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Being Human	By : RotSeele Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 2485 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim. I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Being Human
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 18-Eighteen
- 19-Nineteen
- 20-Twenty
- 21-Twenty One
- 22-Twenty-Two
- 23-Twenty-Three
- 24-Twenty-Four
- 25-Twenty-Five
- 26-Twenty-Six
- 27-Twenty-Seven
- 28-Twenty-Eight
- 29-Twenty-Nine (Epilogue)
- 16
- 17
- 18
Seventeen - Zim POV
“Zeke,”
Someone was shaking my shoulder. It was gentle, as if the someone was actually concerned.
“Zeke.”
The shaking became a little rougher.
“Zeke! Wake up! You’re gonna be late for class!”
I blinked open my eyes and stared at Desmond. He was staring back at me, a frown on his face. “You feeling okay?”
I wiggled my toes and fingers, then stretched my limbs. While Desmond had been out yesterday, I’d reattached my PAK and had spent a few hours trying to modify it to look like a normal backpack. Failing that, I’d taken Seerah’s advice and hadn’t done anything too strenuous on my body. But sleeping late? Maybe I was becoming more human than I thought.
“I’m awake.” I said, pushing my covers off. I shivered as the cold air hit my skin.
Desmond stepped back and turned to his own bed. “Some girl called for you. Said her name was Gaz. She your girlfriend?”
“My sister.” I responded automatically. She must’ve hacked the system to get the number to our room phone, I decided, since my device showed several missed calls. How deep had I gone into sleep?
“I thought you were an only child?”
“I am.”
“But you just said Gaz was your sister.”
“Well.” Shit. “She’s my cousin, but she’s been so close that she’s like a sister to me.”
“Oh. Well, she said she wants to visit this weekend. Said she needed to talk to you about Zim. Who’s Zim?”
“My hamster.” Again, the automatic reply. I was wondering where my skill in lying was coming from.
“What a weird name for a rodent.” Desmond muttered.
I just stared at him as I moved to pull on clean clothes. “I’ll call her back.” I said.
“Yeah, she seemed pretty pissed about something.”
“She’s always pissed.” I grabbed my backpack, shoved my books and notebooks inside, then headed toward the door.
“Hey Zeke?” Desmond called after me.
“Yeah?” I paused at the door, looking back at my roommate.
Desmond’s dark eyes seemed even darker behind his glasses. He looked like he was about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “Nothing.” He said finally. “Just, you know, watch your back.”
I blinked at him, but he’d already turned away from me, grabbing his saxophone case from under his bed. I stepped out of the room, but his words haunted me. Watch your back. No one had ever said that to me before, and I was paranoid enough to believe that someone just might be out to get me. Especially since Dib had seemed to be avoiding me lately, and Gaz had suddenly called me about ten times. But, said that little annoying voice of reason, Desmond has no reason to believe you are anyone other than who you say you are. He might just be worried about you because, you know, you’re his roommate and that’s what humans do - they worry about those they care for. I shook my head and tried not to sigh as I left the building to try to make it to class on time.
I would have to find time to call Gaz, and find out what she wanted, but right now... now...
I stared at Dib, who stood at the bus stop closest to my building. I slowed my pace for a mere instant, but even at this distance, I could see the immediate change in his body language. He knew I’d seen him, knew he couldn’t predict my reaction upon seeing him. I stared at him as I approached, waiting for him to say something.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh,” he began, “hey.”
“Hey.” We stood side by side, awkwardly watching one another.
“So, uh, how are you feeling?” Dib asked.
“Better,” I replied.
“Yeah? That’s good.”
“Are you okay?”
Now he flushed a bit and shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing like walking around with swollen balls or anything.” I gave him a long, searching look. He flushed a deeper crimson and said, “Seerah kicked them.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a draconian bitch,” Dib grumbled.
I stared at him for a long moment. “Why?” I asked again.
Dib rubbed the back of his neck. “She said getting the punishment first would be sufficient deterrent to keep me from doing anything to stress you.”
“I don’t need a mother hen.” I grumbled.
“You tell her that. I’ll stand out of kicking distance, where it’s safe.”
The roar of the bus engine stopped the conversation from going any further. We got on, and to my further surprise, Dib sat with me. He pushed his glasses further up on his nose. He did that when he was nervous or uncomfortable, I’d noticed. I looked away from him and tried not to decide I liked the warmth pouring off him. It wasn’t something I should’ve even begun considering.
We didn’t talk again, at least not until we got off the bus and began the short walk to our class.
“Um.” Dib started. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
I nearly fell over. I looked up at Dib through my bangs and noticed his face was a bright pinkish color. Blushing. Dib was blushing. “I...” I stammered. No, you weren’t going to do this to me, you big-headed human! You weren’t going to fluster me, you weren’t going to get me to say anything you wanted to hear! “I have to call my girlfriend. It’s her birthday.”
I’d never seen a human actually deflate. They use the expression all the time, but I’d never actually seen a human put the expression into action.
“Oh.”
Oh.
One word.
One simple, little, irritating, damning word filled with so much regret and sadness.
“Why?” I finally asked, hating myself as I said it.
“We’re having a party. ‘We’ as in Seerah is throwing a party in my dorm room. She told me to invite you.”
I made a soft noise. What the hell was that stupid Puuraki up to? She knew Dib didn’t know who I was. What was she trying to do? I thought about it all through class, staring at the pages of my notebook and trying to discern what the motive was. And why, suddenly, Dib was blushing around me. I didn’t come up with any answers that pleased me, and I wasn’t about to ask Dib what was really going on. After all, the lie that had immediately come out of my mouth was a girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
Gaz.
Shit.
If Dib found out my “girlfriend”, who I was supposed to be calling tonight, was Gaz, he’d kill me. Gaz, if she found out and she always did, would kill me, bring me back, and kill me again. As soon as I had a free moment, I needed to call Gaz. As much as I dreaded it, I knew I had to call her before things began to get out of hand. Like Dib deciding he really liked Zeke and wanted to have intercourse with him. I ducked my head the moment that thought came into my brain. I stared at the material of my jeans, just staring. No, I told myself, stop thinking that way. You’re Zim, an Irken invader. You don’t need things like love and friends. You don’t even need the race that abandoned you to this dirtball of a diseased planet. And you certainly don’t need a paranoid, psychotic, obsessive compulsive, paranormal-phile freak saying unnecessary things!
...But I wanted that. It was a realization I think I’d known for a while but never wanted to acknowledge. I wanted to know this thing humans called love. And I had friends, in Gaz, in GIR, and Dib, however destructive and abusive as it was. I was an Irken defective, but I didn’t feel I was part of that race anymore. If the Puuraki (for example) declared war on the Irkens and wiped them all from the face of the universe, I wouldn’t shed a tear.
“Zeke, you okay?”
I looked up at Dib. “Yeah, fine. Just was thinking.”
Dib searched my face for a moment. I wonder what he saw. I stared back, watching his obsidian eyes. Finally, he looked away with a shrug. I said nothing in response.
After class, we ended up going our separate ways. Since I didn’t have history today, I went straight to my dorm. Desmond wasn’t there, much to my relief, so I closed the door and locked it. I grabbed my PAK from under my bed and put it on, sighing at the familiar weight. Then I grabbed my holo-phone and called Gaz.
Her image flickered to life. “About damn time!” she snapped. “I called you like sixty times!”
“I was sleeping.” I snapped back. “And then I had class. Why were you calling me?”
“Dib called me.”
“...What?”
“He called me.” Gaz repeated, spacing out her words. “About you.”
I stared at her for a long time. “About which one of me?”
“Zim, dumbass. Why would he call me about Zeke?”
“Gee, I don’t know, maybe he wanted his little sister’s opinion on his taste in men!” Gaz’s eyes widened. “He made a pass at me.”
“What?”
“He invited me to a party.”
“What did you say?”
I stared at her, suddenly glad we weren’t face to face. “I said I had to call my girlfriend.”
For a moment I thought she was going to cut the connection, get in her car, and drive out here to strangle me. Then she said, “You’re going.”
“What?”
“You’re going to that fucking party.”
“No-“
“What makes you think you’ve got a choice Zim?”
“I’m not going.”
“Yes you are.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m going, and if you don’t go, I’m going to tell Dib exactly who you are.”
“You bitch.”
Her smirk was entirely pleased. “So there’s your choice, Zim. You go, and all of this stays a secret, or you don’t go, and I expose you.”
“Why?” I asked. “After all you did to help me, why?”
“Because I don’t like people who break my brother’s heart.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I snapped, defensive. “Besides, it wasn’t like he asked me because he wanted to! A girl made him do it!”
Now Gaz’s eyes narrowed. “A girl?”
“Yes, a girl. An alien princess.”
Gaz blinked slowly. It reminded me of a stalking cat. “You’re serious.” She said at last. “Damn. I figured he got stiffies for aliens, but I always assumed he batted for the other team.”
“...What?”
“Nothing. I’ll just have to have a serious talk with that idiot.”
I sighed quietly. “So what did he want to know about Zim?”
“How you were doing. So I took the liberty of messing with your computer to make some videos to show him.”
Shit. “So what am I doing?”
“Oh you know, bothering me, watching TV, working in your lab, bothering me some more, messing with GIR, blowing shit up. Cursing out Dib and earth and humanity.”
“Normal Zim things.”
“Yeah.” She paused. Leaned forward in the chair I couldn’t see. “Are you okay?”
I was silent for a long time. Then I told her. I told her about my fainting spell, about Seerah and the Puuraki, about my ‘evolution’. I even told her about Desmond’s warning and my sudden thoughts. When I finally stopped talking, it was because words had become hard to form. I felt so drained, so tore up inside. “I think I should just give up, Gaz. I don’t know how much more of ‘Zeke’ I can take. And if Dib really is seeking a mate in Zeke, I can’t do a thing about it except break his heart.”
“So you’re just gonna give up?” Gaz asked quietly.
I gave her an angry glare. “What do you want me to do? Go to the party and tell him the truth?”
“No. Date him and on the night you guys have sex tell him the truth,” Gaz said snottily. “Yes, you fucktard, tell him the truth. I won’t let him hurt you.”
There was some thought on her face, there and gone, and I didn’t know what to make of her expression. “I need to think.” I said after a minute of quiet.
“Yeah, you do that.” Gaz said. “Don’t think too hard.” She sighed. “I’ll still be expecting you at the party.”
“Yeah, fine, whatever.” I hung up on her, watching her image fizzle out.
None of this was going how I’d wanted it to. None of this was supposed to happen. Dib wasn’t supposed to want Zeke. There weren’t supposed to be alien princesses playing with my life. I laid down on my bed and covered my head with my arms and pretended I wasn’t becoming emotionally unstable.
- 16
- 17
- 18
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Being Human