until it’s head swivels 360 degrees in an attempt to keep up with him.

The dance carries on for a few seconds until something yanks the earbuds out of his ears rather harshly, and a questioning voice replaces the music. “What are you doing?”

Dib freezes, one foot raises in the air and stares wide-eyed at a disguised Zim, holding his earbuds in one hands and cocking a brow at his behavior. “Uh.” He swallows, kicks the nearest gnome over with his foot and stands up straight. “Nothing.”

Zim’s eyes narrow and Dib can feel his face flush with embarrassment. “Anyways.” He starts off, snatching his earbuds back and stashing them away as he pushes past the Invader. “Brought stuff for the trip. Hope you’re ready.”

“Zim is always ready, Stink-boy.” The alien watches Dib stride up to the front door, bustling inside. He gives the knocked over gnome one spare glance before mummering something too quiet for the human to hear, shutting and locking the door behind him as he joined the human in the living room. He points to the middle of the floor. “Stand here.”

Dib steps forwards and the floor cuts away in an oval shape, slinking upwards into a tube-like elevator with enough speed that it makes him lose his footing. He falls backwards but catches himself just in time, gripping his backpack straps tightly. As he straightens, he feels something brush against his sleeve, and catches a rubber glove leaving from out behind him.

He looks up to see Zim folding his arms behind his back and not looking at him. “If every human is as clumsly as you are, I don’t know how your race has survived this long.”

Dib is still forcing away the embarrassment on his face that he’s not really feeling up to a debate at the moment. Besides, he’d rather not get into an argument with what was supposed to be his escort for the next couple of hours. “I don’t know. Mass population I guess.”

Zim suddenly looks to him with alarm. “Oh, I suppose that’s why you were courting my normal human lawn ornaments, then?”

They hit the level with a jolt the same second the comment hits Dib, so the teen chokes on his own spit and struggles to intake air as his face blooms a even worse color. “No! That is-” He sputters. “That was NOT what I was doing!”

Deep breathes, he lets his body relax and looks up to the sound of snickering. Zim is grinning at him. “No worries, Dib-stink. Zim was only teasing you, as humans say.” He comically pats the air around Dib’s back. “Zim also knows that nothing from this filthy planet would be interested in being your love-pig anyways.”

Dib is half-way through a retort when the Invader walks away, into the room the elevator stopped at. The investigator follows, mumbling under his breath. Mentally, he scopes the place. Zim’s attic, that basically functioned as a hangar for his ship was simply a large room with the Voot centered in it. Off to the sides of the walls Dib could see various control panels and what appears to be boxes of repair tools, wires, and other alien-looking bits that maybe he could steal and tinker with later when Zim wasn’t looking.

Striding up to the Voot and giving it a look-over tells him that there have been some improvements since it’s last launch. The cock-pit was slightly bigger and an extra storage container was attacked near the rear side of it. Dib creeps closer to give it a proper inspection, but something snags the back of his collar and his feet leave the ground with a yelp.

Zim practically throws him inside the ship, having climbed inside already. He lands on something small and metal, hissing in blunt pain was Zim retracts his Pak leg from the teenager’s trench coat and hits a button. The windshield around them closes, and Dib can hear the machinery whirring around them as the roof of the building begins to part. “Let’s make this quick, Dib-stink. Zim has more important things to do when he gets back and I don’t want to be baby sitting you for long.”

Sitting up, the dark haired boy groans as he shuffles off his backpack. He’s a split second away from insulting the Invader when something catches his attention. Whatever he landed on rolls off from behind him, disappearing behind the pilot’s chair. Dib is pretty sure he heard a giggle. “Gir?”

Zim’s head pipes up, following Dib’s gaze to underneath the chair and reaching below it. His claws pluck out and bring out the robot, tiny legs kicking and something suspiciously smeared across his face. “Gir! I told you to stay out of the Voot!”

The robot is running in place in the air. “We’re gonna go to France? We’re gonna go to France? WE’RE GONNA GO TO FRANCE?! WE’RE GONN-”

Zim hits a button, the windshields roll downwards a bit, and flings Gir back into the hanger. “NO! Zim is going to this ‘France’ with the Stink-boy and you are going to stay here and watch the base!”

Dib cringes at the sound of metal bouncing off of metal, only relaxing when he hears crazed laughter come below. He raises and joins Zim to stare downwards into the hanger as the Voot hovers. Gir is looking up at them with puppy eyes. Then he starts to cry. “B-but I wanted to eat a mime!”

Zim shifts uncomfortable and Dib starts shuffling through his bag. The alien waves a hand out. “Mimes are BAD for you, Gir. Eat sweets instead.” Zim pauses. “And no bedtime tonight!”

The crying stops, the little robot staring up at the Voot with distant look, then starts crying again. Dib shifts between leaning over to whisper to the alien and pulling something out of his backpack. “Uh. Isn’t he a robot? How does he have a bedtime if he-”

“SILENCE!” A rubber glove slaps over his mouth and Dib cringes at the taste. Zim leans towards him and lowers his voice as soft as the alien could manage. Which really, isn’t soft at all. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Teeth bite into the glove, the alien curses at him as that the hand pulls back and before Zim could backhand him, Dib leans over the glass and throws a chocolate bar down into the hanger. It bounces off of Gir’s head and clatters on the floor before the little robot’s crying suddenly stops, zeros in on the candy and scuttles for it like a rabid dog.

Zim squints at him and Dib only shrugs. “I felt bad.”

“ENOUGH STALLING!” The Invader slams down on the controls, whipping the windshield up and forcing Dib to move backwards quickly enough before it caught his clothing with it. “We go finish your stupid ‘investigation’ NOW!”

Force slams into Dib, bringing his back to the Voot’s floor with a yelp as the ship rises with alarming speed into the sky. The house and the hanger disappears from underneath them, then the blur of colors that once made up the neighborhood, then the city, then all of the blurs that went with that. Every single sight of civilization disappears underneath them until there is nothing left but the clouds below the ship and the bright, white ozone layer above them.

Dib doesn’t get a second to appreciate the change in scenery because he’s too busy nursing his poor spine from the impact. “Jesus FUCK. Could you not do that ANY gentler?” He curses, ignoring the maniacal laughter thrown his way as he struggles to upright himself and rubs the temples of his head. No man-made jet could have shot that far up in such a intense speed. Alien technology truly was a marvel, he didn’t need a reminder. Maybe he’d even ask about it if he wasn’t so pissed about the sudden take off. “Listen, I know you’re a fucking show-off, but was that really necessary?”

“Taking off in broad daylight is risky. Better to be quick and out of sight from human eye than to risk exposure.” Zim doesn’t look back at him, instead focusing on a series of numbers flashing across the dashboard screen. His disguise is gone, probably stashed away in his Pak. “You’re lucky Zim decided not to fully break the atmosphere, even though it would be much quicker.” He says with a matter of fact attitude.

Dib rolls his shoulder and flinches when it pops, ignoring the startled look Zim shoots him at the sound. “A warning would have been nice.”

“You’re breathing weird.”

Dib blinks. “What?”

“Your breathing lungs.” Zim’s doesn’t move from his spot, but his gaze lowers to his chest and there’s something about that look that just feels weird. Dib slinks into himself when Zim cranes his neck forwards, an antennae fluttering in the close air around him. “And your pulse rate has accelerated.”

“Well, no shit. You just flung us up into the sky and nearly gave me a heart attack.” Dib waves the appendage away and huffs, only when the last word comes out of his mouth does he realize he did kinda feel a little off. Not in the adrenaline-wearing off kinda way, but the kind where his head began to feel light, but the air around him felt heavy. The physical feeling doesn’t deter his annoyance. “Thanks a lot, bug.”

Zim’s eye twitches, and to Dib’s surprise, forgoes a retort to turn back to the control panel. He presses a couple buttons and a soft whooshing noise sounds out within the Voot. “I forgot how easily humans are affected by their environment. You can’t even handle a simple change in altitude without consequences.”

“Plenty of human’s live in high altitude places.” Dib snaps back before trailing off. “Just…not this high. Not without some sort of gear that helps them with that.”

“Then you are lucky that Zim is merciful.”

The teenager is in the middle of reaching back for his backpack when the comment reaches his ears, swiveling his head around to glare at the back of the alien’s head. He mummers under his breath, an action that he finds strangely makes his lungs feel thick, as he rummages through the bag’s contents. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

For a split second, and just a second, Zim flashes him and sharp grin and the theory that he has brought Dib up all the way into the sky just to kill him in one fashion or the other comes to mind. But that grin turns to dust as the Invader speaks. “The Voot will supply enough oxygen to prevent you from dying, but in order to make the reserve last for the entire trip, it’ll be used sparsely. You’ll live with no long term brain damage, or at least no more than you already have in that massive head of yours.” He takes a moment just to snort at Dib’s frown. “But you might pass out.”

“Oh.” Dib pauses in his search, a folder in one hand and reaching back inside the bag with the other. “How long until I pass out?”

“For as ever long as you can stay awake, Dib-Stink.” Zim respond. Then, his expression turns malicious. “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up with all your limbs.”

Dib’s hand tightens around the handle hidden in his backpack.

A snake-like appendage sticks out of Zim’s grin. “But maybe not your tongue.”

The movement is sudden, and the mocking, villainous expression that coated Zim’s face drops to a look of confusion and soon anger as the tip point of a water gun is pointing directly at him. Dib keeps the gun trained on him, moving it to the side when the alien moves, a smile of his own coming to his face. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t come prepared?”

“You dare bring such a vile substance into my Voot?!” The alien shakes his fist, teeth gritting until he bellows out in a very Zim-like scream. “Into MY VOOT?! INTO ZIM’S VOOT?!”

“It’s holy water. It’s not for you.” Dib speaks, his voice lost a little bit in the Invader’s ranting. Back up against the opposite side of the cockpit, he can feel his head grow lighter and lighter, not enough to disrupt his focus.“I’m not against using it though if you try anything funny.”

“And I’m not against letting your brain die of oxygen deprivation if you don’t keep that disgusting earth ‘water’ away from me.” Zim’s hand slams onto the control panel, lights flashing up. The ship has been hovering over the clouds for a minute now, the top of the windshield darker as the space floats above them, the sunlight reflecting off the clouds from below them, casting colors and reflections into the ship. It’d be a pretty scene if it wasn’t for the feral bug foaming at the maw merely three feet away from him. “That is a threat, Earthboy.”

Everything that Zim said was a threat. Was there ever anything he said that wasn’t? Dib’s fingers drum over the trigger, almost amused how a children’s water gun could bring the alien to the edge but eventually lowers it, keeping his eyes on the red gaze glaring at him from across the cockpit. “Okay. Fine.” Play nice. Just play it nice. He’s stuck with the space lizard until the Investigation is over anyways. “No water gun.”

Zim watches him with intense focus until the ‘weapon’ disappears back into Dib’s bag, only taking his eyes away once it’s zipped and the teenager instead brings forwards the marked folder. He scoots closer to the alien, not for any other reason and needing more room to spread out the evidence, of course, and dumps out the contents all over the remaining cushioned seating area.

He’s shifting through the photos when Zim speaks again. “Normally an Earth plane would have taken around fourteen hours to make it to this ‘Paris’.” He taps buttons as he speaks, coded in Irken and probably coordinates. He turns a dial, flips a switch and suddenly the Voot is moving without his piloting. “Thanks to superior Irken technology, we’ll get there in about three.”

Dib feels him sit back in the seat before he even looks up, mummering something along the lines of a ‘cool, thanks’ under his breath before returning back to his work. A moment passes, then two, and there’s a inkling feeling in the back of his mind that the fluttery air over his neck isn’t just a illusion done by his consciousness leaking away by the second. When he turns his head, green skin almost smacks into his glasses frame. “What.”

“That photo, there.” Zim is leaning towards him but not looking at him, a black claw pointed towards the paper in Dib’s hand. “What is that?”

The teen raises the picture in question, giving the image a look over and the notes on it’s corresponding report with it. “It’s the body of one of the people that came out of that place. One of the more recent ones.” A woman in her teens, with average family and academic career, who the locals called sweet and helpful until she ended up murdering her mailman before dying of cardiac arrest, and oddity at her age. At least, that’s what the report said. “I’m checking to see if there’s anything they found in the autopsy reports.”

When Zim makes a non-committal hum and continues to stare at the image, Dib takes that as his cue to continue. “The forums are saying there’s something there that’s driving people insane, maybe a really malicious ghost or entity. Swollen Eyeball thinks it’s a mass case of demonic possession spreading from person to person, like a plague.” He pats the pocket of his backpack. “That’s what the holy water is for.”

Red eyes glance down only briefly to the pocket before returning to the image, then trailing off to gaze out upon the rest of the information that Dib has scattered. “Were they all alone?”

“According to the reports, yeah. Most of them were sent in by dares.” Shifting through the papers yieled a couple more pages that he had yet to look over. When he scans them, he finds his vision blurrier than usual, and rubs at his eyes under his glasses before carrying on. “Everything here says they were dared to do it, or went out of curiosity. The local apparently say it’s cursed and the more recent deaths rumored around it just made it a more popular site, hence the rising body count.” He sighs, shuffling the images of bodies away and back into the folder. “It just repeats the cycle.”

He hears Zim scoff from over his shoulder. “And yet you willingly go there to add your head to the count. I don’t understand why human’s don’t learn from each other’s mistakes.”

Dib shoots a look at him and fights the urge to yawn directly in the Invaders face. “Hey, I chose this.”

“And that is what makes you an idiot, fool-boy.” The alien sneers. “You seem to be quite fond of the peril that your organization throws you into. You’re lacking self-preservation for someone who’s so keen to keep a worthless planet safe.”

Normally, Dib would have a come-back at the start and ready to fire, but there’s nausea starting to build in his stomach and a haze taking over his brain little by little, and being weakened state stuck in a ship with his worst enemy is not how he planned to die. They’re not even to the investigation site yet. His pride will hurt, but deescalation is probably the safest route to take.

“Whatever. You’re just too much of a coward to kill me.” Let it be known on all accounts that Dib is an idiot.

Zim lunges with a growl the same instance Dib’s knee makes contact with his mid-section, pushing the Invader off until his Pak bounces off the windshield on the opposite side of the cock-pit and the teen is thrust back from the impact, papers scattering across the dash. The backpack is flung with him, legs kicking out to keep the alien at bay while the latter snarls at him, clawing at his pants leg as Dib frantically searches through the pockets. “How DARE you!”

He lunges for Dib again, getting close enough to where the human’s heart skips a beat until Zim’s boot slips on  one of the many papers on the ground, face planting onto the floor. Dib is scooting away as the alien rises, rage and offense on his face. “Do you know how many inferior life forms I’ve killed before you? How many necks I had to snap? Paks I had to rip apart just an infant smeet?!” The alien rants as he steps forwards, not realizing Dib’s fingers are coiling around his prize.

“You and your pathetic planet are already mine! I don’t need to take your life to prove that, not yet! Not until I have the entire Irken Armada as my audience so they can see how the defender of this earth is nothing more than a stupid, stupid little worm!” He sneers, diving forwards. “Your squishy, fleshy self means nothing to me-!”

A smack resounds throughout the Voot. Zim stumbles back, a clawed hand rising to the harsh mark blooming across his cheek in shock before seconds pass the so does the expression. Then, with hate and anger in his eyes, the glare falls back down onto his enemy.

Outstretched in Dib’s hand is a fly swatter.

His chest feels like their on it’s last tether, but the grip stays strong, teeth grit together as his brows furrowed. He can’t pass out here, not now, not until he was sure that Zim wasn’t going to end him or at least severely mutilate him when he goes out. “What?” He pants, growing more and more nervous that the pissed off image of Zim was getting blurrier by the second. “I said I wouldn’t use the water gun.”

Zim’s teeth bare so harshly that more than half his face is a snarl as he steps forwards, lurching back as Dib swipes again. “NO! Stay back!” The teen presses his back up against the opposite side of the cockpit, heart racing and suddenly regretting everything he’s ever said in the past ten minutes. He gives out a breathy laugh, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the anxiety, or the absolute absurdity that he’s able to keep this hellish creature at bay with nothing more than a fly swatter. “I will swat the shit out of you, Zim, I swear to fuck!”

He can’t tell from the expression, not with his mind losing it’s barings, but something in Zim’s expression shifts. There’s yelling, words he can’t decipher and suddenly he’s a little bit more panicked. Green shifts in his vision and he instinctively swats out again, feeling the vibrations of hitting something run down to his arm and watching the green fall back again. “I mean it, you alien freak!” The last of his sentences comes out more like a whisper.

Movement again, and Dib doesn’t even register Zim has moved until he feels something touch the collar of his shirt and tug at his ‘weapon’s’ grip, but a quick flick of the hand literally swats the figure away, if only for a few seconds before the shrill voice of the invader resounds in the Voot again. He can’t tell what he’s even shouting anymore, he’s getting one hell of a headache and his eyes are getting dangerously heavy.

Getting lost in his thoughts for even a moment turns out to be minutes, and Dib doesn’t realize that the fly swatter has been ripped from his hands until he feels his back hit something soft and the world goes dark.

Dib doesn’t open his eyes when he wakes up, but he takes a deep breath and that sweet, sweet fully oxygenated air fills his lungs and brings his consciousness forwards. It’s a regretful awakening. His stomach flips and he feels like he’s going to throw up, so he makes the smart decision to lie down for another moment or two just to collect his barrings.

Inhale, exhale, rinse and repeat. You’d think having been in space once or twice he’d be used to something like this, but every now and then Dib gets the unfortunate reminder that he is still human, and the limits stop where he forgets they do.

He’s flexing his pinky to make sure all of the digits and limbs were accounted for when he registers something touching him.

A soft, barely noticeable feeling on his head, touching stray locks of hair, trailing across his hairline. Dib tries not to hold his breath when it brushes against his eyelashes, travels softly down the bridge of his nose and just ever so slightly, fixes the skewed glasses so they sat more comfortably on his face. The touch is feather light and curious. The Voot is silent save for the beeping of the dash signifying that it has landed. No light breaking through his eyelids tells him that it’s dark within the cock-pit.

Dib accidentally exhales a little too deeply, the tracing feeling freezes on the tip of his nose. He peaks open one eye and Zim immediately thwacks him in it.

“Rise and Shine, Earthboy.” Zim sounds characteristically casual as Dib sits up with lightening speed, nursing his aching eye and spitting hushed little curses out to the alien. He leans back against the pilot seat, Dib’s bag in his lap and his eyes glowing an almost neon red with how dark the surroundings are. It would be eerie if it wasn’t for the red marks of the fly swatter decorating his face. “Quit your whimpering. We have arrived.”

Dib rubs the eye out, blinking out the tear that wells up in it and sends the alien a glare so hostile he hopes it makes the Invader shiver. It doesn’t, and Zim’s attention is swung away and focused on rummaging through the stolen bag’s contents. “You could have, I don’t know, shaken me or something.” He mummers. A hand comes up to drag down his face, wiping away the lingering feeling of…whatever that was leaving tender traces in his face. Zim was probably checking to see which spot to thwack. He was probably over-thinking it. “Or call my name? Yell or something? You don’t have to be a rude bug in everything you do.”

“Zim is not rude. Zim is efficient.” The alien sends back a grin and swivels in his direction. A metal noise and a Pak leg juts out, a light shining at the end of it. It brightens up the dark of the dim cock-pit and stings Dib’s eyes, but he can see the Invader holding something out to him. “

The Camera, the same one he ‘gifted’ Dib during his unfortunate stay during the hospital. Zim still hasn’t apologized for stealing it from somewhere. The investigator takes it wordless and fiddles with the buttons, checking it’s battery life and shooting a test picture very quickly. The flash pans out for a split second until he brings it down. Zim’s face is immortalized, a surprised look and his very wide, bright red eyes a stark contrast to the grey and dark background.

Dib laughs at it. “You look so stupid in this.” He flips the camera back around to show him the screen. “See? You look like-”

“Delete that.”

Zim’s voice is hostile and Dib’s mouth closes shut. The alien looks serious, watching him, waiting for a response and only then does it dawn on Dib that he had just taken a picture of the undisguised alien unprovoked, and his first response was not to stow it away or boast for evidence, but to turn it around and show the Invader how much of a doofus he looked.

His finger hesitates over the delete button. “No one believes me anyway.”

Zim makes a low humming noise in the back of his throat. He stares at the hesitating motion of Dib’s fingers for a minute, a really long, uncomfortable minute, then shifts through the bag some more until he brings out a flashlight and thrusts it towards the dark haired boy. “Humanity is a dim, unintelligent race.”

He waits to see if Zim will knock the camera out of his hands, and when he doesn’t, sets it to the side and rummages through the bag with him. “Not everyone is stupid. I mean, yeah, most of us are stupid.” He quickly adds on when Zim shoots him a look. “But not everyone.”

“If you are insinuating yourself as the exclusion, I hate to inform you that you are one the most dense human beings I have ever known.”

“How many humans do you actually know, Zim.” Dib retorts. “Like, know. As in you talk to regularly.”

The alien opens his mouth, shuts it, then brings up a hand and counts his fingers. (Which, by default, isn’t alot.) He watches the Invader wiggle his claws and make a weird face until he sends Dib a confidential look. “Zim owes you no explanation. I know PLENTY of your smelly, wormy human-kind.”

Dib works on sorting their gear. “Uh huh.”

“Zim has WAY more friends than you do, Stink-boy.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He frankly ignores the rambling and pulls out a couple of items. An EMF meter, an EVP, a spirit box and a couple of other things that his partner squints at in confusion as he doubly checks to make sure theyre functional before putting them back inside.

A glance outside of the Voot’s windshield tells him that the glass is slightly fogged and that the air must be cold. Forest surrounded them, and how Zim was able to pilot the Voot downwards without crashing into the branches he’ll never know. The sky was a de-saturated, darker blue color. Probably somewhere in between 8pm and 10pm, if he guessed correctly. “Are you ready? I really need to be back in town before 6am. That’s when Dad-bot wakes us up for breakfast.”

Zim sends him a look but presses a button with his other hand, the windshield falling down to free them. Instantly a breeze rushes inside, ripping Dib away from the warm temperature of the Voot’s inner core and he shudders. Zim is already climbing out without a second to spare as Dib is trying to hoist his leg up and over, and franklyl yelps when the Voot suddenly disappears out from underneath him and he tumbles into the dirt.

He rises, dusts off his trenchcoat and frowns at the snickering invader, a small button box disappearing into his Pak. “Cloaking enabled for the Voot. No wanderer will be able to see it, not unless they run straight into it. Zim will not have his ship stolen from him again.” The Invader talks to himself more than he’s talking to Dib. “Annoying cretins. Stealing Zim’s ship for their UFO cult.” He’s shaking his fist at the memory. “All because of the bees.”

Dib rolls his eyes, flicks on his flashlight and decides to ignore the insane rambling of the alien besides him. He pulls out a small box and flicks the GPS’s antennae (he thinks he saw Zim flinch out of the corner of his eye) until the coordinates pop up in green text, their location and the supposed entrance to the underground castle. He steps forwards in one direction and it makes a beeping noise. “We’re about a five minute walk away.”

“Then get moving, Dib-stink.” Zim is already striding away, the Pak light still stemming from his back bouncing slightly as he struts. “I’m already tired of seeing your face. I want this done and over with so I can be rid of you and begin my next plan for the domination of your planet!”

“Zim, you’re going the wrong way.”

The Invader spins on his heel, not breaking his posture and promptly struts past the teenager. “Zim was merely testing you.”

Dib has to catch up to him with a half-job. Similar height or not, Zim took some really soldier-esc, exaggerated strides, long enough that it takes Dib almost huffing to match his pace (it’s either the cold getting to him, or he’s falling out of shape again, and he tries not to think about the chair-boy he used to when he was twelve) until Zim feels merciful enough to walk like a normal person, for the most part. The GPS beeps in rhythm to their footsteps, the Pak leg’s light matching Dib’s flashlight as it illuminated their path.

The forest is silent, save for their footsteps. It was the leftovers of Autumn falling into Winter so while it wasn’t freakishly freezing, the cold was still uncomfortable and the leaves were still dead and stiff, making too-loud crunchy noises as they walked. Dib’s body is on auto-pilot, both aware and yet uncaring of the body walking next to him (though he sends glances Zim’s way, as does the alien, no words are spoken. They listen for any unusual sounds first and foremost) and keeps his eyes trained on the GPS, watching as their location grow closer to the entrance.

He’s betting his luck on ghosts. The history on this location was splotchy at best and there wasn’t any real record of what this castle used to be before nature claimed it and buried it underground a long, long time ago. It didn’t even have a name, which was even more incredibly odd, since it settles in France and would have made a pretty well off tourist attraction with all of the bad reputation the area was known for. People like him would have come flocking, but so far its just dumb teenagers and unlucky stragglers, and Dib knows from experience that ghosts usually don’t like trespassers in their place of rest.

Dib’s no stranger to ghosts. Though, he’s usually alone on his adventures with them and there’s no telling what will Zim do to provoke them (or what they’ll do to provoke him, and the entire investigation will end up in a mess) but it was better to play it safe and by the book. Ghosts don’t scare Dib, he can’t say that they never did, but now he’s only interested, even in the ones that drive anyone that come into contact with them insane.

This case will have to be a careful one, but he’s smart! No undead are going to warp his sense of reality, no sir. Besides, everyone else thought he was off his rockers already. He doesn’t think anyone would bat an eyelid if he returned home whispering chants and scribbling symbols into his walls. Well, maybe Gaz would if she could put down her controller for two seconds.

He shoots a quick glance over towards his ‘partner’ and briefly wonders if Zim would even give a damn if Dib lost his mind. Maybe not, it would just make his mission easier. He’s technically not dead but no longer a obstacle in his way of world domination-

Dib trips over a tree root, too lost in this thoughts to correct his foot and is about to introduce his glasses to the the dirt when claws catch him by the arm and tug him into standing position. “Again. I still don’t understand how your race has survived.” Zim lets go of him and continues walking without so much glance in Dib’s direction. “You are practically sitting ducks for the Irken Armada.”

The teen has to adjust himself before matching the alien’s pace, a frown on his face. The GPS tells him they’re two minutes away. “And yet you haven’t conquered us.”

Zim doesn't look at him, his gaze flickering elsewhere but Dib can still feel the intensity of annoyed look etching across his green face. His voice rises in volume, not quite yelling but getting there.“Laugh now, Dib. But soon you’ll see the earth crumble and I will gladly watch as you bow down to your future Overlord, that’s me by the way, as everything you know and love burns before your very eyes!”

Dib feels another villainous monologue coming up and inwardly groans. It was getting late and honestly he could do without the tedious declarations of Earth’s doom for 24 hours. Still, teenager prepares a retort for their usual banter on earth’s safety, but goes quiet at a realization.

He can barely see Zim’s face in the dark, what with their lights facing forwards. But his eyes are wide and surveying, red vision darting around like a surveillance camera and a really fidgety one at that. He doesn’t look at Dib much, and if he does it’s not for long, as if checking the teenager was still besides him. Even then, his antennae were outstretched and keened backwards, the left one occasionally flicking in Dib’s direction as if to check something before falling back against the Invader’s skull.

Zim is looking upwards, and he is watching the trees.

“Hey.” Dib speaks, and it comes out softer than he meant to. “You okay?”

A pause. An owl hoots somewhere in the forest and Zim’s antenna spikes up in the direction of the noise. A moment passes and they fall back, the alien swiveling his head to meet Dib’s eyes. He walks with confidence, but Dib knows a rehearsed action when he sees one. “Zim is fine.”

And Dib knows that’s a lie and that Zim is not fine because there’s no following insult to his intelligence or the size of his head. “C’mon. What’s up?”

The Invader’s mouth twitches and for a moment Dib thinks he’s going to be dismissed, but the alien simply turns away, and shockingly, provides a (somewhat) truthful answer. “How are you not afraid of whats out there? Every story you’re sent out to investigate always ended with someone dead, and that was almost you. You were nearly eaten alive.” Dib refrains from mentioning that one time that Zim literally stole his, as well as his classmates’s organs. “Zim is becoming convinced you have the self-preservation of a walnut. That, or the part of your meat-brain that handles the fear reaction isn’t functioning properly.”

“Oh, no my brain is functioning properly.” Dib half-laughs and Zim glares at him for it. “I’m scared all the time.”

The glare stays locked on him, but the alien cocks a brow bone at him and confusion fleets across his face.

“I don’t think about it, if that’s what your wondering. At least, I try not to.” He starts off, his voice light but low enough that Zim could barely hear him over the crunch of the leaves. Dib continues even as antenna lower closer to his face. There’s a heavy knot in his throat, and Dib swallows it. “The ghoul, I mean. What happened that night. It’s…mostly a blur anyways, and I don’t have any scars or anything to remind me of it. But sometimes I have nightmares. Sometimes I think about what could have played out differently, like if I had actually died… or you and the Pak…or, I don’t know…just-”

His words ramble off into gibberish until he stops. They both do, and the two stand in silence until Dib takes a deep breathe, glues his eyes in front of him and keeps walking forwards. He didn’t plan on having a heart-to-heart with his frenemy tonight. “I just don’t think about it. Maybe you should too.”

“I could kill you now, and it would be so easy.”

Dib’s walk slows to a halt again, just for a moment, and he brings his eyes up to meet red. “Far away from home, you can’t see in the dark and you’re tired. You’re a fast runner at best, but my Pak legs are faster.” Zim captures his gaze and holds it hostage while he speaks. “I know all your weak spots and every part of you that’s easy to puncture. I could stab you to death here, leave you bleeding out to be animal food and fly home without a second thought. No one knows where you are except Zim, no one would come to save you.”

Red eyes glow in the dark, waiting for a response. Seeking a reaction.

Silence, then laughter.

Dib’s laughter, to be more precise, because if this was Zim’s attempt at scaring him off, he’s not sure how to tell him that it’s almost like every other villainous monologue he’s ever declared. Zim’s face does not change, stoic and quietly taking in the teen’s response. Eventually the amusement wears off, but there’s still a chuckle in his voice when he manages to speak again, walking in strides as he does and lowering the GPS’s volume after it begins to beep wildly.

(There is, of course, the solid fear in his chest that Zim will one day live up to his threats, but he can’t possibly let the Invader know that.)

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll foil your plans as a ghost or something.” He says, making sure to add the next bit just to get underneath his skin. “You’ll never be rid of me, alien scum.”

Zim’s mouth twitches into an unreadable expression. “You revolt me.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Dib ignores the invitation to another fight, (three a day wasn’t uncommon, but pushing it for their time schedule) and continues walking. His flashlights catches the edge of something brown and rotten that looks too thin to be a tree and focuses on it. A sign, with writing engraved in black. The GPS’s screen coordinates of their location and the destination overlap, so he switches it off and stuffs in into a spare backpack pocket.

“Look’s to be some sort of warning sign?” The observation is obvious, but Dib likes to talk out loud sometimes. He raises his flashlight the same time Zim’s Pak light comes to rest on the writing, nearly blinding him from the reflection. Dib squints through the white spots reflecting off of his glasses and groans at the familiarization. “Yeah, no. I can’t understand a single word of that. I think it’s in French.”

Zim steps forwards until he’s shoulder to shoulder with him, squinting at the words and puffing his lip out in a way that Dib finds himself mimicking. “Ne pas entrer. Vous ne pouvez pas partir.” The words roll over Zim’s tongue slowly like tasting something new. “Do not enter. You cannot leave.”

Zim looks over to him to find Dib shooting him a look. “Freakin’ show-off.”

“Benefits of Pak knowledge, Dib-stink.” A sharp tooth grin that glints from the low light. “Another example of Irken’s superior technology.”

“You know, human’s have translators too-”

“Hush, you pitiful worm! We have reached our destination, quit your jabbering and move.” Zim all but stomps forwards, Pak leg outstretched and scanning the area. “The entrance must be here somewhere-”

A harsh thud noise and Dib jolts in his skin as Zim lurches back, screaming obscenities and clutching his right foot. He stumbles backwards until his rear end hits the ground, sputtering about that he almost takes Dib with him. “Stupid, stupid, filthy DISGUSTING planet and it’s stupid, hidden, vaults of dirt and gross that DARE to stub Zim’s toe!”

Dibs has to halt himself from crouching to the alien’s aid at the proclaiming and doubly checks with his flashlight. He shines it on Zim, still hissing, mind you, then to the spot where the alien’s foot had met it’s match. Light glints off the ground in a way that doesn’t look natural and Dib steps up, swiping away some dirt with his foot and inspecting the wood that revealed. “A hatch?”

“Zim has been COMPROMISED!”

Dib swings his flashlight around to see the Invader splayed out dramatically on the ground, one leg in the air. “Are you done?”

The leg flops back on the ground. “No.”

The teenager sighs, flips the light back around to the hatch and steadies it in between his neck and shoulder for grip as he pulls the camera out. He snaps a picture of the hatch; an old, wooden rotting thing with a metal handle (probably what Zim stubbed his toe on.) and with what appears to be years and years worth of termite damage. Dib fixes his light and leans down, letting the camera hang around his neck from the stap and grabs the handle.

The hatch comes up easily enough that a strong gust of wind could have opened it. Explains how all of those previous victims were able to get in so easily. Dib pats the pockets of his back out of habit, feeling the indentations of all of his gear before shining his light downwards.

A metal ladder embedded in the wall, leading down into the darkness where his light cannot follow.

There’s a flutter beside his ear and a shiver runs up his spine. “It smells like dust and germs down there.”

The teenager turns, bats away the infuriating antennae (seriously, he and Zim needed to have a talk about personal space. Preferably one that didn’t end up in a fist fight) and scoots away both for his own personal bubble and to allow Zim more sight down into the hole. The invader takes the hint wordlessly, leaning downwards and Dib resists the childish urge to pat him on the Pak just to make him wobble forwards. Not push him or anything, but you know, scare him a little. “See anything?”

“Aside from disgusting rat droppings? No. The ground floor is about thirty feet below here, though.” He squints into the dark and Dib is half-expecting a rant about the ‘superiority of Irken Ocular Implants’. Zim’s face twists up into grimace. “This is the place?”

“Looks like it.” Dib motions forwards with his hand. “Aliens first.”

Zim sneers in his direction. “Fool. I don’t trust you not to fall on me and the weight of your gigantic head will crush Zim.”

Dib snorts at him. “You’re just a wuss.” He’s promptly shoved into the dirt.

By the time the investigator collects himself, he spies the edge of the Pak light disappearing into the hole and the alien along with it, snickering resounding from the tunnel (along with an occasional yelp and openly disgusted groan of horror as the alien realizes that the inner tunnel walls are covered in a grime so thick it squeaks when he accidentally touches it.)

He realizes Zim must have hit the bottom when the faintest glimmer of light shines up at him from the darkness. The Pak leg must be extended up the hole, shining upwards to signify Zim was waiting for him at the bottom.

Dib takes a deep breathe, hooks his flashlight to his backpack and descends.

Chapter Text

He falls on Zim. Because of course he does.

Not that he mean't too. He was about halfway down the ladder when his foot slips out from underneath him, and in a struggle to keep himself attached, so does his hands. The grimness covering the metal bars didn't provide enough grip so Dib finds himself falling with a yelp, a split second of weightlessness before crashing into a non-too happy alien waiting below.

The back of his head clunks against Zim's jaw and his back smashed into the Invader's chest. Dib is in the midst of collecting his barings, sore and already groaning when Zim practically bursts his eardrums. "I knew you were going to try and CRUSH Zim with your massive head!"

Dib flinches and with eyes shut closed, flails to get to his feet. There's something wrapped around his med-section, like an arm that had tried to break his fall, but it falls away as the teen scrambles into standing position and fitfully trying to wipe the muck and dust that has covered his clothes on the impact. When it shows no progress, he sighs and brings out his flashlight. "It was an accident!"

"LIES. That was an attempt on Zim's life!" The alien rises, face twitched up into a disgusted snarl at the state of his attire. It was more dust and dirt than it was anything else, but Dib knows that Zim is a very picky alien indeed. He watches the alien fiddle with his uniform, brushing off the best he can and shaking out the fabric of his hoodie until he realizes there's no use. The Invader's shoulder's slump and his face locks into a permanent grimace. "You should have gone first, Dib-stink."

"And bust open my skull when I fall?" Dib scoffs. "No thanks. By the way, you're a horrible cushion."

Zim is in the middle of trying to form a rude gesture with his three fingers when Dib points the flashlight outwards to see where exactly they were. A small tunnel lay ahead of them, the light's end reaching as far as it could go and still nothing but old castle wall and dirty floor ahead. Cobwebs litter the ceiling and weeds were sticking out of the wall in various spots where the cracks ran deep, nature fighting to break inside the underground fortress. Dib steps on a yellow one peaking out of the brick when he steps forwards and almost feels bad for destroying all of it's hard work.

He's about to say something when Zim non-too politely shoves past him. "Let us go and solve this mystery already. I'm already ruined and I didn't bring any cleansing chalk with me."

The hallway is narrow and stuffy, so it doesn't take more than a small push from the Invader for Dib to find himself knocking into the wall. He sighs, coughs when the air is too dusty for his lungs, and frowns at the alien's back. "Why do you sound like an 80's anime villain whenever you talk?"

"Zim has no idea what you speak of, Dib-smell." Zim swivels his head to glare at him, or at least, he's assuming that it's a glare. Dib can't see anything but the red glow of the Invader's eyes. Did Zim have some sort of night vision? Most likely. "But I'm going to assume that's a compliment."

Dib resists the urge to retort, not for any other reason than the fact that he didn't want to be breathing in whatever was lingering in the air down here. Instead, he just makes a face of discontent, one he's sure Zim is smirking at, and fixates his light on the tunnel ahead of them.

They walk in quiet, mostly because their footsteps were so awkward and out of sync that it echoed in the tunnel and made an eerie sound that Dib wanted to over-analyze. The thump of Zim's boots and the scrape of his own sneakers were grinding a little bit on his nerves, and the silence wasn't helping. Or maybe that's the anxiety.

It takes another minute of walking for Dib to realize, (and he almost stumbles over his own feet when he does, the flashlight's beam waving wildly all over the place as he rights himself) that he's the only one of the two with a light source. "Hey. What happened to your Pak light?"

Red eyes deadpan at him "You broke the lenses when you fell on me. It's being repaired right now."

"Oh." Whoops. "My bad."

"You are bad."

The tunnel stretches out, the lowered ceiling of the room lifts upwards and suddenly Dib feels a little less claustrophobic than he realized. He hears Zim more than he can see him step away, probably off to complain about the cleanliness state of the castle some more and prod at the details. Whatever. Dib shines his light on every corner of the room they've walked in, and stops once he notices that the light is reflecting off more than it should.

The room was pretty big, with entryways leading into other tunnels and hallways to who knows where. There were differences in the floor, like objects that had been there for a long time recently moved. Old, wooden things with so much termite damage that they may have been mistaken for furniture before age took a hold of them. Metal hooks dot the walls in strategics positioning that would have held any lanterns for lighting. His foot sinks ever the slightest when he takes a step forwards and points the light down to see a rug, an elaborate design weaved in the middle lost to time and dust. Whoever this castle belonged to must have had a taste for the finer things in life.

Perhaps, in the light of it's earlier life, the underground castle would have been comfortable. It certainly looked like it used to be. An old, cracked fireplace was on the opposite wall with a large frame above it, whatever what used to be in that painting torn away from the canvas's edge. There are no windows, for obvious reasons, though one of the rotting pictures have blue and white on the art, like mimicking a false sky and clouds. Little details, like the engraved woodwork in a table leg or the smooch arch over a doorway is a hint that whatever lived here probably put in too much work to want to leave after death.

Dib shines his flashlight to the right side of the wall and winces at the light reflecting back at him. A mirror, larger than one he's ever seen before, stretches across the length of the wall.

He approaches it, barely seeing his own reflection in the shine light (he picked a leaf out of his hair that Zim apparently was just not gonna tell him about, that damn bug) and gives it a look over. Clean, polished, like age hasn't touched it. The corners of the frame looked to be false gold and the glass he see's himself in is without a spec of dirt or grime, like someone had been keeping up with it’s maintenance.

The reflection is eerie almost. Just him and his flashlight, with no illumination behind him so it looked like there was nothing but the pitch black void looming over his shoulders as he stared into the glass. Checking the corners, he doesn't see red eyes either and guesses that Zim has trailed off into another room. Dib reaches forward, fingertips brushing over the surface-

"Find anything yet?"

A jolt that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. Dib swings the flashlight around and Zim's face comes into view, one eye squinting at him at the motion. It takes him a split second for the scare to leave his system, but he has a insult at the ready before then. "Ew. A bug."

The Invader frowns. "I'll take that as a no."

"Actually." Dib steps to the side a little, bringing back his flashlight to the mirror and allowing the alien to take a good look at it. "Found this. Looks way too clean to be down here for so long. Think one of the visitors brought it down here?"

The alien's reflection looks slightly warped in the glass, and the teenager blames it on the lightening. Zim gives a thoughtful 'hmm' reaching out and uplifting the bottom edge of the mirror. Red eyes pear underneath, no doubt in disgust at whatever he finds, and settles it back against the wall. "Highly unlikely. There's a pale spot on the wall under it in it's shape. It's been hanging here for a long time."

"Hmm." Dib ponders for a moment, staring into the glass. He mindlessly pats the backpack pockets with his free hand as he sends the alien a side-ways glance. "You could of told me I had a leaf in my hair."

"I thought the dirty-worm look suited you."

"Yeah, well. You're ugly." Dib ignores the hiss to his insult and hooks his flash light to his side, feeling up the sides of the backpack in the dark. He knew what he was looking for, he didn't need to see to feel around, and he was too much of a pride rat to ask Zim to reach inside and grab it for him. Once his fingers close around the equipment, he holds it outwards in whatever direction he hopes the alien is in. "Hold this."

A grumble from the dark, but the box disappears from his grip and Dib uprights himself. He fixates the flashlight on Zim, who cocks a hairless eyebrow at him for his attention, before Dib reaches forwards and all but snags the bag of his hood and pull it down over the alien's face. "Wha the-! Zim has been ATTACKED."

Dib is quick as he can manage, bringing up the camera from his neck and snapping and a quick photo of their reflections before Zim tears his face free and snarls at the offending teenager. "How DARE you use Zim's clothing to block his vision!" Clawed hands hook around the collar of his shirt as the picture loads and Dib forgoes taking a look at the image for being glared at in neon red instead. "Your jealously of my superior eye-opitcals have gone far enough!-"

"I did you a favor." Dib forces the camera between them, image screen pointed towards the alien's face and watches as his head tilts lower to bring his glare downwards from investigator to picture screen. "You didn't want another picture of you without your disguise, right?" Dib speaks with the slightest hint of an attitude. "You're welcome, ungrateful bug."

Zim's claws do not let go of the fabric around his neck, if anything they seem to tighten as the Invader stares at the image. Dib shifts, a frog in his throat. They were close, the camera the only barrier between them if they wanted to konk heads, and whatever was showing on the screen appeared to have grabbed the alien's undivided attention. "Uh, Zim?"

Red eyes blink. He has no pupils, so there's really no telling, but Dib swears he glances up towards him before his gaze fleets back down to the image.

"Zim? You're poking holes in my clothes."

A pause, then the grip around his collar loosens, a small noise of tearing thread as the tips of Zim's fingers retract back from the small holes they've pricked into Dib's neckline. The dark haired boy straightens his posture and restrains a sigh. Soon another loss for his forsaken wardrobe.

Zim looks uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. There's a fidget in his hands and a twitch in his antenna, standing straight up and tall, alert. They stretched high enough that they fall out of Dib's flashlight beam and disappear into the darkness. The Invader looked downright spooked, if anything, and the creepy voidless background surrounding him didn't help the image. Dib resists a shudder and cocks an eyebrow at him. "What's up with you?"

"I think our camera is broken." When Zim speaks, it's a lot quieter than Dib expected. Zim reaches out and flips the camera in his hands so the screen faced the teen. He points at it with a determined claw and Dib squinted at the spot he's directed. "Look, here."

Zim points at himself, or at least the digitized image of himself. The image was slightly skewed by the camera's flash reflecting off of the mirror's glass but Dib could see both himself and the alien somewhat clearly. He looks how he usually does, his face hidden by the camera held upwards. Zim is to his side, purple hoodie pulled over his face and his arms blurry in a flailing motion to swat away Dib's offending hand. The refection checked out, and the rest of the mirror looked normal too. The light did a good job of capturing how clean the surface looked, and all the little details etched into the frame.

Zim's claw makes a little tapping noise as he pokes the screen where his face should have been. "See here? Something is wrong with Zim."

Dib lowers the camera and gives the shaking red eyes a look. "You look fine to me." A pause, and he tries to fight the slightest of a smirk rising on his face. "I mean, you're not wrong when you say something is wrong with you. But you look like a normal bug to me."

Red eyes grow wide and Dib fixates the flashlight on Zim's face just in time to watch the alien's expression turn sour. "Get your inferior squishy eyeballs fixed, stinky. Zim does NOT look like that!"

Dib looks down to the image, up to the alien, down to the image again, and even doubly checks the Invader's reflection. "Yeah, you're right. You look more like a toy snake."

Something conks him in the forehead and Dib has to juggle between camera and hands in order to catch the spirit box flung at him. He catches it just in time, and sends a glare in the Invader's direction, all whom has taken large stride backwards and out of range for any counter attacks. "And you look like someone drew glasses over the side of a basket ball. Now cease your poorly tuned blabbering and do what we came here to do."

Dib resists the urge to swipe out a him (it wouldn't have ended well, getting into a scuffle down here, for more reasons than one) and settles for a sigh instead. He straightens his posture and turns away from the mirror, ignoring it's oddity for the time being and shining his flashlight around the room. There, a few feet away was what appeared to be some sort of end table, or at least the remainents of one, and sets the Spirit box down on top of it. He makes sure it's well put before switching it on and a familiar static fills the silence.

He can't see Zim, but he doesn't have to know that the sudden noise jolts the alien, one hand coming down over one of his more sensitive antennae. "And now what is THIS annoying racket."

“Less annoying than you are.” Dib counters, backing away from the box and finding a spot a few feet away to stand at the ready. “It’s a spirit box. Ghosts can communicate with us through it by using the frequencies it puts off. We can try to talk to it, and it might answer us.”

Zim narrows his eyes at the explanation, an flash of disbelief across his expression. Dib doesn’t miss the way Zim cranes towards him to hear him better over the box’s interference. “The dead can’t speak.”

“Some of them can.” Dib motions the alien towards him, away from the box and hopefully away from any temptation the Invader would have to take the poor piece of equipment and smashing it. He could see irritation bubbling up on the alien’s face in the low light and he wasn’t going to risk having to spend another lump some of money for more gear just because his ‘partner’ got annoyed.

Zim grumbles under his breath, stepping back from the spirit box (that was getting increasingly louder by the second, unfortunately) and standing stoically to Dib’s side.

“Not a lot of them. Supposedly only the more powerful entities can speak to you without assistance, and even then it’s difficult to understand. That’s why I brought a bunch of stuff to help it out.” Dib pats his backpack with his free hand and keeps the flashlight trained on Zim with his other. He wonders if the sour look on Zim’s face is from the light burning into his eyes or simply because Dib was about to go on another paranormal spiel. “If we can talk to it, or get it to talk to us, we can probably figure out why it’s doing this kind of stuff.”

“Why on IRK would you want to speak to something that’s already killed 13 of your kind.” Zim scoffs and his teeth look sharper in the low light. “If an Irken killed other Irkens without reason, it calls for an immediate execution. There's a trial, but it's merely a formality." He waves a hand off casually, like he's talking about the weather. "There is no ‘talking’. There is only solutions.”

Dib deadpans at him. “So what are you implying?”

“We should just kill it and leave this place. Problem solved”

The spirit box sputters for a moment. Just enough for the static to dip out, a second long enough for Dib to notice. Zim’s antennae twitches in it’s direction, signifying that the Irken noticed it as well, but if the Invader had any commentary on it, it’s not spoken, instead sending a glare towards the dark haired boy in full confidence of his statement.

The dark haired boy’s gaze lingers on the box just for a moment, brushes it off as coincidence and sends the alien an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Killing it wouldn’t solve the mystery. There’s more to our investigations than just killing things.”

Zim’s eye twitches (the same one he had lost for a little while, if Dib remembers correctly) and groans an frustrated sound, crossing his arms. “Who cares about why it does these things? The only thing that matters is getting rid of it.”

“Well, I care about the mystery, thank you very much.” Dib snarks. The static cuts through his sentence and deflates his attitude just in the slightest. “And you can’t ‘get rid of’ a ghost the same way you can a normal, living being.”

His response is a curt, haughty laugh. “Fool. Of course I can. Zim can kill anything.”

Dib resists the urge to roll his eyes and ultimately fails. “Okay, Zim. Since you’re such an expert,” He drawls out that last word just for the sake of grinding on the alien’s nerves. “Tell me how, exactly, should we kill the ghost?”

A bright, enthusiastic smile stretches across the Invader’s face and Zim’s mouth opens wide and with energy…then hangs open in silence, one hand curled up in a fist as if to emphasizes his plan only to realize that the lack of one was stunningly apparent. Dib stands patiently, face unimpressed and watching as the alien searches for words for a plan he doesn’t have.

Eventually, the static becomes too much and Zim’s voice overwhelms it with a half-assed deflection. “Don’t you look at me that way, stink-boy. Zim knows your kind have a way to execute these ‘ghosts’-”

“Exorcise.” Dib corrects.

Zim flashes an irritated snarl. “Just talk to the damnable thing already.”

Dib snorts at the alien’s defeat and turns his attention back to the spirit box. The noise hasn’t grown any quieter or louder, keeping a steadied stream of static bursting from it’s speakers. The disappointment rises in him for just a moment, before memory reminds him that this was indeed, already a verified highly active place for paranormal activity. He just was too busy bantering with the enemy that he forgot all manners of introduction, again.

Still, something seemed off. It was very odd for a place with such active history linked to such an entity would be this quiet. Whoever was haunting this place, original owner or some other tenet, was either out for lunch at the time of Dib and Zim’s arrival, or simply a very patient subject. He was going to stake his suspicions on the latter, and that didn’t exactly have good implications. Patient ghosts are ghosts with a plan, and this one already had a body count.

“My name is Dib Membrane. I’m a paranormal investigator sent by the Swollen Eyeball.” He starts off. Straight to the point and precise. The dead don’t like it when you beat around the bush. “I’ve been sent to investigate who or what’s been causing locale around here to go insane.”

The static sputters from the box in choppy little noises but no show of an answer. He hears Zim huff from beside him in the darkness and Dib sighs, musters up friendliness (this ghost doesn’t deserve it for obvious reasons, but angering it at the wrong time could mean bad troubles) and gestures to his ‘partner’.

“And this is-”

“Zim. I am ZIM. Lord of all humans, alive or dead and future conqueror of this Earth!” Zim interjects loud and overwhelming, hands on his hips and pride in his stance. He takes the following silent second as a cue to continue. “You’re pathetic feats of madness mean nothing to me, ghost-beast. I have committed great tasks of a much higher caliber than your silly little murders could ever hope to achieve!”

Dib doesn’t know whether to feel horrified or embarrassed. “Quit it!”

“And this human-!” Dib can’t see very well in the dark, but he has the feeling that Zim is pointing dramatically at him. “Has tasted defeat by my hands more times than your puny ghost-brain can comprehend!” He yells. Dib throws an arm out to smack him but ends up hitting air as he continues. A turn of the flashlight, and Dib gets a full scene view of Zim shaking a fist aggressively to thin air. “AND YOU WILL ALSO TASTE IT, FOUL GHOST BEAST-!”

A hand clasps over the Invader’s mouth and reduces the declarations to muffled yells and teeth. Dib winces as Zim’s hands fly up and dig into his wrist, teeth cut into his palm and only feels the slightest bit of satisfaction when the alien goes still at the taste. “What is your problem? We’re trying to make to cooperate, not provoke it!”

Red eyes narrow in a threat, still seemly glowing from the dark (Dib would be lying if it didn’t look both incredibly intimidating and super cool) before Zim pries the offending hand away and very loudly makes a show of spitting onto the castle floor. “Filthy Dib! Zim was in the middle of establishing his status over the pathetic ghost creature!”

Dib groans. Loudly, annoyed, running a hand down his face and dragging the skin of his cheeks with him until he’s pretty sure Zim is a little creeped out by the sight because of course the alien can’t go two seconds without having the urge to assert his dominance over something that neither of them could even see. “Listen, just-… Just shut up and let me do it, alright? I’m the paranormal investigator here, not you.”

Something about that sentences makes Zim’s expression twitch. He opens his mouth to say something, but Dib watches his tongue curl back and the alien close his jaw, turning away from the teenager and settling to cross his arms, if not to give the boy a casual wave of the hand. “Fine.”

“Thank you.” Dib takes a deep breathe, straightens his posture and faces the box again with confidence. Only that confidence depletes as soon as the realization sinks in that the spirit box, was indeed, still lacking any responses. The only difference now is that the static is even and no longer sputtering, just a steady stream of white noise filling the room and echoing off the walls.

Odd. Usually by now they would have had something. Even with Zim’s monologue and Dib’s awkward introduction, there was still plenty for the entity to work with. He shifts uncomfortably and despite his pride willing against it, clears his throat and decides to take a more direct approach. “If there’s anyone here, make yourself known. You can use the box to speak to us.”

Static filled silence. The quiet intake of Zim’s breathing is becoming increasingly louder in his ears and Dib is once again reminded by the reddening of his face that he’s usually doing this sort of stuff alone.

“Okay then, since violence is the only language you speak.” Dib raises his arms, accidentally smacking Zim in the face in the motion, and bellows out again. “Punch me! Punch me right in the face!”

A blunt jab to his ribs and Dib takes a sharp inhale. His heart leaps to his throat and goosebumps instantly trail over his skin. For a moment in the back of his brain, all he can really think is that he just provoked a serial killing ghost and instantly regrets it, stumbling back away from the direction of the hit.

Zim’s fist uncurls in the last second as he tries to move away and snags his trench coat by the back fabric. “You’re allowed to provoke it, but not me?”

Dib’s face falls from fear just to straight up exasperation. He rubs the tender spot on his ribs, sending the alien a bared look. “Ok, so I’m a hypocrite. Did you really have to punch me for it?”

"Of course, squishy-boy." Zim finds the spot where Dib’s hand is rubbing the tender flesh and gives it a comical pat. “Only Zim can beat up the Dib. No ghosts.”

“I’ll be sure to tell it that when-”

A shrill noise. Like a record scratching, except it sounds more like chalk grating against concrete at higher decibels than Dib’s ears can handle.

The teenager’s hands fly up to his ears and Zim’s antenna stand straight up. Both stumble backwards, further away from the spirit box until Dib’s back hits the wall and nearly knocks off the mirror with it. The sound is horrific, it seems to bounce off the walls and echo back into him, sending crawling sensations into his skin and a chill down his spine.

Dib’s eyes are scrunched tight so he can’t see what Zim is doing. Trying to speak only brings more noise that his brain can’t handle and he’s pretty sure if this continues on for any longer, his ears are going to bleed. The racket is louder than anything he’s ever heard, destroying his eardrums. Zim’s maniacal laughter didn’t even compare to the assault on his hearing at the moment.

It grows higher, higher up to the point where he didn’t even think was possible. Like a dog whistle that was just low enough that it drilled through your eardrums and sawed away at your brain. Dib feels his face is wet long before he even knows he’s crying. The sound is miserable. He feels miserable.

Then, it rises even higher, up and up until it fades and it’s silent.

A full, heavy thirty seconds pass of fearful wondering control him until Dib is certain that the sound is actually gone. He can’t hear his own shaky breathing. Briefly, he wonders if he’s gone deaf. Dib lowers his hands.

At least, he tries to. Something holds them in place and it takes him opening his eyes and blinking away the left over tears to see a red uniform covering his vision. He’s hunched over then, didn’t even notice. Pulling his hands away from his ears a second time bring them downwards, and Dib finally notices the second pair of green hands that were covering his own, helping block out the noise.

Zim’s hands fall down to his side, steps back until Dib’s face isn’t buried into his collarbone any longer, and stares blankly.

“Okay. Okay.” Deep breathes. Hearing his own voice sends a relief flooding his system he didn’t know he needed. Dib has faced worst then that. He was just caught off guard, is all. “We…probably shouldn’t have provoked it like that.” Yeah, no shit Sherlock.

He looks up and a harsh light burns into his eyes. Zim’s Pak light was repaired and out again, glaring down at him the same way Zim himself was. Dib doesn’t give himself time to read the invader’s expression. He finds his flashlight on the floor (he doesn’t remember dropping it) and picks it up, checks the lenses and shines it equally back onto the alien.

Zim looks at him with a blank expression. “You’re dripping.”

Dib sniffs, takes off his glasses and uses his palm and sleeve to wipe off the wetness that was lingering on his face. He hopes that the low light is enough to hide the color of the initial embarrassment flooding into his cheeks, but the glint of the Pak light disproves that hope easily. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

He flicks away the tears, settles his glasses back on his face and meet’s Zim’s gaze. His antenna are straight shot in the air, stiff and unmoving. Dib quietly notes that the spirit box has gone silent, even though it’s blinking light states that it’s still powered and functional. “Are you okay?”

Zim blinks and Dib feels his gaze shift from the spirit box and back to him again. “Are you?”

“Your antenna.” Dib frankly ignores the deflection with his own and goes even so far to point to the top of his head, as if his cowlick mimicked the alien’s appendages. “Aren’t they super sensitive to high vibrations? Super high noises?” Zim is looking at him weird. “Didn’t you hear that sound?”

Zim’s body is statue still save for the opening and closing of his hands, back and forth until they’re cupped like still grasping the side of Dib’s head. His head tilts slightly in the direction of the box, his antenna twitching for a moment, listening, before turning back to Dib with a strange, if not shielded look on his face. “Zim didn’t hear a high noise.”

That’s impossible. “I saw you flinch away from it.”

“I was following you.”

“I-” Dib falters. His fingertips drum against the flashlight. The beam of light shakes as it shines against the Irken and he hopes to Saturn the alien doesn’t notice. He flashes it around the room just to quell the anxiety. Everything still looks the same, save for the mirror. A crack shapes in the glass, thin and extending across the length. Probably due to the sound.

Dib stares at it and briefly wonders how insane he sounds. “But I heard it.”

Two claws reach forward, grasp his chin and Dib feels his body start to lower from the adrenaline as Zim carefully but surely, tilt his head to the side and give the sides of his head a look over, the Pak light craning forwards to give him a better view.

Just as Dib feels his old self reel back into place, about to shove the touch away, the invader pulls back, a small ‘hmm’ of satisfaction when he finds no blood trickling from the human’s ears. “Perhaps that large head of yours is malfunctioning. Zim didn’t hear any annoying noises.”

Dib has caught his breath, lowered his heart rate, and is back to reality enough to send Zim a shot of confusion. He watches the alien shift on his feet and avoid looking in the direction of the box any further. A theory forms in his mind. “What did you hear, then?”

Zim goes still and looks to the space over Dib’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”

His theory is correct. They didn’t hear the same thing.

“Zim-”

“Let us continue.” Zim breaks Dib’s sentence before his name even fully left the boy’s mouth, walking towards one of the many tunnels the room led out of and picking on seemly at random. “This room heeded no results aside from your pathetic crying. Let’s move on somewhere else. Leave the box.” Zim, assertive in the investigation much to Dib’s surprise (and chagrin) all but tilts his head for the human to follow, Pak light shining down the following hallway. “And stay close to Zim.”

Between the width of the hallways and the apparently growing concern that was growing in Dib’s chest, he didn’t have much a choice. Still, something felt off and more than what it normally was supposed to be. It’s not like he expected this investigation to be easy, but having a partner was…different. Dib was geared up and prepared enough to face hell. Handling Zim was a completely different ballpark.

Dib bites his tongue and stops himself from protesting. He didn't want to drop the subject, but something tells him if he keeps pushing, he'll just make it worse. Fine, he'll be subtle about it.

He presses a button on the box just as he passes it and meets Zim at the shoulder. “We’ll leave it recording. Just in case anything else passes through it and we’re not here to hear it.”

His response is a sharp look and a grumble underneath the alien’s breathe, but the two turn away from the main room and down the hallway, away from the now-silent spirit box and the strange large mirror hanging across from it.

The hallway tempers out, the ceiling gets lower but the width becomes wider. Short enough where Zim has to keep his Pak light lowered to half a foot above his head and the two of them can walk along side each other without grating their sides against the wall. Their footsteps still echo like they did before, but the place seems oddly more quiet now. Sounds are much more intensive, and Dib almost flinches when he accidentally kicks a rock and it makes a skittering noise falling down the hall.

Zim is silent, for once. Not the kind of silent where he was focusing on something, no, the kind where he was actively avoiding conversation. Antenna stand up straight and the Invader is looking forwards, not turning his head at the slightest mishap of sound or even when Dib clears his throat. Dib sneaks glances here and there, but vision is limited and he can’t be as obvious as to just straight up shine his flashlight in Zim face again. No, he needed to be subtle. Just keeping an eye on him-

“You’re staring.” Zim’s voice is low and straightforward.

Fuck. Dib really wished Zim was wearing his contacts. It was a lot easier to tell what direction the alien was looking at when his eyes weren’t just pupil-less spheres of red. “Something’s bothering you.”

Zim doesn’t look at him, and Dib can’t see, but he can simply feel the scoff and sarcastic smile itch itself across his stupid green face. “Of course there are things bothering Zim, stink-boy. You are one of them.”

“You’re not exactly perfect company yourself.” Dib snarks back, but it’s lost it’s malice. “But I meant other things. You know, stuff that’s not me.” A pause. He searches for his words. “Wanna talk about it?”

Both Pak light and alien alike pause in their walk to send Dib a look. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

Zim grunts something incomprehensible as a response and Dib questions why he even bothered to invite the alien out to the investigation in the first place. He should have just taken a plane instead, or hell, even risked drowning Tak’s ship. The silence was unnerving by the minute and normally that would be expected. But with a second person here? You’d expect conversation, some normalcy, even some insults would be comforting.

The hairs on Dib’s arm are standing up and the teenager frowns at it. This isn’t the scariest investigation he’s been on, and it certainly wouldn’t be the darkest. But the presence of his enemy was something he really should have factored in to the fear meter before jumping down this hole with nothing more than a dose of over-confidence and a holy water gun.

Speaking of which: Dib reaches back and unzips one of the outside compartments.

Zim’s attention, oddly enough, drags from forward vision to where Dib’s hand sunk in his bag and the boy freezes. Would he go ballistic if he brought the gun out? Would Zim take the item and smash it against the wall, rendering it useless? Accuse him of betrayal, of plans to assassinate and ‘Great and Almighty Zim’ in an underground fortress hundreds of miles away from his base with no more than a children’s toy?

Dib only breaks through his thoughts when a clawed hand is open and thrust into his vision. Zim’s mouth is pressed into a thin line, but he doesn’t protest. “Give me the camera.”

The teenager blinks in surprise. “What? What for?”

“So you can hold your ‘weapon’ easier.” The last word comes out stretched and sarcastic. “And I hasn’t had any time with the camera. Stop being selfish and give to Zim.”

Zim was okay with Dib with a water-gun in close proximity. That totally wasn’t weird at all. Unwrapping the strap from around his neck, Dib puts the camera into outstretched claws and brings the water-gun forwards. He doubly checks it’s tiny plastic water barrel. Full of holy water, just one pull of a plastic trigger to deter any sort of malicious or demonic presence. Or aliens. They’re basically the same thing.

“If you spray Zim, I will slaughter you.” The alien continues walking. Their strides matched in pace, an odd thing to notice, because Dib has to slow down here and there to shuffle in his bag without stopping, so Zim must be matching his pace without acknowledgement. It’s weird not being insulted for being so slow. “Do you understand me, Earthboy?”

Dib’s frown feels less unwelcome and more playful than he thinks it should. “No, sorry. Can’t hear you. Think I had my eardrums blown out back there.”

There’s a spark of irritation on Zim’s face, and it’s almost a comfort to see him react to something. “Listen here, Dib-”

“Hold on.” The hallway stops into a room. Dib stops them both, halting his own walking and instinctively throwing out an arm in front of the alien to hold him too. He doesn’t see the odd look shot down at his arm, nor the scrunched one he’s given when he walked away from their spot, a few steps ahead and shining his flashlight down into the darkness. “What are those?”

Footsteps fall behind him until Zim is shoulder to shoulder with him again. A curious click sounds from the alien’s throat. “You have functioning eyes, Dib-stink. Not as good as mine, but functional enough.” He huffs. “Still…that’s very odd.”

Mirrors. Lots and lots of mirrors. The walls were decked with them.

Small mirrors. Big mirrors. Broken mirrors, ones that looked brand new. Dirty. Clean. Scratched. Full length. Circle framed. Star-shaped. The entire room was top to bottom covered in glass and frames. The light of their flashlights reflect off the glass of where the beam hits and directs to another, making the room much brighter than where they’ve already been in the fortress tonight. The sudden light increase almost make Dib’s eyes water.

“Now this is getting somewhere.” Dib laughs, and it’s partially uneasy, mostly invigorating. Finally, they were getting some clues to the place. There’s no fucking way someone needed this many mirrors unless they up to no good. Dib practically jogs up to a stretched mirror across the wall and drags a finger down it’s dusty glass. “It could just be whoever owned the place was a massive sucker for vanity. But do you know all the occult stuff that can be down with mirrors?”

“If you expect me to know that answer, you’re wrong.” Zim answers him from across the room. He gives the mirrors a look over with an expression of caution, peering into the reflection and even shooting a picture of the room from an angle. Just enough to make sure he wasn’t going to appear undisguised in any of the pictures.

Zim sticks a claw underneath one of the frames and lifts it upwards. Dib expects him to drop it back down again, instead cocking an eyebrow of interest when the alien flips it over to the back side. “There’s writing on the back here.” He gives a thoughtful hmm, glancing out to the rest of the room. “These mirrors haven’t been here as long as the first one. The marks against the wall are less contrast.”

Dib flips one mirror up and finds writing etched across the back panel in what appears to be pen. Or maybe not pen. It was scratchy and horrible handwriting, but surprisingly coherent. At least, the letters were. The words don’t form in his head and Dib turns to Zim with an unspoken request.

The Invader is taking pictures (color Dib surprised) of the backs of the mirrors when he catches amber eyes pointedly staring at him. Dib looks expectant and Zim turns his attention haughtily to the sentence. “Votre esprit sera éclaté” He mulls over the words for a second before turning to Dib. “It says your head is the equivalent of a blimp.”

Dib opens his mouth to retort, see’s a familiar mischievous grin at the corner of the alien’s mouth and decides against it. “Haha, you’re a comedic genius.”

“I am. Took you long enough to recognize it, Dib-stink.”

Dib thwacks him on the sleeve with his thumb and points to another mirror. “Ok, do this one.” A pause. “And do it seriously.”

Zim gives a faint noise of acknowledgement before running over the words. A second passes, and his eyes narrow at the writing. Dib stands awkwardly and tries to be patient. This one was taking longer than normal. “Well?”

“Votre image est un menteur.” Zim sounds particularly intrigued. “Your image is a liar.”

Well, that wasn’t vague and ominous at all. Dib points to another. “That one?”

Zim’s Pak light shines down on the back panel. The light shows how filthy it is and he can see the invader inwardly cringe. “Comme ci-dessus, donc ci-dessous.” He lets the frame drop and frowns at the dust cloud that comes up with it. “As above, so below.”

Welp. That was alarming. Pretty popular occult phrase. Dib didn’t need to study paranormal science in order to recognize that one. Alright, he’s seen enough. Well, not entirely, but enough for extra measures to be taken. If the incident with the spirit box wasn’t enough, the weird, creepy messages surely kicked the ball.

Zim is flipping over frames, continuing to translate under his breath. He turns to ask a question only to watch as Dib unscrews the water barrel from the gun, opens the cap and downs half the contents. “What on IRK on you doing?”

“Perca-” Dib coughs when the liquid goes down the wrong pipe and clears his throat before trying again. “Precautions. Holy water doesn’t taste good, but it’ll protect you for a short time from pretty much everything.” He coughs into his hand, tries not to gag at the stale taste left in his mouth and holds out the half-full container to Zim. “Drink up.”

“I would rather be deactivated.”

“C’mon.” Dib pushes it a little further and Zim nearly swats it out of the teenager’s grasp. He tries to be persuasive. “I know it will burn going down, but it’s for safety reasons. Like, possession or curses-”

Zim’s prideful laughter cuts him off. “Stupid. Irken Paks are immune to your planets ailments, human-kind or other wise.” He laughs again, if anything to just to get on the dark haired boy’s nerves. “I don’t need your false protection.”

The frown on Dib’s face sinks deeper and he doesn’t even try to hide his disapproval as Zim continues to flip over mirrors (quickly, actively avoiding the glass sides almost) and translate without sharing. He huffs, screws the barrel and the remainder of it’s water back onto the water gun and shakes it for good luck. “A serious paranormal investigator takes all sorts of safety measures, you know.”

Something about his sentence must have peeved the Irken off. Zim stops his mirror flipping to scowl in Dib’s direction, a sharp tooth peeking out over his lip. “Well, It’s a good thing Zim isn’t a filthy para-normy investigator, isn’t it?”

Yikes. That felt like a jab for earlier. Also, he mispronounced paranormal on purpose, the green bastard. Dib takes a deep breathe and lets the irritation simmer down. He probably deserved that one. “Is any of that reading giving you any clues as to whats down here with us?”

Zim shakes his head. “Does every dead ghost-beast like to be this cryptic and vague?”

“Only the best ones. You seriously didn’t get anything from those translations?”

“Nothing I can make sense of. At least, nothing that would make sense to Zim.” A pause, and the alien seems to mull over something for a second before shrugging.“I don’t know anything about your silly, human occult mysteries.”

Dib steps closer, lighter in his step and offers a smile. “Humor me. What do you think it is?”

Zim looks at him not directly, but through the reflection of yet another mirror. Hesitance shows on his face, and Dib thinks he’s about to be insulted again before Zim gives a unsure answer. “Bloody Mary?”

Dib visibly flinches. “Don’t say her name in a room like this.”

Zim deadpans. “You asked, Earthboy.”

“And I regret it. Where did you even learn about that one? She’s not even French.”

“Zim watched a horror movie once with Gir, you know.” He flips the underside of a mirror upwards, a flash of disappointment flashing across his face when it turns up blank and lets it drop. “I liked the screaming, and the parts with the decapitation. Gir cried for nearly a week and wouldn’t look into anything with a reflection.”

He pauses to see if Dib would connect the dots on his own. “My base is made of almost entirely shiny metal. He glued his face to the floor and I had to cut the tile out to move him, then lure him into the lab with dish soap nachos to lazor him free.”

An mental image of Zim trying to pry a piece of floor tiling from his robot whist the crying minion snacked on soapy nachos was enough to make Dib giggle, even if a bit nervously. “Whatever.” The smile he has is genuine. “Just don’t say that out loud right now. It freaks me out.”

He regrets his words the second they leave his mouth. Zim’s grin stretches wider. A chill runs down the teenager’s spine and Dib resists the urge to jump across the space to slap a hand across his mouth. Whatever protest he had dies with Zim’s next words: “Bloody Mary.”

His jolt must have been noticeable, Dib presses a hand on Zim’s shoulder if anything to show that this was really not an okay thing to do right now. “That’s not funny!”

Zim laughs at his fear.“Bloody Mary!”

Dib makes to cover his mouth in a fit of panic and falls a few inches short when Zim takes a long stride backwards, amusement dancing across his face. There’s ringing in Dib’s ears.“Stop it!”

“Bloody Ma-!”

Dib pushes him. Zim’s Pak smacks into the closest mirror and a crack forms upwards in it, trailing over the invader’s head and shaking the frame. Dib curls his fingers into the alien’s hoodie as a panicked, nearly angry expression twists in his face.

“Seriously! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Dib hisses at him, not even flinching when Zim stops rubbing the back of his head to bare an open sharp tooth maw in his face. “Why do you always have to practically invite trouble to us that could get us both killed?!-”

Claws grip around his wrist and Dib finds himself too frustrated to stop Zim from actively flipping him over, slamming his back into the glass and snarling into his face. His fingers were still curled up into the Invader’s hoodie, but Zim’s hands move from his wrist to his shoulders, effectively pinning the teenager to the wall with a not-so-pleasant look on his face.

Well. This took a miserable turn of events.

“You insufferable, hypocritical little worm.” Zim’s face is close enough that he nearly spits on Dib’s cheek. If his throat and mouth hadn’t have gone dry from the anxiety alone, Dib might have even done it to get back at him. “It was your idea to come to this IRK forsaken place. You took on this ‘investigation’. You’re the one putting your own life in danger for the sake of other human being’s information retrieval and you dare blame me for your incompetence?!”

Dib bares his teeth and all but blows hot air into Zim’s face. “You’ve been trying to kill me since I was twelve! Now you’re lecturing me about my dangerous career choices?” He laughs, and it’s nearly insane. Rage has bubbled up inside his throat and it has boiled in his words quickly. “I don’t want to hear shit from you, buddy.”

“I should have cut your tongue out while you were passed out in the Voot.” His snarl is no more malicious than any other threat Dib is used to, but this one feels different. This entire fight still feels different from how it used to be. “I can do that now. But I won’t. Because Zim is merciful as your future overlord-”

“Merciful enough that you’ll hold off my death until after you’ve taken over Earth?” Dib breathes hard through his nose and grits his teeth as he watches Zim’s form tense even further. It’s a low blow, but he doesn’t care. “I’ll die before that happens, and you could have just saved yourself the trouble.”

One red eye twitches. “Meaning?”

“You should of left me back in that fucking forest-”

Zim lifts him forwards and pushes him back, shoving Dib against the glass for a second time and the teenager’s voice gets caught in his throat. Sharp points dig into his shoulders and Dib is reminded of year old scars and late night ER room visits. A pained noise escapes him before he could stop it, and to his not-so-immediate surprise, they drag from his shoulder to bunch up the front of his trench coat and snagging all the clothing layers underneath it instead.

The alien’s face is full of unbroken rage and something else he can’t read. Zim doesn’t even flinch when Dib places the tip of the water gun underneath his chin.

“You will listen to Zim or else I will make sure bloody ears will be the last of your concern.” He breathes into Dib’s face and it smells like venom. A snarl sits heavy on Dib’s mouth, lips down turned but silent just for the moment if all just to bite his tongue.

Zim glances down at it before looking back up into amber again. For a split second, his face softens.“I’m-”

A choking noise. One of Zim’s eyes go wide, the other scrunched tight in a expression of pain. Dib feels the grip around his clothing tighten and then suddenly loosen when the invader’s head shifts upwards. He’s staring fearfully over Dib’s shoulder, directly into his reflection in the mirror. Dib can’t see it, not being restrained the way he is and so all the clue he has is the reflection of Zim’s own face staring back at him in the red of his eyes.

“My Tallest?”

The anger in Dib dissipates into confusion. The grip on his clothing tugs forwards until he’s unceremoniously yanked away from the mirror in what appears to be a instinctual reaction. Zim has pulled Dib out from under the mirror and the teenager finds himself stumbling off to the side. He gathers his footing, (tries to re-ignite his anger for his own pride) and turns to yell obscenities at the alien when a smashing noise breaks out, and his skin goes cold.

There’s a Pak leg embedded into the glass of the mirror, cracks and splinters destroying the nearly flawless glass beforehand. Zim stares horrified into his reflection among broken pieces.

“Zim.” Dib’s voice comes out shakier than he though it would. Damn it. He tries to keep the anger in his tone. The camera has been dropped to the floor, facing them. The red light blinking shows it’s still recording. Dib picks it up, fastens it back around his neck and glares. “What’s going on?”

No answer. The alien’s heavy breathing is the only sound Dib can hear in the room, save for the thundering beat of his heart ramming against his chest. “Zim.” He tries again. No response. The Invader is as still as a statue, eyes wide and sweat beading down his face. Then, it twists into a mix of emotions. Confusion. Betrayal. Hurt. Relief. Anger.

Dib checks the mirror and watches the playback of his turmoil in the glass. Whatever the invader was seeing, Dib isn’t able to see it.

“My Tallest?” Zim’s voice sounds croakier and less intense than what it did a few moments ago. “My Tallest?”

Dib swallows the lump in his throat when the Pak light transforms into a sharp point, erasing the light from the still-dim room and plunging them back into darkness. It takes Dib a moment to fiddle with the flashlight until he’s able to see it again, both hands clutching it with a knuckle white grip, he keeps the light on Zim. “Zim?”

A twitch of the antenna. It trails towards his direction. He’ll take that as a good sign. “Zim, buddy. Hey.” Soft voice. Careful footsteps. A steel grip on the water gun. He uses the hand holding the flashlight to lightly tap his shoulder. “Hey, it’s me-”

Pak legs rush out from Zim’s back, clattering against the low ceiling and slicing open the back of Dib’s hand. The teenager jumps back, hissing under his breath but keeping his eyes trained on the alien.

“My Tallest. My Tallest. Zim said he was sorry. I said I was sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” Words come out under Zim’s breathe, barely loud enough for Dib to hear. Some in English. Some in Irken. Some in french. They roll off his tongue in hurried, mumbled speech. “Sorry. I can be a good Invader. I can give you this planet. I can fix this. I will fix it. It wasn’t Zim’s fault.”

Dib swallows and the faint staleness of the holy water burns his throat. “Zim. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with Zim. There’s nothing. There’s nothing.” There’s a shaking in his voice and it almost sounds like Zim is crying. If Dib were to steady his own shaking in his hands and focus the light on the Invader’s face, perhaps he would find tears. “There’s nothing. Zim had done nothing wrong. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.”

Dib backs up towards the hallway but stops after one step when a Pak Leg twitches in his direction. At first Dib thinks he’s going to be impaled, but the movements are more robotic than usual. It hovers to the left of him, then to the right, then stabs the concrete in front of his feet and leaves a heavy indentation in the floor where it drags backwards.

(It occurs to Dib in the back of his mind that this is the part in the horror movies where everything suddenly goes to shit.)

“Zim, whatever you’re seeing right now. Whatever your hearing…” His words trail off. How does one comfort a hallucinating alien, exactly? “It’s not real. None of it’s real. Don’t let it get to you.”

“Not real. Yes. Not real.” Zim laughs a little. It sounds weak and forced. “Of course it isn’t real. None of this is real. Zim wouldn’t have made those mistakes. I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have.”

The way he talks is low and quickly, more breathing than actual speech and less coherency. Clicks sound of from the alien’s throat in rapid session and it lowers, like a door creaking open as something malicious walked inside.

The glow of his Pak flickering on and off was a good indication that something horrible finally did get inside.

Suddenly, the alien is glaring into the reflection like it’s the most offensive thing he’s ever seen. A Pak leg thrust out and stabs the glass again, turning already splintered pieces into tinier and tinier shards. “None of it’s real. You’re not my Tallest. My Tallest wouldn’t say that. My Tallest wouldn’t.” Stab again, this time a different mirror. Zim reaches out and tears the frame off the wall, throwing it across the room and laughing when it smashes in the darkness. “None of this is real!”

Another mirror meets the floor. “You’re NOT my Tallest! You are NOT my leaders.”

There’s a ringing in his head when Zim forgoes the Pak legs and punches through one of the mirrors, no hesitation even when some of the glass sticks out of his skin and bleed down his knuckles. Glass breaks underneath boots and Dib watches as Zim all but tears apart the room with hysterical, crying laughter. “You are not Zim!”

A piece of glass flies through the air and nearly takes off Dib’s ear in the process had he not stepped to the side fast enough. Every part of his rational brain tell him to run, to get out, leave the bastard behind for the madness and save himself but there is an inkling of fear that makes his legs heavy.

There is something indescribable, something heartbreaking about the way he watches Zim destroy everything around him so naturally, and yet Dib cannot move. All he can do is raise a children’s toy with half a barrel of water, and hold his breath.

“You’re not real. Not me. You’re not Zim. Just a hallucination.” Zim laughs once and it comes out like a sob full of despair and resentment. “Just a hallucination. Not me. Not my Tallest. Not mine.”

Zim drags a hand down his face and Dib watches in abrupt horror as the glass rakes down his skin, rips open his lip and drags until there’s thin lines of blood welting up across his jawline. A little bit of it dribbles into his mouth when he laughs. “You’re not real.”

Red eyes leave the mirrors and trail over the room, falling over every piece of glass scattered on the floor, to the clacking over his Pak legs still scuttering across the ceiling. They land on dark hair and scared amber eyes.

Dib takes a step backwards.

The Pak legs straighten and point in his direction. “You’re not my Dib.”

Chapter Text

In that moment of terrifying clarity, Dib feels a odd sense of thankfulness that their unfortunate, violent childhood gave him enough reflex instinct to duck.

A Pak leg lunged for him and embeds itself into the wall behind him, cracking the brick where Dib’s head used to be. Said teenager has stumbled away, body poised and tense, a defensive pose coming naturally. Still, he has to catch his breath from the horror as Zim cries out something foreign and anguished at his missed mark.

The leg creaks. It’s an awful noise, a loud metal on brick clang as it struggles when it’s caught up in the hole it’s made, eventually yanking out and clattering against the ceiling as it retracts back to it’s owner. Red eyes are wide open, glaring at Dib as if Zim himself is horrified at what he’s looking at.

“You…” Zim speaks and his voice is sour and broken. “…are not mine.”

Glass crunches underneath Zim’s boot as he takes a single step forward and that’s all Dib needs to hear to fucking book it.

The floor is covered in shards, he can feel it all crackle underneath his steps as he runs. He turns to the right, then left and down a corridor he has no memory of seeing before and probably won’t remember to find his way out of before running a straight line down the middle, dodging to the side by pure reflex as a Pak leg jolts through the space where his mid-section used to be.

It misses, a second one juts out and aims for the space where Dib’s right lung would have been had he not dodged in time. His shoulder hits the wall as he throws himself out of the projecting Pak leg’s way and pushes himself off and outwards, giving himself enough momentum to keep running. Keep going, no matter how horrifying the scratch of the sharp points dug into the ground as he ran, or the angry cries of an alien that wails like he’s reliving miserable heartbreak.

Dib doesn’t dare look back. The scuttering noises of Zim’s Pak legs scraping across the castle interior was the only sound overtaking his hurried breathes and heavy heartbeat. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Something swipes out from underneath him. One leg stretches out enough to take a jab at his ankle and while it doesn’t slice or pierce the skin, it knocks him off balance. Dib feels the floor rushing up to meet him and swivels mid-air, quick enough to catch himself by the palms of his hands (the flashlight’s beam was bobbing wildly during the chase, he was nearly blind without it’s guidance, so he really hopes the lenses don’t break) until his knees bruise against impact and he’s fallen on the dirty floor with only enough sense to twist his torso and scramble backwards, away, anywhere from the approaching alien walking methodically down the corridor.

The Pak legs lash out wildly, sometimes in Dib’s direction but not quite hitting him, (he quickly scoots back before one could impale his leg, it driving into the floor and leaving a long skid mark as it drew back instead)‌ otherwise they flail in the small space that housed the two of them. It’s chaotic, not unlike Zim’s body language, while his face is twisted mix of hurt and switching emotions. Blood still drips down his lip, and the small cuts along his the skin of his face, it makes for a harrowing expression.

A hallway filled with sharp metal and panting breathes, He comes to a stop a only a foot away, alien and human alike stare wide eyed at each other. “Zim will fix this. I can. It’ll be easy.” He speaks and the voice is heavy with Irken accent, words falling into each other that Dib almost doesn’t understand a single one. “My Tallest will see.”

Zim’s hand twitches, then his claws reach out. “Don’t run.”

“Yeah, no.” He kicks out a leg, finds the Invader’s ankle and hits him hard enough that if it didn’t trip him, it would at least stumble him. He makes contact and Zim makes a angry surprised click as the floor disappears out from underneath him and Dib hears his Pak hit the ground. “Fuck that.”

Dib scrambles to his feet the same second something slices through the sleeve of his trench coat and leaves a thin red line behind. Flashlight clutched in one hand, watergun in the other, the camera bounces across his chest hard enough he’s sure it might leave a bruise if he gets out of here alive. If the both of them get out of here alive, that is. So far, their chances of even one wasn’t looking good.

Still, there’s that small, itty bitty part of him that tells him otherwise. They’ve survived some pretty horrific things. Things Dib still has nightmares about and things that Zim lets slip throughout their battles during his time on Irk. He catches himself sometimes, sometimes he doesn’t, and it wasn’t uncommon to have days where they sat on a rooftop, Dib sitting complacence while Zim sat criss-crossed opposite from him (a fist still curled up in the front of his shirt like he was going to punch him, there but forgotten all together) as the alien rambled about the color of his planet’s sky or how all the smeets got their first mission at five rotations of age, the lack of flowers and how nearly everyone dressed the same.

Dib looks behind him and regrets it. That Zim, whatever he was, was not the Zim that liked to ramble on rooftops. Wet face with blood and tears, illuminated only by the Pak light’s flashing and glow of his own eyes. It looks more like the alien he had nightmares about in fifth grade. Sounds more like the Zim that used to lock himself up in his base until Dib took a crowbar to a window and practically dragged the alien out into sunlight.

He never did tell Dib why he did that.

Zim is on his feet, sharp teeth glint in the dark and small slivers of light reflect off the shards of glass still stuck in his knuckles as he hisses at teenager’s retreating back.

Dib has survived worse.

Metal on brick resounds behind him, the heavy footfall of boots and a anguished cry echoes throughout the hall until it stings Dib’s ears. “You’re not real. None of this is real!” He’s growing louder, getting closer. “Why do you run? You won’t feel pain.”

If he were younger and brasher, he might have been tempted to turn around and tell the alien just how stupid he was, but Dib keeps his pace, blocking out the noise of his own footsteps and the ever approaching danger that was the spider-like alien closing in for the kill as the seconds passed. His backpack feels heavy and his hands are slick with sweat, threatening to slip the flashlight out of his grip. He wonders if he were to turn the light around to shine down the corridor behind him, would his heart stop at the fear of witnessing Zim rush towards him before the Invader even had the chance to pierce his chest-

Something snags the back of his trench coat and Dib is slammed hard against the wall, a small crack resounding as his head hit the brick (he’d be lucky if a concussion was the only thing he left here with tonight) and his arm twists around behind his back. The force holding it hisses Irken in his ears, and Dib smells blood. “You wretched, wretched hallucination-!”

Dib headbutts him from behind, pain exploding even further from the back of his cranium but at least giving him more room as the alien shifts back. His elbow finds the front of the Invader’s uniform and jabs, years worth of fighting alien villains and research helps him pinpoint the exact spot where Zim’s squeedily spooch is the weakest and punctures there. “Snap OUT of it already!”

Zim’s body disappears from behind him with a staggered cough and Dib kicks him away again just for good measure. Possessed or not, there was no way in hell that he was gonna let the green bastard end him after years and years of mutual defeat and victory. It was even between them. Or at least, it should be. It would never be satisfying if their wars ended because of an outside force, no matter how deep it crawled into Zim’s Pak and fed lies to his brain.

The alien goes down, but he knows it won’t be for long. Dib makes it twenty, maybe thirty feet away before he’s sure the alien has recovered enough to join the chase again, coming across a room and skidding to a halt as he raised his flashlight quickly over the surroundings, giving it a scan for where else next to go. Anywhere to run, anywhere to hide, anything to give him enough to figure out just what the hell he was supposed to do to fix this situation.

There’s a cold sensation traveling up his spine when the room starts to look familiar, and suddenly it’s almost relief. Without a map, running without direction and (almost) blind, he’s back in the first room they started in. The one with the furniture all covered in white sheets, the fireplace with a chimney that leads to god-knows where and the ruined painting stationed above it, and the mirror untouched, clean and precise on the opposite side of the wall.

Dib slides underneath a clothed dining table with record speed, shutting off the flashlight and shrouding himself in the darkness that follows. Dust flies up in his entrance and his sleeve flies up to his mouth, crouched and trying to keep his breathing even, more over to keep himself quiet than to keep the dust out of his lungs.

Silence for a moment, then the sound of heavy boots stepping into the room. They’re quick, then they slow. Single steps further into the room. One, two, three. Stop.

A lump chokes in Dib’s throat when a resounding crash echoes through the room and the tell-tell sound of glass shattering fills the darkness.

He hears the pieces fall to the floor, the sick noise of flesh tearing and manical laughter that falls back into sobs. Laughter again, crying, a joyless sound that joins the stinging ringing in his head that threaten to bleed out his ear drum every instance that Zim smashes his fist against the mirror in the room. “You wretched, defiled impostor!” Another hit, a piece skids underneath the table cloth and hits Dib’s foot. “You are not real! Zim cannot be fooled. You are not here!”

Wood creaks and joins the rest of the glass scattered about on the floor as he listens to Zim tear the frame from it’s perch on the wall, clawing at the reflection until his claws meet the back-frame and continuing further. He does not need to see to know that the Invader’s hands are probably covered in his own blood, through he keeps going, uncaring. Or frightened. Angry. A surge of Irken gibberish flood through his rage and Dib sinks further into himself not to make a single sound.

“You are not ZIM! You are not my Tallest and I‌ will not-” A cut-off, like someone has interrupted him mid-conversation. “No. No. You can’t be.” A metallic sound. Another pause. “I’m listening. I can fix this. I can. Please. Please be quiet.”

Briefly, Dib imagines himself as the mirror and shudders in the same second the noises continue, the tinkling noises of glass crunching underneath boots and the heavy breathes of an alien who’s raged his throat until it was dry and raw. “Zim can fix this.” A shudder. “I am Zim. Not you. Me.” Laughter, but it sounds like he can’t breathe.

The chaos is flooding and his lungs are starting to burn with how little intake he’s allowing himself. Dib thinks back to their little scuffle in the voot and hopes to whatever divine force is out there that Zim cannot hear the rapid drum of his heartbeat.

(Yet, he already knows that he can.)

Dib could see it now; the future Zim that will stand over his corpse with a loud ‘I told you so’ attitude, or the vision of both their bodies rotting away, one gutted and decapitated and all other sorts of mutilations that could be done with Irken’s finest weapon technology, and the other body a hollow shell, devoid of life and any sort of remainder that a personality once resided there.

(If Dib can’t save him, and he’ll try, oh he’ll try, he hopes that Zim is lucky enough to experience death instead of becoming an everlasting puppet.)

The laughter dies and with it comes anxiety. It rises as he moves, footsteps once again. Dib’s grip on the watergun tightens even though he knows it’s useless. Holy water was a fickle tool, and didn’t work on demons that take shelter in a alien soldier’s technological brain while it feeds him delusions and nightmares.

(Thought holy blessings burn demons, and water burns Zim, Dib wonders if there’s even a difference between the two besides the names.)

The steps have trailed up to the table and his body is rigid. The air is cold and musty, dark and blind. A claw drags alongside the top of the tablecloth and it makes a tearing noise as the sharp point rips through thread.

“I could kill you now, and it would be so easy.”

Dib holds his breath.

“Far away from home, you can’t see in the dark and you’re tired. You’re a fast runner at best, but my Pak legs are faster.” Zim captures his gaze and holds it hostage while he speaks. “I know all your weak spots and every part of you that’s easy to puncture. I could stab you to death here, leave you bleeding out to be animal food and fly home without a second thought. No one knows where you are except Zim, no one would come to save you.”

Ten seconds feels like an eternity when silence overtakes the room.

Movement, enough to startle Dib and make his heart jump. Something is snatched off the table and there’s an acute crunching noise of Zim crushing something in his hand. Dib hears bits and pieces of the spirit box they had left earlier fall out to the floor, joining the rest of the shards laid out among the destruction.

“Be quiet.” Zim’s tone is hushed. Comforting even. Strained. “My Tallest. Please. Be quiet.”

There’s nothing but silence in the room. The claw is stops digging into the table cloth and a footstep falls back. One, two. Crushing glass beneath his boot, slow and methodical, checking the fireplace, dragging a Pak leg that’s been bent and abused across the wall until it skids across the floor. They travel further from him, as if to leave the room.

The holy water in a tacky child’s toy may be their only chance at survival. Dib unscrews the water barrel from the watergun, exhales and inhales, and beats down the spike of fear when the footsteps stop. He scrambles to turn on the flashlight-

The table is flipped upwards and crashing against the wall before Dib could even think. The light clatters across the floor, rolling over until the beam shines in the space between Dib and Zim evenly, and the paranormal investigator gets a full sigh of hell itself.

“False Dib.” Zim spits at him.

A Pak leg thrust down aiming for Dib’s skull and the human makes the quick decision to say fuck that, and cranes his neck away for a split second so it catches him by the hoodie instead. He grabs the shaking metal with one hand to unhinge himself but suddenly the leg twists, catching the fabric up in a knot and Dib is unceremoniously pulled up into standing position and further upwards.

His feet are lifted perhaps a few inches off the ground before the length of the Pak leg smacks the ceiling and can go no further. Red neon eyes glare at him from the dark and Dib chatized himself for ever seeing warmth in them. “Listen, Zim. I‌ don’t know what it’s telling you but I’m the real deal here-!”

“Be silent! Be quiet, you’re insufferable!” Zim’s bloodied hands come down over his antenna, bits and piece of glass unnoticed as he scrunches up his face in a mixture of pain and blood. “I won’t fall for this. I‌ won’t fall for your tricks!”

“This isn’t a trick! It’s me-”

Rage fills the Invader’s face, his claws curl around his antennae until he’s certain they’re about to be yanked out as he sends Dib a glare full of hated. “Why must you use his voice?”

Dib’s panic settles in his throat. Amber eyes fall onto glistening red and await death, but there is only anxiety. The hand holding back the Pak leg bleeds a little when the edges cut into his palm. Yet, it hasn’t slit his throat yet. He’s going to call that hesitation. “Because it’s my voice!”

“No. No that’s not right. That’s not right.” Red eyes twitch, look away, then back again. Zim sounds conflicted. Then angry. Conflicted again. Confused and utterly unsure of himself like the lingering sobs that echoed in the way that he talked. “You’re not real.”

“Yes, I am!” Dib struggles against his hold and hates the way his frustration overtakes his voice. “Get that through your green, alien head of yours you stupid fucking bug!‌ I’m Dib-!”

He cuts himself off as a sharp tip of another Pak leg drags itself down the front of his shirt. It doesn’t touch his skin or break the fabric, it doesn’t even snag a thread with how gentle and careful the action is. But it searches, moving past the trench coat and lightly pressing against the layers of his clothing to find it’s target in the form of Dib’s heart ramming against his chest.

A fearful lump swallows down the teenager’s throat as the leg positions itself. Dib closes his eyes, takes a deep breathe and tries not to let tears crack his voice. “I thought we were friends.”

A pause. The Pak legs are still and rigid and Dib awaits for death.

Zim’s is staring up at him with wide eyes and a quivering voice. “Please don’t make me look.”

A second passes. Then two, and Dib forces his lungs to intake air and quietly watches with bated breath as the alien before him shaking at the sight at his soon to be demise. “Please don’t make Zim look. Please don’t. Not again.”

Dib tries to ignore his lip quivering. “…Look at what?”

The air goes still. The Pak leg aimed at his heart lowers and yet Dib is still hoisted above the ground. Zim does not protest when Dib slowly, watching the alien for any sign of danger, unhooks his hoodie by ripping the hanging fabric and righting himself when his shoes finally hit solid ground.

The two stand in statue still movement, Pak legs still aimed in Dib’s direction, but clarity hit him as Zim takes a horrified, little step back. “Please.”

The sight is both simultaneously heartbreaking and terrifying. What he planned next was equally just as risky, but Dib has survived much, much worse.

“Hey.” Low voice, one step forwards (Zim flinches when he does, and Dib tries not to flinch himself when metal glints out of the corner of his eye.) Dib raises his arms, the small barrel of holy water curled into his palm and out of sight. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s me. Dib.” Baby steps forwards. “I’m real.”

“No.” Zim shakes his head. The tension rises in his shoulders and his anntenana stand straight up. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. It’s okay.” Forwards. Slow. Zim doesn’t move back but Dib doesn’t rush either. Take his time. Being careful. He’s only going to get one-shot at this. “I’m real. I’m here.”

Even in the low-light the flashlight provided, he can see Zim shaking. The alien is mortified, whether by looking at Dib or simply whatever image he was being provided, it didn’t matter. Dib closes the space between them until there’s about a foot left, and keeps his arms open. If Zim had any more of a perfect chance to impale him, it would be now. “It’s okay.”

A slow movement. Zim’s hands raise and they settle on the sides of Dib’s face, blood staining his cheeks and a broken voice coming from within him. “I watched you die.”

Dib stills as his palms press up his cheeks, shaking hands cradle his face as Zim completely breaks. “I watched you. I watched you bleed out. I’m sorry.” The Pak legs fall limp, dropping to the floor around them and Zim is leaning forwards towards the only comfort in the universe allowed to him. “I’m sorry. Zim is sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Inhale, exhale. Dib takes a deep breathe, pulls the Invader into a hug and doesn’t think about the pricking sensation he feels as glass-ridden arms and hands wrap tightly around his mid-section and hold the back of his head. Zim’s face finds it’s way into his neck and rests there, repeating apologies like a mantra against Dib’s skin, rocking and clutching the human close to him like he was his last tether to earth.

Dib curls his finger’s into the Invader’s uniform with one hand, and positions the holy water over one of the Pak’s openings with the other. “I’m sorry too.”

He pours the contents quickly down into the bowls of the Pak. Several things happen all at once. None of them are pleasant.

All in an instant, whatever serenity they had in that moment dissipates, because for a full thirty seconds there is nothing more than pure, unbridled screaming.

The places where Zim held his hands on Dib were now spots on human’s body were claws dug into, through the layers of fabric of his clothes, tense and stiff and painful, not deep enough to cause more than pinpricks of blood to welt but none of that all together equaled up to the absolute agony of Zim cutting off his own animalistc scream of pain by sinking his teeth into the joint where Dib’s neck and shoulder meet.

Dib feels electricity shoot up his arm, yelps as pain surges in his own body both from teeth and glass and alien technology assaulting every sense that it could, and deep down, knows that he at least tried.

The Pak makes a horrid glitching noise, sparks of many colors flying out of the entrances as the legs try to retracts themselves and fail, try again and fail, malfunctioning as water drenched it’s inner workings both as it burned through the alien’s circuits and forcibly evicted whatever presence had taken residence on the way down.

It’s a pathetic exorcism and a otherworldly one at that, but luck smiles in their favor as Paks are a little different than human souls, and Zim suddenly falls limp.

Dib maybe gets two seconds of a victorious mind-set before the sudden thought invades his mind that he just may have killed his best friend.

“Zim?!” Said alien is dead weight against the human, heavier than he looks and not responsive. The Pak legs have retracted fully back into the Pak, shutting out all outside interference and blinking a soft, purple light. Dib couldn’t remember if that stood for maintenance or memory deletion thinking back to months of subtle research against the colors, but he’s too panicked to form a proper theory. “Shit, Zim? Zim!?”

The weight, paired with the overwhelming weakness of his body, overtakes him and Dib finds himself falling backwards with an armful of alien and a new set of bruises. “Holy fuck. Shit.” Curses fly out faster than he can think. Zim’s head is buried into his shoulder still, so he has to take the Invader by his own shoulders and pull him back until Zim is half-lying on top of him. His eyes are shut tight and there’s blood around his mouth, but it simply blends in with the odder color that was already drying on his face.

“Zim.” Dib shakes him. A little too harshly, but between the wounds and pain shared tonight he thinks he’s entitled to a pass when he may have just accidentally committed murder. “C’mon. Give me anything. Say something. Hit me with you stupid antenna.” Hushed pleas and bad thoughts flood together.

“Don’t make me do CPR on you, Zim. I’ll do it. I’ll swear I’ll do it.” It’s a half-threat that comes out with nervous giggles masking the desperation. He shakes the alien again and the thought that all that suffering was in vain begins to form. “I don’t even know if you have lungs. But I’ll do it. I’ll spit on you.” The desperation seeps through the facade and Dib sees a tear fall down onto the alien’s face and sizzle the skin around it.

(Memories of bleeding life out on a forest floor. Burning flesh and his ribs breaking on impact. Clawed hands take his and find his pulse. Taunts and demands to stay alive fall into pleas and Irken phrases he doesn’t understand.)

(Is this what Zim felt back then?)

Dib’s thoughts break when something lifts up, drags upwards to his face, sharp tips brushing against the skin there until Zim’s palm presses against his cheek.

“Ah.” Zim’s half-lidded eyes blink up at him, voice raspy and heavy with exhaustion. “Fathead.”

Dib’s face slacks and tries to fight the smile fighting it’s way onto his mouth even as he presses further into the alien’s hand. “Welcome back. Fuck you.”

Zim pokes and prods the human’s mouth and nose on purpose in an annoying fashion until Dib has enough sense to pull away, trying to look not as relieved as he felt. Zim has already seen him cry. Multiple times now, that he thinks of it. Now that the desperation has left him, the embarrassment floods in unwelcome and in rivets.

Dib sniffs and snot almost gets on Zim’s hand, to which the alien grimaces at and drags it down the human’s face, smearing tears and grossness all over the skin. “Youm schniv-” Zim’s voice is slurred and low, like a drunkard waking up from a nap. “Smivling…. snivling little worm. Stop it.”

“I will purposly rub my gross human snot all over you.” Dib scoffs and grins when the alien gags at the threat. Words are coming out without second thought, relief pulling the riegns. “I thought I killed you.”

“Stupid boy. Zim cannot be scmilked.” Zim slaughter that last word with a mix of Irken and english but flashes a haughty, sharp tooth grin up at him anyways. “And scheven….even if you did, I would haunt you for the rest of your miserable, human life-span.

The dark haired boy blinks, snorts and blows air into the alien’s face. He giddy laughs when an antenna thwacks against his glasses for it.

“So, uh-” Dib clears his throat. “Do you feel okay enough to stand?”

Zim pauses, sends Dib a particularly sharp glare and then lets his head konk back against the floor, antenna going limp and pretends to be dead.

Getting out of the castle is one of the most psychically straining things Dib has ever done. Not the most, but steadily making it’s way up there. Not only did his entire body have a new collection of bruises and scrapes and just overall exhaustion, but he somehow had to manage getting everything taken down there with him, camera, flashlight, the backpack and all of it’s contents weighing him down.

And carrying Zim piggy back style upwards the ladder, said alien was practically all dead weight and then some harrowing down on his poor spine and the Invader had the audacity to complain about the ‘smell’ with his head lopped over to the side of Dib’s, arms slumped over the human’s shoulders (Zim holds the flashlight for them because Dib’s hands are full of other concerns) as Dib painstakingly pulls them upwards and out of the castle’s confinements.

He may have pushed his limits a little, trying to get out of underground as fast as he could. But as he pushes the trap door that leads to the outside and slumps Zim over onto the dirt (the alien is limp on the ground and wails into the leaves face-down about the filth and the worms) he hopes that whatever they encountered down below wouldn’t have enough time to recollect enough energy to go after them again, not with such a violent pseudo exorcism.

Dib slings his backpack outwards and over into the forest, slings himself out onto the floor and shuts it closed with his foot, letting his back hit the cool ground as he catches his breath.

The breeze flutters between them, rustling leaves and flaking off bits of dried blood as it brushes past them. Dib lets his body rest for the moment, looking at at the sky and the colors it gave off through the branches. It feels like De-ja-vu, the pebbles and sticks pressing into his back like this. Only, the sky was getting lighter and lighter and Dib frowns at the approaching sunrise that illuminates the forest for them.

Should of known he wouldn’t have gotten back home by 6am from the get-go. No sense in rushing it now. “Can you walk on your own yet?”

Zim’s answer is a muffled curse in the dirt and a half-ass attempt to rise on his own. Dib is able to sit up, stand up straight up long before the alien is able to lift himself up on his hands and elbows, the teenager watching with caution as the alien struggles to his knees, then to a partial, half-shaking standing position that doesn’t look at all stable, until his posture is upright and Zim takes a dramatic spin on the heel to look at him.

He takes a wide-step forward and let’s all of his body weight fall on top of the unsuspecting Dib will full intention to annoy. “…No.”

Dib groans from underneath him, pushing him up and rolls his eyes as he postions the alien onto his back, hoisting the backpack with one of his arms, and taking the Invader’s legs with his hands. “A warning would have been nice, you know.” He’s hoists all of it up again with a huff and dreads the next few minute walk. “This is really bad for my spine. You’re gonna make me have a hunch back by the time we get to the voot.”

Zim’s head hangs over his shoulder, eyes closed and limp. To any outsider, it might have appeared that he was sleeping, but the quiet, aggitated voice next to Dib’s ear says other wise.

“This is nothing compared to the labor Irk has it’s conquered races do. You should be grateful.” He chose the shoulder that didn’t have the bite mark to rest his head on. There’s no telling if that was due to the distaste of blood, or some other reason. Zim hasn’t commented on it yet. “And you’re going the wrong way. The Voot’s in the other direction.”

Dib somehow manages to spin himself and all the weight he’s lugging in one smooth motion that doesn’t break his stride.“I’m just saying, you’re calling me a fathead yet you’re packing like, ten thousand pounds in your Pak-”

An antenna smacks him across the face. “How dare you call Zim’s Pak dumb and thick.”

Dib inwardly blanches. “That is not the correct context for what that word means. You didn’t even say it right.”

“Your head is dumb and thick.”

“Stop it.”

The bantering continues until Zim pointedly announces that they’ve arrived, and Dib looks out onto the forest with no Voot in sight. He’s halfway an opened mouth to suggest the alien’s mistake when a clicking noise sputters out from behind him. Every motion Zim does is slow and lethargic, and that goes the same for his Pak ability too, the small metal arm that reaches out with a remote control hooked to the end of it sputters down until it’s right in front of Dib’s face, and Zim tries to press the button with his head still too tired to lift upwards.

He’s do it himself if his hands weren’t so full. Such a simple task takes a much longer time than needed. Dib decides to not make fun of him when his finger misses the button the first couple of tries. Until his patience weans like the soreness on his spine. “You know, maybe if you used your eyeballs you could hit it-”

The metal arm slings backwards until the remote smacks Dib in the face, his nose pressing the button and leaving a thwack mark as it clatters back into the Pak. “Ow.”

He’s pretty certain he heard the faintest of a chuckle against his trenchcoat, but Dib focuses on the newly forming shape in the clearing in front of him to tune it out. The Voot’s hologram shimmers like glitching water, a faint indentation in the camouflage before the colors become saturated and it appears to take full form, the windshield falling down. It’s fascinating to watch, Dib thinks. Irken technology always captivates him, no matter how many times he see’s it happen.

Dib slings his bag inside (as gently as he could manage, what with all the equipment and supplies in there, but you could only be so soft in your actions when your body is strained and you’re carrying an Irken and his backpack full of alien weaponry) and quickly tells Zim to hold on, taking his hands from their grip to hoist the both of them up into the cockpit with as much strength as he could muster.

The both of them fall into an unorganized heap on the ship’s floor and Dib lets out the most satisfying sigh he’s felt in hours. “Fucking finally.”

Zim groans against the floor, one hand coming up haphazardly to slap itself across the dashboard. Claws skitter over the buttons until it finds what they’re looking for and presses, the windshield falling down above them. Zim’s looking for another switch of some sort as Dib watches their reflection slink down as the glass secures into place and inwardly cringes.

Two teenagers, equally exhausted, covered in dried blood and forming bruises with nicks and cuts in their clothes and track marks on their face where tears fell that Dib tries not to think about too much. “Holy shit. We look like absolute hell.”

“You smell like hell.” Zim speaks into the floor moreover than to him, (and Dib notices, without fault, that Zim is avoiding looking in the direction of their reflections as much as possible)‌ The alien pulls himself up into sitting position with what appears to be a moderate amount of pain. Dib decides to lay there a little longer. He deserves it. The ship’s floor isn’t as uncomfortable as it looks, even when Zim’s legs throw over his stomach.

A sound chimes throughout the Voot and a tension visibly leaves the alien’s shoulders when it does. “No visitors to the Voot during it’s surveillance.” A pause. “And it’s automatically filling up the oxygen reserves as we speak. It should be ready soon.”

Dib hums in response, eyes shut tight and head swirling with the events of the night. “What about you?” He hears Zim make a noise, though he can’t tell between the tiredness that it was confusion or agitation. “How do you feel? Got any ghostie ghoulies in there still-?”

Zim’s knee jabs down into Dib’s stomach and while it winds him, he can’t say he didn’t deserve that one. “Okay, okay.” He half-cough, half-laughs. It’s such a nice feeling being able to do so after a night of pure hell and terror. “I’m serious. Are you feeling okay? Like, Pak wise. Brain wise. Whatever.” He thinks for a minute. “…Any more hallucinations?”

“No.” Zim’s response is too quick and curt to boot. “It’s in maintenance mode right now. A full scan is taking place to be sure it’s rid of that…filthy virus that DARED to enter an Irken soldier!” Dib can hear the slight tint of narcissism coming back into his tone and it gives him more relief than he would like to admit. “Zim feels….no anomalies. But extra precautions are being set in place.”

“Oh, extra precautions.” Dib repeats with a thoughtful hmm. “Like holy water-”

“SILENCE. Idiot boy. Your holly water-”

“Holy.” Dib sing-song corrects.

“Holy water is what made Zim feel like splogugin garbage in the first place!” The alien raises a shaking fist at him with what energy he could muster and thrust it in Dib’s face. “And the Pak feels no difference in filtration between regular water and holy! They are both disgusting, pollinated acids!”

“I’ll be sure to mark that down for my report when Swollen Eyeball calls in to check on us.” The statement leaves his mouth before Dib fully processes it, and runs a hand down his face, groaning out loud (and doesn’t care for the sour look that Zim gives him when he does) as the realization hits.

“They’re going to hate me for this. I have no idea if we fully exorcised it or not.”‌ Zim flinches out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, we didn’t find out what it’s motives were, what it’s weakest were, any sort of evidence we got I‌ couldn't see or got destroyed-” He’s talking specifically about the spirit box left in pieces back underground, but another part of his rambling only makes his alien counterpart go tenser. “I have nothing to report on. Like, sure I can whip something up. Tell that that it’s too big for me to handle, but I don’t want to do that! They trusted me with this investigation, I needed to prove to them that I could-”

Something smacks him across the forehead and Dib winces at the feeling. The pressure leaves, the teenager rubbing his forehead and looking up at his assailant with a salty look. “What was that for?”

Zim holds a familiar fly swatter. “You’re rambling is grinding my nerves. Be quiet.”

The last bit of his sentence causes a sudden spike of fear to rise and Dib’s heart to speed up for a second. It means nothing, not like that, he knows. But Zim’s antenna twitches in his direction and it’s a dead giveaway that turns makes Dib’s ears turn red. “Hey.‌ I remember you doing some rambling of your own back down there.”

Zim’s grip around the fly swatter tightens. “Zim has no memory of ‘rambling’. Only intruding…feedback, errors and the stench of a big headed boy that snivels when he loses an argument.”

Dib sits up straight with lightening speed and all but snarls at him. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Zim is not-”

“No. No, not what I‌ meant.” The human quickly interrupts before the alien could twist his words into something else that would deter the attention. “I mean, you’re kidding me. Seriously? After all that mess, that entire fiasco you’re just gonna pretend that nothing happens?”

A red eye twitches, but it doesn’t break eye contact with amber. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Dib.”

“The truth would be a good fucking start.” Dib huffs at him, pushing the alien’s leg off (the bastard winces at the sudden motion and a soreness aches up his legs, but he’s strains to keep his face neutral)‌ and up until his back hits the backpack strewn across the floor. “I need answers. For me and for Swollen Eyeball. I want to know what you saw and heard, what it felt like when you were hallucinating, and…”

He trails off. Zim’s glare hardens as Dib chooses his next words carefully. “I have questions about some things you said. Down there. You know, when you weren't...” He searches for a term and fails to find an appropriate one. "When you weren't okay."

The Invader looks incredibly and undeniably uncomfortable but Dib doesn’t care. Okay, maybe he cared a little bit, but Zim wasn’t the one running for his life a mere hour ago (not that is unusual for them, but this particular instant was different) and there’s a circle of teeth marks and three paired holes in certain places in his clothes that gave him more than enough justification to press for answers. Answers that Zim was either too prideful, selfish, or even fearful to give him.

The alien glares back at him. The sunlight breaks through the windshield finally, casting colors across their faces, a multitude of oranges and yellows and pinks. With the new natural light filling the ship, it’s easier to see the details in their faces. Dib no doubt knows he has dark circles, greasy hair and overall the grossness that he feels on the inside as well as the outside.

Zim looks miserable. Conflicted. Tired and upset all packed into dark circles underneath his eyes that make the crimson color pop out, a cut lip that’s pressed into a flat line against his mouth, and antenna stiff and craned forward towards Dib in a show of either apprehension or aggressive. (or something else, but he’s got too weak of a theory of even think about it.)

A tense silence, then in the most causal sounding tone Dib has ever heard rehearsed, the alien speaks.“Zim is going to get french toast.”

Dib’s anger pauses for a moment just so his eyebrows can fly up in stunned surprise. “What.”

“We are in France. Earth home of the french toast. Zim is going to rest for a little while, clean up and get some french toast for Gir.” Zim talks normally, face neutral that if Dib didn’t know any better, it was like they were exchanging pleasantries in skool. “Maybe some french waffles too.”

Dib blinks. "French toast doesn't actually originate from France-"

Zim points the fly swatter in his direction, arm outstretched until the end of the plastic flicked the human’s nose. “The Dib-stink should rest and clean off all the filthy gunk while my Pak’s scan finishes. This Voot isn’t leaving until I‌ have secured the frenchiest toast. Passengers included.”

The teenager’s tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, thoughts whirring in his head before he remembers that this sudden swing wasn’t exactly uncommon when in discussion with an alien like Zim. “You don’t have any money.”

“That’s what you’re for, stink-worm.” Zim leans forwards, scooting up a few feet and jabs the swatter once more, holding it proudly like a knight with a sword. “We will eat within their city and among their silly, stupid populace, unaware of their future overlord in their presence! This is a perfect opportunity to map out this location for future doom inventions! For the glory of the IRKEN‌ EMPIRE! And for ZIM!”

Dib’s face falls into a frown. “‌I am sitting right here.”

A clawed hand presses against his chest, pushes him back until it pins him to ships floor (which kinda hurt, by the way. some of the wounds were still fresh and he wouldn’t be surprised if they started bleeding again) and Zim glowers down at him in his usual narcissism. “Now you are laying down.”

Dib swats it away and tries to sit up, scrunches his nose at the offending snickering that comes from the alien when he winces at the pain that flares in his shoulder and huffs. “Okay. Fine. Let’s clean up and…catch our barings.” He sighs. His dad wouldn’t have noticed his absence by now, but in a few hours Gaz will find her brother missing and his backpack absent from his room, and it won’t take much to put two and two together. She was probably gonna kill him. Might as well enjoy his last few hours in Paris.

Zim, despite the hellish appearance and fatigue, looks way too satisfied with himself. His face falters only in the slightest when he finds holes in his Invader uniform, but Dib knows he has several of the same type, and finds that accompanying grin a little too irritating. “This isn’t over, you know.”

Zim’s demeanor stills just for a second, and looks up only briefly to acknowledge him. “Idiot boy. I never said it was.” The Invader peels off his hoodie, lifting up the edges of his uniform over his head and pulling it off to give the ruined clothing a sigh of resignation.

Oh. Well. Dib swallows awkwardness back down his throat and raises a hand to his shoulder. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any of that super fancy Irken medicine on you, would you?”

“In my lab? Yes, but none here stored in the Voot. Too expensive and time-consuming to create, wouldn't want to risk having it stolen should the bees bring down my ship again.” Zim answers. Dib bites his tongue at the statement, phantom aches in his stomach and chest where scars no longer remain. Zim is too busy cursing the bees to notice. “However, I do possess a primitive health kit belonging to your kind.”

His hand raises, blunts against the wall of the ship and a panel appearing to double as a drawer pops out. Dib busies himself by unzipping his bag, pulling out the spare clothes he had packed and throwing a black-long sleeve T-shirt in Zim’s general direction (It’ll probably fit. Probably.) It lands on the alien’s head and he retrains a snicker when Zim pauses, pulls the fabric down and bares his teeth at the offending article.

He doesn’t throw it back though, so Dib will take that as reluctant, yet unspoken acceptance. He watches with faint curiosity as Zim digs through the contents and pulls out a basic first aid kit.

Zim throws it at him. It misses and clatters next to Dib’s lap. “There, ugly. Patch up.”

The teenager grabs it and resists the urge to ask, why exactly, Zim had a human based first aid kit in his Voot when there was no benefit to the Irken for him. “Did you steal this too?”

The fly swatter soars across the ship and leaves a red mark across his forehead.

Chapter Text

Patching yourself up in the Voot is more difficult than Dib would have liked it to be. Even though the cockpit was slightly bigger now, room was still limited, and it wasn’t uncommon to bump legs with the Invader who’s picking glass out of his knuckles and throwing the shards haphazardly to the opposite side of the ship.

Dib tries to ignore the clinking sounds in order to focus on himself. The windshield’s reflection allowed him to get a good view of himself as he undresses, and he wished he didn’t have to look. The trench coat was the first to go, peeled off and settled to the side, next to an unopened, untouched first aid kit. He squints at the stains and holes in the fabric. Minuscule pricks in the thread, and spots of his own blood where his injury welted beneath the fabric. The trenchcoat was dark, so the red doesn’t show up as bad, especially when he thumbs off most of the stains with an alcohol swab. It’s safe enough to wear out in public without being stared at.

His hoodie is another story. The red stains turn brown against the blue color of the clothing and Dib frowns at the marks that decorated his sides, one of the sleeves and shoulder around his neck. There’s no way he’s going to be able to wear this one without being stopped and questioned. The article is thrown off and tossed over his shoulder. He snickers when Zim’s offended gasp resounds from somewhere behind him.

The T-shirt he has on underneath is just as bad and Dib mentally prepares himself for what he’s going to see once this one goes. He grips the bottom of the shirt, pulls it over his head (a sharp, stinging pain echoes through his body as his arms raise upwards but he stifles the wince) and discards that piece of clothing too. A glance into the windshield reveals the damage. Claw points in his sides already beginning to scab, a thin slice on the back of his hand, a couple of stray scratches here and there and a knarly looking bite mark at an unfortunate spot where his neck and shoulder meet.

Dib holds back a cringe, releases a sigh and gets to work digging through the first aid kit. It’s not his first time looking like shit, or feeling like it, but not the worst of the injuries he’s ever had to patch up himself.

He works on finding the proper stuff, alcohol wipes, band aids for the smaller ones, a length of bandage wrapping and a gauze pad that looks large enough to cover the entirety of the bite. A shuffling noise from besides him breaks his concentration and Dib looks up to see red eyes looking up and down and all over with feigned disinterest.

Zim doesn’t have any pupils to keep track of, but Dib feels his gaze settle on the wound on his shoulder before falling lower. A thoughtful look forms on his face.“I could have fixed those scars for you too, if you had let me.”

Dib, who is briefly hyper aware of the scars stretching underneath his pectorals, simply shakes his head. “I wanted to keep these.”

The Invader stares at him a little while longer, though Dib is grateful that the alien simply shrugs and returns to his glass picking so as the human need not to explain his reasoning. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the sentimentality you humans are with your own bodies.” He plucks out shards with his teeth in between talking, one hand settled in his lap while the other raises to his mouth, the alien spitting out the glass to the side through the words. “You don’t take care of it half the time and then pride yourself over it.”

Dib frankly ignores the insult, (and the bubbling urge to call the Invader out on his bullshit) just to stare at the alien’s hands. Zim’s fingers were shaking slightly as he plucked the glass out, and he was no where near done. Dib doesn’t know how he was able to act calm and normally earlier with such an injury. That can’t feel good in the slightest, and Zim’s frustration boils up until the point where he accidentally slinks a shard deeper into his knuckle, and gives up.

“Stupid. Stupid, mirrors and their-” His sentence falls into Irken curses, shaking his hand out in annoyance, like it’ll do something for the sting. Dib wonders how much pain tolerance Zim was able to muster.‌“Stupid and breakable! Irken-made glass NEVER would have done such a thing. Our glass reforms is strong, able to reform if dented!” Well, that explains the windshield. “I’ll never understand why every object on this planet is so fragile.”

Dib feels a singe of pity, his own fingers paused in the first aid kit as he watches the alien grab for the long-sleeve he threw at him prior. Zim folds the fabric easily enough to fit over his head and to his shoulders, but Dib doesn’t miss the wince in the alien’s body when he has to claw at the fabric downwards so the shirt covered the rest of his torso. It fits well, for the most part, aside from the lump over the Pak on his back.

Dib observes the maroon glow of the Pak light’s from underneath the black fabric. Briefly, he remembers the other colors it can turn into. “Is it comfortable?”

Zim looks down at himself with resignation. “It’s not a proper Invader uniform, but at least it doesn’t stink like you.” A pause. He wrinkles his face. “For the most part.”

Dib rolls his eyes. “I use laundry detergent, believe it or not.” He snarks, watching as Zim twists and turn so that fabric sits more comfortably on his body. A thoughtful look crosses the alien’s face, then a sharp shink noise, and Dib cringes as a Pak leg extends suddenly, ripping through the fabric on the back and tucking it in between the skin of the Invader’s back and the underside of the Pak so it appeared seamless. The leg retreats back inside as Dib’s face falls into a pout. “I guess I’m not getting that back.”

“Your shirt has been conquered by Zim. Anguish about it, stink-boy.” Zim hisses, returning to the picking of his fingers. He tries to pluck out another piece with the opposite hand, winces at the sting in both, and then returns to using his teeth to attempt to pull out the shard he’s sunk further into the flesh.

Dib decides he’s been watching long enough when the glass cuts into the alien’s lip as he tries to yank it out. “Okay, okay. Stop that. It’s weird.” He raises his arms in a waving motion, annoyance in his tone. Zim looks up at him in confusion as Dib scuttles closer, bringing the first aid with him. “You’re just gonna make it worse somehow. Let me help.”

Offense flashes across Zim’s face and he all but pulls his limbs away even further from the boy. “Zim needs no help from the likes of you, stinky! I don’t want your wet, filthy hands touching me. You’ll give me diseases!”

Dib’s response to the insult is a sharp glare and a suggen motion to snag the alien’s wrist, (there’s pain in his shoulder as he did so, and he hopes his own wince goes unnoticed but he has a feeling that it did not) and uses the other hand to forcibly splay the alien’s fingers. Zim hisses in his face, all tongue and snake like while he inspects the damage. It looks like he’s already done a pretty good job at getting the larger pieces out, and all that remained are the tinier shards are too thin to pluck out without some sort of tool.

One hand secures the alien’s wrist, gripping harder in an unspoken demand as the alien protests as the other searches for tweezers in the first aid kit, or anything that might suffice. He finds what he’s looking for, raising the green hand up better towards the light and looking past into Zim’s face.

Zim does not tug his hand away, but there’s a sneer on his face that’s a mixture of disgust and reluctance. “I doesn’t need your pathetic assistance. Worry about your own bleeding, disguising body and keep your filthy hands off of me!”

Dib plucks out a shard without hesitance and the alien doesn’t flinch, but his snarl widens so much that Dib can practically hear the teeth grinding. Normally, that’s a warning, but he’s feeling particularly obnoxious today. “I promise not to make it hurt.”

He plucks again and inwardly snickers as Zim’s jaw clenches harder. The Invader knees his leg hard enough it might bruise. “You sniveling, LYING garbage! I should tear off your ears for such betrayal!”

Dib raises the tweezers up in a mock of surrender (and fights the smile trying to inch across his face) as the alien yells. “My ears? You sure you don’t want my tongue instead?” He taunts.

For a split second, the usual hostility was there. Than it dampened, and Zim’s antenna twitches in annoyance at the memory. “I could work with both.”

“Thought you’d be more appreciative of someone actually doing the work for you.” Dib insists. “C’mon. Don’t you trust me?”

Zim’s browline flattens and he deadpans at him. “Hardly.”

“That’s still more than what I was expecting.” Dib sighs, rests the hand on his propped up knee so it’s more stable and positions the tweezers around a particular small shard. “Seriously, this will go alot faster if you just let me help you. Just, uh, pretend you’re getting a really shitty manicure or something like that if it makes you feel better.”

Zim mutters something underneath his breath as he finds another piece in the green skin and carefully centers the tool on it. Shockingly enough, Zim keeps his hand steady. “Zim has no nails to ‘manicure’.”

A further observation (though he already knew) of his claws proved that fact. Flesh that hardened at the end until the fingers narrowed into hardened, sharpened claws. Dib would be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate the chance to see the abnormality up close, (save for the other times where those claws were attacking him, of course) they were as dangerous as they were fascinating. He rotates the hand to study the palm and find it just as soft as a human’s would be. An oddity, but interesting. He flips it back over.

The feeling of being glared at sears into his forehead Dib looks up to find Zim giving him a specific kind of look. Dib clears his throat and focuses back on the task at hand. “Just bare with me here.”

“There is no bear here?” Zim questions like it’s the stupidest phrase he’s ever heard. “Have you lost your senses? Or is there some sort of invisible bear-creature in my Voot that your puny human brain can see and I cannot?”

Plucking out another shard, Dib looks up just to deadpan at him. “You know what that phrase means.”

“Yes, I do. But I wanted to remind you how puny your simple flesh brain was.”

Dib opens his mouth to retort but closes in a realization. The blood that was on the alien’s face has turned brown as it dried, flaking off in bits and pieces that the Invader still hasn’t scrubbed off. It’s not a lot, but enough that he’s surprised the germaphobe hasn’t doused his entire face in sanitation solution yet. “You look like absolute shit.”

A red eye twitches that he doesn’t catch. Zim scoffs as Dib feels his gaze rake over the human in a judgmental, haughty stare. “Silence, stinky. How DARE you speak ill of Zim’s appearance when you reek of blood and sweat like a stuck pig.”

Dib works quickly, finding the pieces and throwing the remaining bloodied bits he finds somewhere in the same direction he saw Zim throw the previous ones. They’ll probably need to clean all that mess up later, but it’s not like there was a trash can or anything they could have used. “Gee, I wonder who’s fault that was.”

He extracts the last bit of glass from the hand just as Zim tugs it away, finding it’s place on the human’s chest and Dib nearly has the wind knocked out of him as Zim shoves him across the Voot’s width and against the ship wall. “If you’re insinuating that the culprit here is the almighty ZIM then SILENCE your MOUTH‌ HOLE‌ of lies!” The tweezers are snatched from the spot on the floor where they’ve clattered. Zim glares at him from across the ship, beginning to pluck out the rest of the shards in his other hand with not-so careful precision, all while sending vile glares in Dib’s direction. “Idiot boy. Blaming me for your woes. It’s your fault we’re in such a state!”

Dib grits his teeth, sits up straight with lightening speed and opens his mouth, only to shut it closed again and slump against the wall, much to the protest of pain spiking through his skin. Technically, Zim was right. It was sorta his fault. If Dib had never taken the assignment, maybe never have invited Zim, (though knowing him, he would have been tracked down anyway.)‌ then they wouldn’t have been as injured and tense as it is now. Not like they weren’t always that way, but it felt different this time.

Dib huffs through his nose and mumbles something underneath his breath that he’s pretty sure Zim can hear anyway. (the twitch of antenna in his direction confirms it, but the alien says nothing at first)‌ as the teenager reaches for the first aid kit, turning his back to the alien and focusing on the smaller injuries he has on himself before moving to the more painful ones.

He’s placed small band aids over the pricks on his torso and properly wrapped his injured hand when the silence is broken by Zim’s voice. “Your future overlord accepts your pathetic apology. Feel honored.”

Dib pauses, looking over his shoulder to the movement of Zim opening and closing his hand, free of glass and soon to be free of any sort of sign that they were ever there, given by the amount of accelerated healing the Irken had. Satisfied, Zim moves closer to snag one of the alcohol wipes from the kit. He’s moved close enough that their knees bump when Dib tries to lean back in order to give himself more room.

Both embarrassed by the argument and the shame of the situation, (and a little bit out of prideful arrogance) Dib turns and ignores him, busying himself with unpackaging the gauze pad and cutting a good length of tape in order to secure it down. He frowns when he realizes there’s no scissors in the kit, meaning he’ll have to use his fingers or teeth to cut the tape. Maybe he’ll just use a bunch of band aids around the edges to secure the bandage down. It was certainly a looker to be peeking out from the collar of his shirt, and there’s only so much skin his trenchcoat can hide.

He reaches for the last remaining alcohol wipe in the kit when a green blur snatches out and takes it. Zim tears open the little package, face winked and antenna dropping at the strong sterile smell of the wipe, but otherwise clean and free of dried blood. (Even the split lip the alien was sporting earlier was healing with insane speed, he noted. It was barely a noticeable line.) Dib’s confusion trails from the alien’s hold to the discarded wipes on the ship’s floor, stained with brown and red. He looks back to him with a frown. “Hey, I kinda need that.”

Zim peers over the white sterile of the wipe between them. “I know.”

Dib squints at him. “Then why are you-” Zim all but slaps the wipe down onto the bite on his shoulder, holding it onto place with the flat of his palm, his other handing purchase on Dib’s arm to hold him in place while the human yelped and cursed the alien in many different words that has yet to reach the invader’s vocabulary. “What the FUCK. Shit!” Dib tries to kick him and ultimately ends up being pushed into the floor. Zim is laughing. “Fuck you! That fucking stings, you scummy piece of shit alien! Fuck”

Dib cringes, teeth gritting and hands clawing at Zim’s grip while the Invader looks down at him amused. “Zim is helping!”

Dib tries punching him, misses and ends up looking like a flailing idiot. “Screw you!”

He bites his lip even as the sting reduces to an ache and Dib is able to catch his breath. Zim’s laughter has died to now a couple of low chuckles, but the smile remains present even as he yanks the human up into sitting position. Dib’s hands clench into fists. He knew he needed to disinfect the wound, he already knew the pain was coming, but screw this bastard of an alien who would use it to his advantage for his own amusement. Maybe he should spit on him or something.

“I learned from the internet that humans feel PAIN when their wounds are doused with disinfectant! You have no break!‌ Pain in the injury, and pain when you heal! Another reason why Paks are clearly superior. Take note, stink-boy.” Zim’s voice is full arrogance and semi-fascination. Dib feels the pressure against his wound lighten, and soft strokes against the teeth marks made as the alien brushed the remaining dried blood away. “Irken technology is superior in medicine. Paks have near immunity to anything.”

Dib looks up with furrowed brows and a solid frown. “Except for demons, apparently.”

Zim’s smile falters, though it remains. The pressure on Dib’s shoulder, however, increases until the teenager has mustered enough strength to shove the alien away with a scowl. He’s half-way a word out his mouth before Zim grabs him again and Dib’s back meets metal has he’s forcibly settled against the ship’s wall.

“Stop talking!” Zim hisses in his face, reaching for something beside him. While the villainy is still there, the energy he had in his tone is now missing. “And stop fidgeting. You are only going to make this worse and waste my time.”

Dib bites his tongue as Zim snags the gauze pad from before, slaps it to the wound and then, surprisingly gentle, adjusts it so it sat better up against his skin. Zim’s lip puffs out in a thoughtful look, red eyes look to Dib to search for any discomfort (which were there, obviously. The alien still doesn’t understand personal space and dressing a wound was never really going to be a pleasant walk in the park) and when he finds no flinching, holds the gauze down with one hand and tears the medical tape into pieces with his claws on the other.

“I‌ still want my answers, you know.” Dib speaks, hissing as Zim presses a little too hard for comfort. “I want to know about the stuff that happened down there, and I want to double check and make sure that thing is out of you-”

“That is not your responsibility, Dib-thing. My Pak has scanned all area’s of vulnerability and fixed the errors.” Zim pauses in his work if only to shoot the teenager a sideways glance. It’s a fleeting one, and there’s a slight twitch in his antenna when he talks that mimics nervousness. “There is no more ghost-beast in my Pak and if there were, you’d know by now. No one can impersonate the MIGHTY‌ ZIM well enough!”

Dib scoffs. “I had a hard time telling the difference between you two anyways.”

There’s a pinch in his skin and Dib flinches, a curse caught in his throat. Zim releases the tender bit of flesh from his claws and Dib swears the corners of his mouth turned upwards as he returns back to the task at hand. “Insolent fool. Have you forgotten your silly ‘research’ all of these years? Zim is nothing what that creature made him do or feel.”

Dib hmm’s in thought, letting the last sentence run further in his mind than he’d like it to. But it’s just like a paranormal investigator to over analyze every clue given to him, and curiosity is a bitch. “Made you feel what?”

Zim freezes, though only for a split second, and he sends Dib an empty, stretched grin. “Made Zim feel hungry for french toast, of course!”

Zim’s deflection, as well as the ever increasing threat of utilizing Dib’s current vulnerability against him was enough to stop the questioning. Dib frowns, but lets the silence settle in. He’ll get another shot eventually.

Quiet in the Voot, save for some muttering that consist of Irken phrases that Dib is pretty sure just Zim filling in silence. If he moves, he’ll probably just piss him off, so Dib sits still and observant, watching their reflection in the windshield as Zim dresses the wound and secures it in place so the bandage wouldn’t chafe when Dib puts his shirt back on.

After a moment, Zim leans back and Dib feels his metaphorical bubble start to reform. “Zim has treated your hideous, mangled flesh. It’ll be enough until proper Irken medicine can be administered. Be thankful of such a favor, idiot-boy.”

The teenager blinks, brows furrowed and glaring at the Invader gloating over his work. “You were the one that bit me.”

Something locks up in Zim’s face like it’s a detail that he really didn’t want to be reminded of. Dib doesn’t know if that’s shame, disgust or something entirely different flashing across his expression. Whatever it was, the emotion disappears in a second, and Zim waves him off. “And you poured polluted water down my precious Pak. Now we’re even.”

Dib is about to call him dramatic, remembers that he doesn’t exactly have a scale to rate the pain an alien could feel during a last-minute, forceful exorcism, and decides against it.

He lets a hand travel up to the bandage. Soft, properly in place and secured, covering the teeth marks fully and done in a better fashion than Dib would have been able to than with just one hand. His face softens in confusion, and he shoots Zim a look. “Where’d you learn how to do this?”

Zim stares at him for a moment. Then turns his head and busies himself with brushing the bloodied glass pile down a small panel he opened up on the floor of the ship. “The internet.”

“Oh.” Dib feels like he’s missing something here. “Cool.”

Zim has cleaned up the floor of the ship, immediately snatching the germex from the first aid kit after wards. Dib finds another spare shirt in his backpack, (A lighter blue one with a simplistic UFO‌ on the front, something Gaz got for him his last birthday) and throwing it on. It fits a little smaller than what he wanted, considering he gave Zim the actual good shirt he bought but it will suffice. Throwing on the trench coat and giving himself a pat-down, Dib might as well say that he felt brand new.

Apprehensive, tired and suspicious of his previously possessed partner who’s currently cursing about ‘putting the right contact in the left eye’ wrong. But brand new.

He finds the folders detailing the investigation and his purpose for being there all crumpled up and bent in the middle, but otherwise fine. Any gear he didn’t used sits in his backpack as he re straps the camera back around his neck. He wanted to look at the footage and pictures captured of the night. There’s no way in hell they didn’t at least catch something, but there’s a gut feeling that he’d be dealing with a very anxious and angry alien if he tried to review that content now, so it’s going to have to wait.

Folders tucked underneath his arm, he turns to see Zim popping his right contact, disguise fully assembled, purple jacket included.

Zim blinks once or twice until the contacts are settled. His gaze falls down to the folders and his neutral demeanor dimmers in the slightest. He knows he’s going to be questioned. He couldn’t deflect forever. Dib tries to beat down his guilt with the overbearing responsibility to bring back results and to find the truth.

(And maybe, just maybe, Dib was desperately curious to know why this dangerous, alien Invader mentally snapped at the concept of his worst enemy’s death becoming a reality.)

(It sends a weird feeling in his chest Dib is trying really hard to be professional and NOT think about.)

Dib clears his throat. “Ready for some breakfast, space boy?”

With the grace he’s seen a thousand times before and the ease of an award winning actor, Zim’s demeanor switches to a lighter one with a flashing smile. “Of course! Zim is not the one paying for it.”

Zim pilots the Voot somewhere close to the end of the forest where they wouldn’t need to walk for long before coming into the edges of the city. He cloaks it as soon as they exit, leaving it parked underneath a large bill bored praising some sort of skin care product in a flux of French that Dib cannot understand.

It was early morning now, the time when most food establishments were just opening up. If they were lucky, they’d find a place relatively close and not with a lot of patrons. Dib already knows the people of his town were dense, and that the people of earth were dimmer than a broken light bulb, but a weird green person walking in tow with someone who is clearly not a local could attract some attention. The camera around his neck didn’t exactly help the whole ‘not-looking-like-a-tourist’ thing.

Zim puts the remote back inside his Pak and starts walking off in a direction without so much of a notice. Dib has to jog at first to keep up, resists the urge to kick the back of his heels as he does so and gives him a questioning look. “Do you even know where we’re going?” He asks. “We came here for the investigation, not for sight-seeing and lounging around, so neither of us have any sort of tourist map-”

“IDIOT‌! Of course Zim knows where’s going.” Said alien jabs a finger into the human’s face just to emphasize his tone. “Zim has a local GPS in his Pak. I can see important points of interest in the surrounding area. Hospitals. Parks. Restaurants are all included.”

Dib raises a brow, memory flashing back to the times he’s seen a tablet like device stem from the alien’s Pak. “When did you get something like that?”

“I’ve had it for a while now, Dib-stink.” Zim rolls his eyes. “And since Gir got us lost in the city back at home. It took Zim TWO‌ DAYS‌ to find my way back to my base. All my experiments had died by then.” He waves a dramatic flay of the hand, as if remembering an inconvenience. “It was a mess.”

Dib doesn’t know whether he should be more concerned about the so called ‘experiments’ that had died on Zim’s absence, or the fact that he used the term ‘home’ for his town. “Do I even want to know what exactly you have lying dead in your base right now?”

“Idiot. Zim cleared out those corpses ages ago.”

He walks in syncs with him as the two turn down a sidewalk that leads into street that appear to be decorated with little shops and stores along the side, some of which weren’t even open yet. Most of them had signs and posters showcasing what they were for, knick-knack shops to a simple grocery store. Some of which had English at the bottom for Dib to understand, but for the most part, all the words around him looked foreign and slightly intimidating. It was not a comfortable feeling being in an unfamiliar place, unfamiliar country with your worst alien enemy being  the only one able to understand the language.

Dib’s mind trails to how he might fare if he ever traveled to an alien planet alone when a sudden tug on his collar quite literally yanks him out of his thoughts. Zim has him by the trenchcoat, dragging him into the direction of a nifty looking place that smells more and more like fresh baked bread and hot coffee the closer he gets to it. Zim forces him through the glass doors and into the cafe. “HERE! Zim and the Dib-beast will commence the foodening here!”

Dib yanks his collar of out his enemy’s grip. “You could have just SAID‌ something. And don’t I get a say in this?”

Zim shoots him a grin as an older woman walks up to the front counter to greet them. “No.”

A polite cough. The woman, an older, frail looking thing that kinda reminds Dib of his therapist, smiles at the two boys with her hands clasped together and speaks in the tone of voice that is easily decorated with years and years worth of customer service. She speaks eloquently, but it’s all gibberish to Dib’s ears. He looks nervously as she directs her attention to him, smiling and awaiting a response for whatever she’s just said as Dib shuffles nervously on his feet. “Uh-”

“Drone alimentaire, donnez-moi une assiette des meilleurs toasts de votre pays.“ Zim speaks up, piping Dib’s surprise (and annoyance). He speaks oddly, like the language was new in his mouth yet it comes out fluently and feels natural. Somehow, his voice keeps it’s normal gusto as he talks. The alien turns to him for a moment. ”Are you hungry?“

“Ah, not really.” Dib thinks for a moment. “Could go for some coffee.”

Zim turns back to the woman, who’s patiently waiting with a smile. These sort of interactions must not be new to her, if even the newcomer is obviously green. “Et le grand garçon qui se dirige ici prendra un café. Pas de crème. Deux sucres.”

Dib’s suspicion peeks up when the woman stifles a chuckle, saying something else to Zim before graciously waving them towards a seating area further in the cafe. Zim spins on his heel, already seeking out the best booth in the building as the woman returns to the back and disappears from view. Dib gives the surrounding area a quick scan. Normal. One or two other customers that minded their own business, earbuds in tow and reading, completely oblivious to the paranormal investigator and the alien eminence that just walked in.

Dib makes sure to reach over the counter, grab a few sugar packets stewn about and stuff them into his pockets before joining Zim at the table he’s selected at the far corner of the cafe. He throws his trenchcoat off and lets it hang off the back of his chair, sending Zim a look. “Did you tell her my head was big?”

Zim pauses, then shrugs off his hoodie as well. “I didn’t tell her anything! She was laughing because it’s so blatantly obvious. Anyone with functional eyes can see how humongous of a skull you have.”

“Uh huh.” Dib brings up the folder he’s had tucked underneath his arm until this point, opening it up and bringing out a few papers to spread them across the table. He makes sure to keep the more graphic pictures inside the folder, hidden just in case the waitress were to walk over with their food and possibly see something she really shouldn’t. Dib searches for a pen in the pockets of his coat, grabs one and uncaps it, bringing the most important papers up closer to him and skimming over their headings.

Zim looks displeased to have his side of the table covered in paper. “What’s all this? This is the time for FOODENDING. Not your pitful investigation!”

Dib looks up at him. “We’re still technically on the investigation. We just haven’t filled in all the blanks and information yet.” Dib finds a select paper and swivels it around for the alien to view. A serious of checks and marks, empty lines ready to be detailed and a couple of boxes that ask what gear was used, who all was present, what time the investigation began and ended and so on. All of it seemed very formal and organized, something that Zim bares a tooth at and shoves the offending paper away. Dib frowns at him. “I’m gonna need those answers, Zim. I can’t go back to Swollen Eyeball empty handed.”

Zim’s face twist into irritation. “You were THERE, stink-boy. Fill in all the details you need to and leave Zim alone about it. There’s no use in asking questions you already know the answer to so get on with it already. I didn’t come here to be interrogated.”

“I’m not interrogating you. We’re just talking.” Dib insists.

Zim’s fingers make a tapping noise that they drag across the table cloth and the sound of it makes Dib flinch. The tapping stops, Zim cocking a brow at the behavior as the teenager tries to keep his composure. “You seem pretty calm for someone I could have killed merely hours ago.”

“We’ve tried to kill each other since we were kids. I don’t feel like this is any different.” It’s still terrifying, but Dib cant say he’s not a little desensitized to the thought of Zim ending his life once and for all. “The whole thing…kinda reminded me of when we were younger anyway, to be honest.”

“Nostalgia is not what Zim felt, idiot boy. You would have had a better chance at survival if you had just left Zim.”

Dib blinks in surprise. Out of all the things he was expecting Zim to scold him over, that was no one of them. “I know we hate each other, but you’re pretty stupid if you ever think I was going to leave you down there.”

Something in Zim softens, but he keeps his edge to him. “Is that really the smartest decision your oversize head of yours could come up with? Zim would have been fine on his own!”

Dib scoffs through his nose. “That is bullshit and you know it.”

“Insolent moron!” Zim clutches the edges of the table, snarling at him. “You mean nothing to me! Your pathetic emotions made you a sitting duck and Zim would have-I would have-” He fumbles with his words, making guttural noises and grits his teeth in frustration. “Understand that your sentimentality is not universal, Dib. I would have killed you and left your corpse for the rats, and I wouldn’t feel anything about it.”

(Memories of hands around his head and checking for bleeding ears. Tear stained faces and open armed embraces. Broken reflections and apologies muttered into his neck.)

Dib may be a little dense, but he’s not a fucking idiot. “You’re lying.”

Zim’s reaction is immediate, offense and a sharp toothed growl coming up, he opens his mouth to retort when the waitress approaches their table and the alien has no other choice but to simmer down, especially when the older woman gives the Invader a concerned look. She smiles at Dib and says something soft to Zim, to which the alien waves off. A plate is sat down in front of him, (waffles, not toast, Dib noted) as well as a cup of Joe across the table for himself.

Dib gives a polite nod to the woman as she walks away, peers into the coffee and lets out a sigh. “Listen, I‌ know you don’t want to talk about it.” He digs through his pockets, pulls out the handful of sugar packets he stole and tosses them across the table. Zim’s stare of scrutiny dart from them, back to him again. “But it’ll be much easier for the both of us if we just get it out of the way now. And you know, I’d feel a lot safer if I can be 100% certain that you still don’t have that thing inside of you-”

“That demon is no longer an issue. Even if it was still in my body, my Pak would have erased it by now. That, or my Pak would have done a complete shutdown to isolate the problem, and self-destruct if need be.” Zim interrupts him with a startling amount of venom in his tone. A second passes, then his voice softens.‌ “As much as I hated it, your method of removal prevented that.”

Dib watches him pick up a sugar packet, tear it open and dump the entire thing out all over the waffle. “What do you mean?”

Zim picks up his fork and glares at him like the answer is the most obvious thing in the world. It kinda is, even, but Dib wants clarification for something this serious. “Take a look at your file, Dib. What happens to these humans who get infected with the ghost-beast who’s had it’s run of them?”

He doesn’t need to look to remember what he’s read. “They act weird, fine, then lash out and hurt or kill others, and then kill themselves.” The words processes as he speaks them out loud, and only then does the realization come to light. “Oh.”

Zim thins his mouth into a line. “Do you understand now?”

Yes and No. The possession happened very quickly in comparison to the more human cases, whose decent into madness took days to even weeks before they starting showing signs of their affliction. But with Zim, the effect was immediate. Perhaps not in seconds, or even minutes, but from the very first incident with the spirit box to the argument in the mirror-filled room, the alien was constantly on edge, and he was still hiding something. Dib thinks about building some sort of alien lie detector in the future.

“Not really, no.” Dib leans back in his chair and drinks from his coffee, trying not to sputter when the coffee is too hot to be taken in anything more than just sips. “You’re the only person that’s been possessed and lived by this entity. Even though you’re not human-” Zim hushes him and points the fork threateningly in his direction. Dib raises a brow, gestures to the literally two other patrons in the room (both with earbuds and hopefully unable to understand English anyways) before continuing. “You’re the only one that can help me understand what happened to make you act that way.”

Zim’s face has a deep frown and a tense look. Dib continues with caution. “Maybe if we figure out how it affected you, what it made you feel and what it…showed you. Whatever you saw, whatever you thought  you saw, we can make it where it never happens again.” He reasons. “Like a software patch.”

“A software patch.” Zim repeats his words with a scoff. “There is no fix that exists in the galaxy that will ever get rid of the vulnerability in my Pak that the damn ghost-beast took advantage of.”

Hearing the alien curse was such an odd thing to experience when it happens. “So there was a vulnerability that it attached itself to?” Dib catches on, and he can almost feel Zim inwardly flinch at his slip up. “Right?”

Zim sits unmoving for a minute. Then, he sets his fork down, crossing his arms and leaning away from his food. “Yes.”

Dib leans forwards as the alien leans back, hand on his cheek and his elbow resting on the table. “Explain.”

The alien’s claws drum against his arm in a fidget that Dib doesn’t know if it’s nervousness or irritation. For a minute, and a very long sixty seconds at that one, Zim stares at him. Fake contacts glare into his face longer than Dib could say he was comfortable with but he is no stranger to his enemy’s glares, especially not when he can send one of his own. Not hostile, not teasing or mocking, but curiosity in it’s finest form. The space between them is tense but not awkward, filled with over over analyzations from Dib and a whir of thoughts from both ends.

He can see the lines in Zim’s face where his tongue presses against his cheeks, like the Invader is debating to remain silent, or restraining himself from speaking something he really shouldn’t.

“The Pak doesn’t work like your feeble, mushy brains do.” Zim speaks finally. “My biological brain works similarly to yours, but memories are kept in stores in the Pak as well, similar to what you would call a back-up drive. It’s why Irkens can still remember who they are even after the Pak is disconnected from the biological body, and a copy of our personalities remain and take-over if the Pak is attached to another host. It overrides everything else.”

Dib’s eyes grow wide, blinking at the sudden information. It’s not exactly the start off he was expecting, but he’ll fucking take it. “Not that I don’t appreciate the cool alien tech info, but how is that relevant to the possession?”

He expects Zim to retort with a normal smart-ass response, but instead the alien mulls over his words for a moment. “The demon found an…error in my Pak that it took advantage of and that’s why it was so easy for it to-” Zim makes a disgusted face and half of a gagging noise. “For it to…trick Zim. To control what feedback I was receiving that I reacted to.”

“An error, huh?” Dib takes another sip from his coffee. “Looks like Paks aren’t as flawless and superior as you had me thinking.”

There’s a scratching noise and Dib looks down. Zim’s hand has curled into a fist, slight marks in the wood of the table where his claws scratched across it before hiding in his palm. “You miserable idiot. It is your  fault such an error exist in Zim’s Pak!” His voice raises but in a whisper, a soft yelling that Dib didn’t realize Zim was capable of. “How dare  you insult the capabilities of the Irken empire when it was you  who sabotaged my perfect coding!”

Dib gawks at him. “Me? I didn’t do shit to you! You wouldn’t ever-” He cuts himself off when he realizes his voice is matching their usual argument levels, glancing around the cafe to see if anyone has noticed before taking a deep breathe and forcing himself to be calmer. “I never did anything to you. Your Pak, I mean”

“Yes, you did. Whether you realize it or not.” Zim spits at him. “And I’m trying to explain that to you, if you could get it through that humongous head of yours to listen to Zim.”

Dib’s feels a headache coming on, but saves his complaint for the sake of information. He gathers the rest of the scattered papers and puts them into the folder in disarray, uncaring and shoving it all crumpled into his trenchcoat’s pockets before turning back to Zim. The table all cleared, Dib pulls his coffee closer to him, quietly realizes that it’s been made just the way he usually makes it, (weird, he wouldn’t be able to tell the waitress that) and gives Zim a pointed look. “You have my full attention.”

“Good.” Zim himself appears to take a deep breath. He goes quiet for a moment, pushing the fork to roll along the table as the silence settles between them. Hesitance radiates off of him. “Do you remember when I‌ attached my Pak to you? Back in the forest?”

Dib freezes. “You said you never wanted to talk about that.”

Zim’s hesitance lingers for a moment. “But do you remember?”

“Yeah.”

He rolls the fork back and forth, never unlocking eyes with Dib and somehow that just makes the situation feel so much heavier than the environment of a sweet, little french cafe should ever allow it to be. Eventually Zim stops his fidgeting, stoic face all the while, and holds the fork like a normal human being does over the waffle, poking and prodding at his food.

“When Paks disconnect from their original host, they stop recording any incoming memory, while outputting the original. When they reconnect, these memories can sync up again, replacing what’s missing and repairing any memory that’s corrupted.” Zim speaks low and solid. “Sometimes, in certain circumstances, these instances of disconnection can have…conflicts.”

Dib’s brows furrow together, but he says nothing.

“When I carried you to that hospital with my Pak on you, my biological brain knew that you were still alive. The Pak, however, didn’t know that. It only knew it was connected to something other than it’s host, and I-” Zim stops himself, as if to catch his wording. “And it’s primary objective was to keep you alive.” Another pause. “Whatever it was connected to, I mean.”

Dib swallows a heavy lump in his throat. It doesn’t go down well, so he takes a sip of his coffee and chugs a little too much it makes him cough. He doesn’t know if it’s the caffeine or the nervousness making his heart start to speed. “Well, it uh. It worked, right?” He tries to be lighthearted.

Zim’s lack of response only makes his skin go colder, so Dib decides to sip some more and pretend he’s hiding behind the ceramic of the coffee cup.

“It did.” Zim continues. He sounds like he’s talking more to himself than to the human across the table from him. “And it hasn’t accepted that yet.”

The alien takes a moment for the words to process in the human’s head. Dib pauses in his drink, sets the cup down and drums his fingers against the table. He stops once the sound of tapping on wood becomes a little too loud for his liking.

“The last thing that my Pak saw while still connected to me was you bleeding out from your wounds. Then it was disconnected and didn’t receive any further feedback until I was extracting it from you later, dropping your body off at the front doors of your human hospital.” Zim speaks in monotone now, like reading a book. “The last thing my Pak thought it saw was watching you die, and for some reason, the Pak memories and the biological ones refuse to sync up and fix the error.”

Zim digs his fork into the waffle a little too suddenly, and his grip around the fork tightens. “Sometimes it still thinks you’re dead.”

Dib is quiet for a long moment. “But I’m right here with you?”

Zim does not answer, doesn’t even hum something to acknowledged that he heard Dib’s response, but simply stares down at the waffle like it’s going to burst underneath his gaze and burn up the room around him. Dib fiddles with his thumbs, letting the new information process through his mind. Theories and questions swirl in a cauldron of emotions that he’s not sure what to make of this. He doesn’t know if Zim is lying (though he has a pretty good feeling that he’s not, and that a new one for Zim), if the alien was still hiding something, which felt partially true, or the matter of important that this was.

There is a almost shocking feeling of liberation once the realization hits, and all the puzzle pieces click together in place “The demon found that memory mis-sync error in your Pak, and made you think that the fault was the reality! That’s how it takes control of the people it comes across!” Dib’s voice raises in near-excitement. The tension is leaving his shoulders, the relief of something making sense finally flooding in.

“I don’t know exactly how Pak technology relates to human brains, but you know that that’s easy to put together right? Whatever insecurity a person has, whatever their doubts, their fears or something that messes them up, that thing preyed on. It’s ability to do utilize that is what made it so dangerous! It can take control over anyone  for anything!” Dib’s hands fly up as he’s talking, the inner child in his coming out as the paranormal investigator finally gets something he can supply the Swollen Eyeball with.

Zim is still staring down at his waffles with an unreadable expression, and Dib is too busy rambling to notice.“I mean, it doesn’t explain why it wants to hurt people. Maybe the ghost has some insecurity or guilt itself and wants to make hurt other people for it. Either way, it’s start.” Dib half-chuckles. There’s no clue as to where it came from, or what the whole deal with the mirrors was about, but he had theories and Bloody Mary still wasn’t crossed off the list, as much as he hated it. They are one step closer to the truth and now Dib wouldn’t have to face his organization with empty results.

The enthusiasm dies down a little at the sudden realization that whatever they were investigating probably did not survive the miserable exorcism that Dib forced upon it, that or whatever security cleansing the alien had in it’s Pak. Wherever or whatever it was, it was probably weak and back in the underground castle that he had no intention to return to anytime soon, or fully exorcised. Swollen Eyeball may not be too pleased with the lack of information surrounding the entity, especially considering it’s taken human lives, (and almost’s Dib’s and Zim’s own, homicide and suicide seemed to have been it’s forte) though they may just be satisfied with it’s disappearance and wrap the case up.

A sudden beep startles him out of his thoughts. Dib reaches behind him to the trenchcoat hanging off the chair, rummaging through the pockets to find his cell phone. Long forgotten and with barely any service, it beeped again to warn him of low battery. One glance at the screen and Dib’s heart skips. It’s not the battery life or even the newly cracked screen he doesn’t remember forming, but the assault of messages that have popped up. Some of which were as old as six hours ago. “Shit.”

Zim still hasn’t said or done anything, not to acknowledged his rambling nor to argue against it. Dib spares the alien a wary glance, opening his mouth to catch the Invader’s attention when the phone vibrates and his eyes dart back down to the phone.

All the messages are from Gaz, including several missed phone calls. They ranged from typical insults, to asking him if he’s at the store, if he’s fighting with Zim today, then the intimidating ‘where are you.’ with a period at the end because she’s scary like that. The messages get more and more forward until the more recent one, received seconds ago and only saying ‘I’m telling Dad.’

Dib is quick to type out a response. DO‌ NOT TEL‌L‌ DAD.

He hits the send button faster than he thought was possible, watching with bated breath as the typing icon appears under her name and disappears. Dib takes a deep breath, pinches his nose bridge and talks out loud so his alien counterpart can listen to his woes. “Gaz found out I’m out and she’s threatening to snitch. If word gets to dad, both you and me are gonna be in a shitload of trouble.” Dib sighs, looking up towards Zim and cocking a brow when there’s no sassy response. “Zim?”

The alien does not respond, though the grip around his fork tightens until the knuckles on his fingers start to pale. Dib glances down towards them with confusion before another vibration steals his attention once more.

Gaz is blunt and straight to the point. Where are you?

Dib decides to go the honest and simple route. I’m in Paris with Zim. We had an investigation last night and we’re going over the details over breakfast now.

He makes sure to add a little ‘will be home soon’ at the end for his sister’s sake. The little dots pop up, disappear, does this twice more before disappearing again and Dib decides to focus his anxiety on fiddling with the silverware on his side of the table. He unwraps the napkin from the fork, twirling in his hands and giving the alien across the table from him a look over. “Zim?”

No response. The fork in his waffles hasn’t move for a while now. It’s a little unnerving to see the alien so still, not even the slightest bit of eye movement comes from his contacts and Dib goes as far to take his own fork and jab it in the corner of the waffles to take a piece, stuffing it in his mouth just for show. “What, are you blue-screening or something?” He hopes the mockery will spike a reaction. When it doesn’t, the concern starts spiraling. “Zim?”

Another vibration. Dib looks back down to his phone to read his sister’s response. You’re in Paris? With Zim? Eating breakfast together?

Dib quickly types back. Yes.

Her response is instant. That’s gay.

Dib flips over his phone on the table, setting it to the side and glares at the alien that has been silent now for over five minutes, or maybe even ten. That was still a pretty damn long time for someone like Zim to go without manically laughing or rambling or something. It was weird and out of character. Dib prods the fork forwards and into Zim’s line of sight, poking at his waffle, and trying to catch his attention. When that doesn’t work, Dib goes to jab the fork in his plate.. “Zim?”

A sudden movement. ZIm’s free hand that was once resting on the table coils around Dib’s  outstretched hand, claws digging into his wrist and poking through the skin. The teenager winces but doesn’t move, concern and confusion swirling in his brain as the green fingers seem to tighten around his hand at the same intensity the alien held the fork, knuckles paling as the silverware began to curl. “Hey, Earth to space boy?” He tugs at his hand, a slight panic arising when cat scratch-like lines dig into his skin in order to keep him from pulling away. “Zim!”

Crack

A jolt, Zim’s head pipes up suddenly like awakening from a dream. The alien stares at Dib wide eyed. Dib looks down at the plate. Zim’s clenched fist has pressed downwards, forcing the fork through the waffle and breaking the plate as it stuck in the wood.

Dib’s throat feels dry, his heart stammering and his mouth thinning into a line. He’s going to have to pay for that anyway. “Hey, earth to spaceboy?” He talks soft, and with the slightest of a smile when he does, because there’s no telling if the alien who has his wrist hostage is an emotional ticking time bomb. “If you really wanted me to stop stealing your food, you could have just used your words.”

Zim doesn’t answer him verbally, and his facial expression doesn’t change, but at least his blinks at Dib. That’s better than nothing. “Hey, uh.” Dib pulls a little on his wrist. “Can I have my hand back now?”

Zim blinks, then his gaze flutters down to Dib’s wrist and back up again. He stares at the locked digits for a moment before letting go, and Dib rolls his wrist to his comfort. “Thanks.” He still pokes the fork into the waffle, a little destroyed by Zim’s antics but still edible regardless. With confronted by awkward silence and the uncertainly of what to do when your alien disassociates in front of you, nervousness fills him to the brim and Dib sits there for a moment.

(What exactly do you do when your alien loses touch with reality?)

When all else fails, deflect, change the topic and make something feel normal again. “So,anyway. Gaz knows we’re here and what for, and it’s gonna be on both of our heads unless we promise to make her not snitch. So I’m thinking we get her a souvenir something. Maybe something for Gir to.”  He quickly adds the last part, digging a decent sized waffle bite from the plate and holding it up.

Zim continues to stare at him, unchanging. His throat goes dry and Dib thinks back to anything his therapist may have taught him in the past two years that might help. It didn’t exactly make it easy when his own anxiety was beginning to sky rocket. Distraction and rambling fit the temporary cure.

“Maybe we can go sight seeing. Find a mime or something. I think you’d like the Eiffel Tower. It’s really tall, and you like those sort of things right? It feels like something right up your alley. No evil plans though. That means no blowing anything up or, uh, doomsday machines while we’re here. Just look at stuff and uh, sight see.” He shoves the waffle into his mouth and talks while he chews. “ It’s a human thing. You’d be considered more human if you did it.”

God, he feels like such an idiot when he talks. He can feel his cheeks and ears turning red in embarrassment and tries to avoid looking Zim in the face when he talks. A pause, and Dib looks up with a cheek full of waffle to find an odd sight.

Zim looks visibly relaxed and relieved, and is…smiling at him?

Confused panic strikes him immediately. “What. Why are you looking at me like that?” Zim blinks at him and Dib feels years worth of childhood rivalry be remembered. He puffs out his lip and points the fork down towards the messy waffle with accusation. “What did you do to that waffle?”

Zim blinks at him, his smile innocent. Then the innocent disappearance in a millisecond as mischief widens his grin. “Zim spat on it.”

Dib gags comically enough that it makes the Invader laugh out loud, loud enough that one of the patrons that have been completely oblivious to the duo’s theatrics before take out an earbud to send the two of them a dirty look. Dib makes a show of wrinkling his face in disgust, shooting Zim a glare (that didn’t really feel like a proper glare, there was too much relief and playfulness now that the tension has dispersed that he couldn’t exactly focus his repulsion too hard into it) and watching as the alien took immense pleasure in his suffering.

“How does it taste, Dib-stink? Like DEFEAT?!” Zim cackles. “I could be poisonous, you know!”

For a moment, and just for a moment, Dib thinks about bringing up the state of the invader he just witnessed. Something about that laughter makes him decide against it.

“You’re gross and I hate you.” Dib snivels, letting the fork drop and chugging his now cold coffee with intense concentration. “But if I don’t die, I can put down that Irkens aren’t poisonous. 0 For Zim: 1 For Dib. Hurrah for paranormal research.”

At the last sentence, Zim visibly dims, though his mischievous smile doesn’t disappear. He tosses his own fork over his shoulder dramatically, it bouncing off the wall and catching the attention of a few eyes. “Bah, enough of that! You bore Zim with your talk of ghosts and paranormal and details. Zim wants to do some research of his own.”

Dib raises a brow, (and tries not to inwardly panic when he spies the waitress eyeing the broken plate on their table from across the cafe) “You are NOT getting any of my spit.”

“SILENCE! Zim wants to see the surrounding area for invading reasons!” He jabs a finger towards him. “And Zim wants these knick-knack items for Gir and other research things. Of which the Dib will pay for.”

The investigator cringes. “What the hell makes you think I’m made of money?”

Zim snorts at him. “Don’t be silly, pig. Zim has a sample of your DNA, and it’s chemical make-up is no where near any of this planet’s currency!”

Amber eyes squint at him. “Do I even want to know why you have my DNA?” He scrunches up his nose. “Or where you got it? That’s creepy.”

“You DO‌ want to know where I got it. SUCKS‌ FOR‌ YOU, Zim is not telling!” The alien gives a haughty laugh at the end, and waves a non-nonchalant hand afterwards. “Besides, your Zim shrine, as almighty and godly as I am, is creepy. You’re the creepy one.”

Dib’s ears grow hot. “Those pictures are for research! You’re an alien!”

“And your DNA is my research, Dib-creep.” Zim scoffs, leaning back and even going as far as to inspect his claws. “Humans. Always so insistent on the double-standards.”

Dib opens his mouth to argue when a cough resounds out. The patrons were staring at the both of them now, annoyance on their face. Dib inwardly cursed and reached back for his trenchcoat, snagging his now-dead phone and throwing it in a pocket. “We should probably go.”

His alien counterpart nods. “Yes! Time to pay for the normal human meal with normal human money. That of which I do not have. But I’m still normal.”

Dib groans out loud this time, already feeling the hurt in this pocket. He takes his trenchcoat and shrugs it on, watching as Zim did the same for his hoodie. The waitress from before watches them as they approach the counter, hands fumbling in his pocket for his card. His face pouts even worse when Zim mentions something french to the woman, and she disappears for a second to return with a white takeout box. Judging from the smell, it was full of syrupy french toast. Or waffles. Whatever Zim had decided on.

The price on their ticket makes him sigh. “Why do I‌ have to pay for everything?”

Zim is scratching Gir’s name on top of the Styrofoam takeout box with a claw when he points it in Dib’s face. “You still owe Zim for the use of his Voot, stinky! Don’t think I forgot!”

One trip to the souvenir shop, a run-around of Paris (literally at some point, because Zim decided to shoplift a particularly shiny item that Dib absolutely refused to pay for and the shop owner did not take having a ‘skin condition’ as an excuse for theft) and a couple of hastily taken photos later, they find themselves back at the Voot, same placed they had left it. The camouflage was a wonder that worked, Dib noted, having a hard time locating the ship until once again Zim uncloaked it. If it wasn’t for the leaves that had fallen on top of the hull, there would have been no indication of it being there.

Dib gets his body maybe halfway up the front of the ship before there’s a hard kick in the ass that has him tumbling in with an ‘oof’, Zim hopping in afterwards and shutting the windshield down with record speed. The alien cackles at the human’s sore behind, Dib throwing him the finger as he righted himself, only to slam back on the floor as Zim shouts something incomprehensible and the Voot is rising up into the air at a speed that would probably kill a few birds if it hit them.

No, scratch that. It did  kill a few birds. Dib can hear Zim grumbling about one getting stuck in the windshield wiper as he groans and rubs his head, teeth grit together and preparing for whats coming next. “Okay, vacations over. How much longer until we get home.”

“Three hours, approximately. Maybe four because of turbulence. But it shoulder be very long.” Zim it hitting a few buttons across the dash, completely focused on his task in front of his while Pak legs extend from his back and take off his disguise for him, stowing it away. It’s pretty fascinating how they could be focused on two different things at once.

He doesn’t realize how thin the air becomes so quickly until a woosh noise sounds throughout the Voot, and Dib is able to take a deep breath again. “If I pass out again, are you gonna cut me up into little pieces?”

Zim is inputting the coordinates, turning his head to peer over the back of the pilot’s chair to grin at him. “Of course not! Zim would only ever cut you up into little pieces when you’re awake.”

“Comforting.” Dib finds the backpack, shoves the files from the investigation inside and doesn’t care if they come out crumpled later, before picking himself up from the floor, gripping onto the back of the pilot’s seat and swatter Zim’s antenna away from his face then they swat backwards to bat him away. “Move over.”

Zim glances up from his seat, teeth bared and antenna straight up as he does as give Dib a specific type of look. “You are NOT piloting my Voot-!”

“I didn’t ask for that. Scoot.‌ Over.” Despite asking politely, Zim still protest and Dib ends up managing to fit his way into the seat by forcibly pushing his body onto the alien, causing the Invader to recoil in disgust (Doesn’t feel so great when your personal bubble is invaded, does it, Zim?)‌ and shimmies down one side of the seat. It was big enough to fit the both of them, but just barely. Dib was touching shoulder’s with Zim and Dib could feel the sting of his antenna thwacking against his ear, but there was no way in hell that he was gonna pass out uncomfortable against the metal wall like last time.

Dib’s fingers find the camera still strapped around his neck as Zim spits profanities in his ear. “I should drop you in the ocean! You could use a bath. You still reek of blood and Dib-ness.”

Dib snorts in his face and makes doubly sure he sounds extra snotty when he does so. “One day I’ll kidnap you to the beach and relax underneath an umbrella after I throw you to the sharks.”

“Zim will fight the sharks and win.”

“The salt water will get you first.”

Zim growls in his face, but turns his head and makes no further protest as he returns to the dashboard. Dib slumps in the seat a little so his head was level with the alien’s shoulder. They weren’t leaning on each other, trying hardest not to psychically contact, but it was nice to know that when he did inevitably pass out, his head wouldn’t hit something hard.

The camera comes to life with the click of a button, and Dib feels an antenna flicker in his hair at the sound but nothing other than that. A blinking red light tells him that the battery was low, soon to be dead just like his phone but with just enough juice to look over some things that have been collecting over his thoughts for a few hours now.

Navigating to the media gallery he finds a serious of pictures. Some clear, some blurry, some of which included a green thumb over the lenses (and sometimes, his own thumb) but most of which could be used, printed out and sent to the Swollen Eyeball for evidence. All of the clear pictures were Favorited while Dib skimmed over the rest of the gallery, past the video of him in a hospital bed covered in pudding, past a picture of Gir with a bucket on his head that Zim probably took without permission, and deleting all the corrupted files as he went along.

One of the pictures he comes across, the most recent one, is a pretty decent photo of Zim standing in front of the Eiffel tower, a picture he absolutely demanded that Dib take. Hands on his hips, a villainous look on his face, openly plotting his plan to take over the tower as one of his many base of operations while Dib stood back and tried to take a picture that wasn’t just a blurry picture of Zim switching poses every two seconds until he eventually grabbed the Invader by the sleeve and whipped the camera around for an impromptu selfie with Dib’s tongue sticking out and Zim’s annoyance of having his spotlight taken.

He favorites that one without thinking before continuing through the rest of the gallery.

The last picture in the roll he hasn’t organized comes across the screen and Dib is greeted with the sight of an undisguised alien in his Voot, red neon eyes wide and staring at the camera as the flash illuminated every undisguised alien feature that Zim had. The test picture Dib took at the beginning of the investigation.

Dib doesn’t need to look up from the screen to know that Zim is staring too. A question sours on his tongue and his throat goes dry at the thought of speaking it out loud. A flutter in his hair, and surely Zim has picked up his nervous heart rate. He’s expecting Dib to say something.

Dib’s tongue dances in his mouth before he can find the words to properly speak. “Are we friends?”

He expects immediate maniacal laughter. He does not expect the silence that comes after and somehow that makes it so much worse. His fingers tap along side the camera, blinking in sync with the fluttering battery light. The Zim staring back at him through the camera screen, although odd, give him much less anxiety than the one sitting next to him. Quiet and judgmental. Dib wishes he could slink into the cushion of the seat and disappear from existence.

“What makes you think I want to be friends?” Zim asks, his voice low and a little too close for comfort.

The words escape before Dib can stop himself. “I think you would miss me if I died.” Zim’s body stills and Dib sputters out the next one against his will too. “And I call you that sometimes. In my head, I mean. I don’t know why I do that.”

The Voot’s beepings and the soft woosh of the air ventilation barely hide the drumming in his chest. Dib presses the delete button and watches the alien evidence become erased. “But I‌ still hate you.”

The photo disappears and the screen dies when the camera finally does. When it turns black, Dib can see the reflection of his glasses and the top of his head on the black screen, and two red eyes focused on his face. He spies one of Zim’s fingers twitching towards him, then falling back to the dash bored. An antenna lands in his hair and doesn’t move from there.

Red eyes flicker to the their reflection in the camera’s black screen, linger there before turning away. “Zim does not care what you call him.”

He mulls on the words for a moment. “So, friends?”

“It won’t change your planet’s incoming destruction.” Zim adds on, though it feels like there’s a slightest of a smile in his voice. “But yes, friends.”

Dib’s chest feels like a weird combination of relief, giddiness, and an odd sense of doom. “So, uh. Friends tell each other everything that’s bothering them, you know?” He starts, ignoring the sideways glance he’s given in return. “We can talk about you leaders and all your alien secrets if it’ll make you feel better.”

He looks up with a shit-eating grin he didn’t give permission to grow across his face to find Zim looking down at him with a stretched frown and deep sense of displeasure. “Zim would NEVER tell you any of his weaknesses, Stink-boy. I’m not as dense as you are.”

That’s…not exactly what he meant. It was worth a shot. Something tells Dib he’s pushed as far as he could today, and he’ll get another shot eventually. Hopefully.

Besides, Dib is this close, this close to telling Zim that he already has a pretty good idea of what his weaknesses are when he remembers that Zim is just the same observant to him, and his first trip with an agitated alien didn’t exactly pan out well. He needed his second trip back home to go as smoothly as possible, and the fly swatter was god knows where.

Dib exhales through his nose and stiffens a little when his bandage chafes against the chair. “You know where I live if you need me.”

“I don’t need you.” Zim replies a little quickly. He hesitates for a moment. “But, later.”

The teenager peers up at him with eyelids that are already starting to feel heavy. “Later?”

Zim presses a button and the Voot jolts a little bit, high in the sky and heading on a course to home. “Later.”

Dib doesn’t know what to make of that. So he shrugs and lets the sounds of the Voot flying be his lullaby and doesn’t even mind it when his glasses askew on his face and promptly ignores the odd look that Zim gives them as they sit at an odd angle across his nose.

The world is feeling a little bit heavier and the seat he’s situated himself in is suddenly a lot more inviting to sink into, even when Zim beside him curses about the smell as Dib slumps further, this time allowing the consciousness to fade slowly instead of fighting it. He hears Zim mutter something about improving the air quality of the in the ship’s ventilation for future use, but the sentence falls into gibberish.

With the edges of his consciousness slipping away, Dib cannot help himself. He elbows the Invader in the side, not even caring when he’s too fatigued that he let’s his arm drop and rest over him.“So much for the whole ‘unfeeling alien soldier’ facade, huh?”

The gratification is immediate when Zim goes from stunned shock to offense in mere seconds, but Dib gets the last laugh with a goofy grin as unconsciousness takes him over.

(He later learns that, when he wakes up covered in waffle syrup and Gir spit that losing his ears or tongue may have been a better mercy.)