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Two Of Us	By : endofoblivion Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > Slash - Male/Male Views: 5194 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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When your world revolved around one purpose, one person; everything else in life became insignificant and small. Other matters are pushed aside while that one obsession slowly takes over life and limb. Dib recalled his sister Gaz saying things would get better with time, however, when the one who owns your life suddenly vanishes, it feels as though the world has ended. This was the unanimous explanation for his current pain. Despite having never really ‘lived’ in his youth, Zim had made him feel alive. That too held blame for the loss he had felt 12 years ago, the madness he suffered months at a time over the inevitable truth that he could not, and would not for the longest time accept.
“Time heals all wounds,” he whispered to the grass as he was resting with his back to the ground staring at the sunset. Bullshit.
The bitterness was about to overcome him but he forced it back. Think of other things.
Dib knew he had never experienced adolescence in its natural incarnation. While other kids were experiencing love, sex, wild parties and drugs, he was working away in Zim’s basement lab on crazy gizmos. Even as friends, Dib’s focus was purely on Zim. Bigfoot and the rest of the paranormal had been instantly replaced by a real living specimen; that wasn’t just a creature to be studied but his only mentionable live companion. The times they had were fun and just as fulfilling he had assumed, as all that other stuff. None the less Dib felt a faint twinge of regret he hadn’t lived to the fullest in the world he knew back then, before it had all been taken away. He also pined that he had never taken the time to act on a mild crush he had on Zita, since a few short years after his senior year in high school…it was too hard to think about. He wouldn’t he forced himself, think only of the happy memories when the world was peaceful; when reality wasn’t hell on earth. When he was happy.
***
The beauty of adolescence was fast upon him. Dib was 18 now, finishing his last year before graduation. It had been a terribly busy year for him at school which had limited his time to hang out with Zim at the base; none the less, they had been spending as much time as humanly possible with each other. What had begun as a suspicious respect on both their parts had slowly turned into a pleasant friendship. During his formative years he had spent most days chasing Zim, now instead he was hanging out. There were no dates, break-ups, girlfriends or other distractions that normally populated high skool living in Dib’s life. Well there had been Zita. Although Zita had been nicer to him this year and even apologised for the whole ‘crazy card’ thing, he really didn’t see her much besides the classroom. None the less he had developed a slight crush on her. He and Zita were only friends inside school, which didn’t bode well for any burgeoning romance but it was fine by Dib. They lived so far apart it was impossible to hang out anyways. In his perspective, at least having an ally in educational hell wasn’t out of the question but despite it, he still missed Zim’s crazy presence during Mr.Bitters’ rants and Ms. Sweet’s fuzzy wuzzy discussions. Ah, the beauty of having an overcrowded school system that shuffled its teachers around like cards. Much to Dib’s delight and his sister’s annoyance that mean she too had one of her old teachers in high school; Mr. Elliott to be exact. The hyper happy social worker turned teacher who doted on Gaz like a second daughter, much to her chagrin. It was almost worth going to school just to see that. Not today though; school and all its encompassing activities had been put on the backburner since he had bigger fish to fry. Most notably the crazy solution he and Zim had come up with to remedy the problem the Irken was encountering on Earth. While Dib had grown considerably taller in the years they had known each other, Zim was still pint sized. Zim had actually stopped going to skool at about the 7th grade when his height difference became obviously apparent. It was exceedingly difficult as the grades went higher to explain it away by being a ‘late bloomer’. So, although the alien went out into the world from time to time in the old man disguise it still wasn’t enough to lead a relatively productive life on Earth. Zim’s new mission it seemed was to get taller as soon as Irkenly possible.
With their goal clearly in focus, they had attacked it with zest. This meant, much to Dib’s delight, Zim would let him poke through Irken history archives. It had been something Dib had been itching to do ever since he had met the alien but for some reason, until the whole height thing had become an issue, Zim had almost been embarrassed to talk about his race’s history at all. Begrudgingly, Zim had agreed to let Dib have his way due to the undeniable fact Irkens at one point had all been relatively the same height. They both had come to the same conclusion that Zim’s ancient ancestral past would lend some clues as to how he could get taller.
“Well will you look at this,” he had said one day while sifting through, “ Irkens had kids at one point!”
Well not like human kids, but there was a male and female of the species and regular mating rituals which eventually resulted in eggs being laid.
“Interesting,” Dib thought. It definitely lent credance to Dib’s theory Irkens were an insectile life form.
“Peh,” Zim had said shrugging it off, “the inferior leftovers of a vastly inferior reproduction method.”
Ignoring that remark, Dib flitted through billions of years of evolution with zest. There were tons of pictures to look at too however; disappointingly, Irken historians were only interested in about 3 billion years in the past. Amusingly, the first stack of photos that came up were very similar to Earth in the 21^st century. At least upon initial inspection; there were far more natural looking backgrounds and their houses were dome shaped and half sunken into the Earth. It was surprising to find out Irkens, at one point, were very connected to their home planet Irk and had treated it with far more respect then Humans ever did Earth. The pretty photos that came up consisted mostly of parents with their litter of ‘smeets’ very posed and looking quite peaceful with farms or picturesque villages behind them. It had only been after the space race had begun that things started to change.
The original ties to the land vanished, and the photos became less concerned with nature and more with important individuals standing around spaceships or drinking Irken sodas while flashing what Dib interpreted as a victory sign. Interestingly, Irkens were quite obsessed with invading other planets with their culture very early on, adapting whatever means necessary to take over other races with nary a thought to how the invadees felt about it. The pictures got more confused after that, with strange photos of Irkens standing beside other alien races on bizarre planets sometimes with weird children type things running around in the background. He guessed maybe some cross breeding went on at some point. A smile curved on his lips. He wondered how irritated Zim would be if he were reminded of that little piece of information.
Then drastically everything changed. A fascist philosophy was adopted and genetic tampering became legalized and encouraged. That was when the Irkens started classifying themselves into different categories. Also as the height difference was established, the idea that tallness was an important credential in leadership became obvious. Genders diffused and family ties vanished to be replaced with a fanatic Invader philosophy. It was all so Orwellian in nature to Dib. A peaceful nature loving race transformed into the monstrous invading machine of the now. Quite spooky really…
Ah, but the plan they had fruitioned out of the truly useful Irken information was genius.
“Number one is diet,” Dib had explained while Zim worked out the kinks in their brilliant plan, “then we work on the pak.”
Diet was an extremely important factor in Irken development. Invaders tended to have a very nutritionally poor one compared to that of the mighty Tallest. Although sodas and space rations did the job, there was a very poignant reason why the Tallest were always snacking on stuff like donuts and nachos. A balance of ‘unhealthy’ stuff and leafy greens it seemed was the bizarre combination that would probably give Zim a nice jump start on the growing process. It was worth a try in any event.
Dib remembered fondly frying up batches of donuts much to Gaz’s annoyance in the kitchen, then quickly running through the back door past his dad in his lab, who shook his head at him muttering, “my poor insane son.” It had taken a few trips and quite a few head shakes from his father to amass the donuts, leafy greens and nachos. Fortunately Gir had kept the fridge functional with his lust for bizarre snack foods, so storing things would be easy. Although he did have to throw quite a few expired things in the garbage, despite Gir’s wails insisting they were still good (and quite tasty).
Zim eyed the diet regimen that had been printed off from his computer, “what about toast.”
“Toast?” Dib queried, looking up from his mad fridge purging.
“I LIKE toast,” was Zim’s snarky reply.
“Uh ok. I don’t see why not,” Dib said utterly confounded. Go figure Zim would like, of all Earth foods toast.
Zim nodded seeing this acceptable then marched his way towards the toilet chute.
“When you’re DONE Dib-beast your assistance is required with the pak operation downstairs.” Zim said before vanishing into the chute.
Zim still had no trouble ordering Dib around, despite their growing friendship. He understood without explanation that it was an ego thing and let it go, since he knew how the little invader must have felt, not to have been treated with the utmost respect by his peers. He understood why the Tallest would be worried about such a rambunctious Irken but though his small alien friend had a terrible tendency to overlook sanity for gusto, there was no denying Zim had intelligence where it really mattered. Who else on Earth or Irk would have thought up a giant water balloon that catapulted from space? Or a device that made hamsters grow into epic proportions? Hair brained ideas without question, but Zim had the inventor’s skill necessary to execute them. Dib was no slouch himself, and together they made quite a team. Zim had access to the most obscenely advanced technology around while Dib had technical skills learned from hours spent gizmo tampering, and was sane enough to realise when something really wouldn’t work.
The pak part of their project however, was the most difficult situation Dib had ever come across. Not to mention horribly dangerous to Zim. In essence, paks weren’t only a handy invading tool but were carriers of specific genetic altering properties. Even the Tallest had paks, which meant, that they too had limits written into them that determined growth, the inability to reproduce and a wicked number of other things. All of the biological functions of an Irk were repressed when the pak was saudered on at birth keeping them a nice highly focused cog in the military machine. Removing it would definitely do something to Zim’s physical properties but what they weren’t sure. Zim didn’t seem to mind the unknown and Dib sure was looking forward to seeing some really cool alien happenings, so the plan was a go.
He had scurried now to the lower base, in great anticipation.
“About time earth-stink,” Zim mumbled pressing buttons at a mad pace on the computer.
“So…” Dib said, “do you have ANY idea how this is going to work out?”
“Of course!” snapped Zim, “ the lower and upper ports of the pak have to be released, which is where you come in Earth-boy,” he pointed in Dib’ direction threateningly, “ so don’t MESS up.”
Dib made a face at him when Zim turned around.
“THEN these chips I’ve fabricated will simulate the most important functions of the pak. Atmosphere, translator AND…other stuff.” Zim said, his voice faltering on the last bit.
“So what you’re saying,” Dib sighed, “is that you hardly know what your pak does let alone if you’ll still be alive when it falls off.”
Zim glared at him squinting his eye, “would you really be terribly disappointed if I wasn’t?”
Dib let the slightly offensive comment slide.
“In any event you are the only thing on this planet that has the potential to understand my BRILLIANT plan,” he cackled, “so LISTEN and pay attention.” Zim hissed the last words ominously.
There was a large metal bench in the center of the base, and Zim sat on it motioning for Dib to come around behind him.
“Alright DIB,” he said, spitting his name out in such a way it sounded like a disease, “unhook the top left hand corner.”
Part of Zim’s invader shirt folded neatly away exposing green skin with an evident port connected to his shoulder.
Internally Dib was hyperventilating, “wow! This is so cool! I get to touch real live alien flesh!” he stopped for a moment considering, “wait, was that a natural thought?”
In any event he worked up the courage to push forward resting his fingers right above the port, noticing immediately the chill temperature of Zim’s skin.
“You’re cold Zim,” Dib said.
“Fascinating Earth-boy, if I die you can dissect me and learn all about it. Now GET BACK TO WORK!” Zim grumbled.
He got the first port off and it clicked and let go with a hiss.
“Feel any different?” was Dib’s curious question.
“A little chill,” was all Zim said, obviously listening very closely to whatever his insides were telling him about the pak’s detachment process.
Dib moved from each port, three of them came off easily but the last one was persistent.
“It’s not coming off Zim,” Dib grunted struggling to detach the port, “are you sure about this?”
“Shut up EARTHENOID. I know what I’m doing. Just unclick the ports on the upper right and then,” his sentence stopped in mid speech as the pak slid off. Zim had slumped almost lifelessly to the floor.
“Zim?” Dib said nervously.
The alien was silent and still, as though dead. Dib felt around for the chips beside him unable to take his eyes away from the very deathly still Irken, slumped over the bench.
“Now, I put these into the ports,” he mumbled to himself, slipping them slowly into each vacant circle, “and if this works everything will be just peachy.”
Almost immediately skin closed around them and the invader suit folded back into its original position. Zim’s flesh took on a less sickly pallor.
“Zim?” he called again hoping the Invader would answer, “hey you alright?” he was a little nervous Zim really was dead. All thoughts of dissecting goodness had gone out of his head long ago, while the meek dread of his only friend dying slowly replaced it.
He touched his green shoulder panicked, “are you ok?! C’mon Zim wake-”
“I’M ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Zim screamed leaping to his feet, the shrieking cackle literally throwing Dib backwards in shock causing him to grab his heart in terror.
“HA HA HA HA!” Zim laughed triumphantly, “it takes more then losing his pak to destroy the might ZIM!!” his chortling continued while Dib lay on the floor recovering from the heart attack inducing shock.
“GIR! It is time for a CELEBRATION! Bring out the- GWARK!” Zim flung himself to the floor and rolled there for a time.
Dib scrambled quickly to his feet, “what the hell just happened?!”
Zim stopped rolling and laid on the floor his antennae twitching rapidly; then, finally they ceased their spasms. All was still.
Dib had no idea what to do. He wasn’t sure whether to poke him or perform CPR. Then quiet suddenly Zim bolted to his feet again consequently knocking over Dib; his antennae perking up, hands on his hips looking like the Invader he always did.
“A minor setback,” he huffed, “rest assured Earth-Dib the mighty ZIM is much himself again!”
Dib twitched an eye. He’d be dead himself of coronary arrest at this rate.
“Good to know,” was his exasperated reply.
Gir had toddled in at this point holding a tray.
“I brought Taquitos!” was his chirp.
“Good work Gir!” Zim said triumphantly.
Dib got up, dusted off his knees then promptly took one of the taquitos from Gir. He eyed it suspiciously not entirely trusting the robots culinary expertise. A small bite confirmed the taquito was safe, and chicken filled.
“And now earth-Dib we celebrate!” Zim cackled cracking open some sodas.
With that, they had spent the rest of their evening enjoying oven baked taquitos and sodas while celebrating their foray into unexplored biological tampering.
It had been weeks, maybe even more like months since Dib had seen Zim. He was in school tapping his pencil noisily on his desk probably irritating more then a few class mates while horrible visions of alien death went through his head. True he could have just broken in and figured out what was going on inside the base but they were friends now, which mean there was an informal etiquette to follow. Dib was pretty certain Zim didn’t have a phone or if he did, knew how to use it. It wasn’t as if Dib had the number anyway. So for the past month having no idea what had happened he sat on virtual pins and needles waiting, for what he wasn’t quite certain.
While trying to balance a pencil on his lip the way Zim had done countless times before, his concentration was quickly interrupted by a door bursting open and dishevelled student marching in.
Dib’s eyes almost flew out of his head. It was Zim! But he was….tall! As tall as Dib! Not to mention his disguise was slightly better. Still very easily looked over if you considered details but at least his skin wasn’t green anymore, and the hair was slightly normal looking while managing to be long enough to make up for Zim’s lack of ears. His clothes were pretty decent too. Black denim type pants with a black matching jacket and a red shirt. Oddly enough the red shirt sported the Irken symbol in black, silk screened on the front.
“Greetings. I apologise for my lateness,” with that admonishment he looked over at Dib, who had no empty seats beside him. Not put off Zim marched over to the other end of the classroom and sat in a vacant desk folding his gloved hands neatly in front as he had done in skool ever since Dib had known him.
“Oh yes class,” said Mr. Bitters in a sour tone, “Zim is our new returning student,” after having just uttered the obvious he promptly returned to his reading material. Although indeed related to Mrs. Bitters by being her son and all, Mr. Bitters took a completely different direction in the teaching experience. While Mrs. Bitters enjoyed accentuating everything with ‘doom’ related lectures, Mr. Bitters was the embodiment of pure indifference. Anything could go on in that classroom and he just didn’t seem to care or notice. After each lecture he sat at his desk reading taxidermy magazines vaguely answering students’ questions; if they had any. Dib was undecided if this was an improvement or a slightly worse fate then the previous Bitters.
With Zim’s presence having returned to the classroom, his mind was at least occupied by far less troubling matters. Everything looked fine, in fact better then fine. Zim looked great and he appeared to have suffered no ill effects from his recent magnum growth spurt. Dib was elated.
The bell rang for their ten minute break, sending students flying in every which way to enjoy the beautiful weather outdoors. Dib was struggling to find Zim in all the chaos but didn’t succeed. He sighed heading outdoors. Maybe he was in the gravel lot beside the skool…
Zita stopped him on the way, “Hey Dib!” her cheery voice called out.
“Oh hi,” Dib said nervously.
She grabbed his arm in a teasing manner.
“Looking for Zim huh?” she giggled.
“Yeah,” Dib said, realizing suddenly the few social skills he had were rapidly deteriorating.
They walked outside towards a bench in a prominent part of the lot, sun bright blue sky electric, the perfect summer day. Sitting down Zita relinquished her hold on Dib’s arm and smiled at him.
He had no clue what to say or do, so relying on his weird sense of humour he said something stupidly corny, and Zita found this amusing.
“Dib you’re so silly,” she had giggled under the brilliant sky above their high skool grounds.
“It’s warm today,” she had said pushing some tiny stray hairs that got in her eyes, “what do you think; early summer or just the weather teasing us?”
He had smiled and mumbled something ridiculous like, ”yeah” or “maybe”.
He was a horror in social situations having had almost no experience with them. She was very nice about it, pretending not to notice his idiotic fumbles. Jus then Dib noticed Zim striding across the lot looking for him, finally noticing him and Zita, Zim stepped forward sharply then stopped. Well, maybe he hadn’t noticed Zita until now. He gave Dib a funny look, in fact something that resembled an extremely odd glare. He wasn’t doing it for long when unbeknownst to Zim, Torque was creeped up behind him with a bottle of water. The skool jackass had learned long ago Zim was sensitive to H2O and had used it many a time for his amusement. Chocked up to his ‘skin condition’ most students, save for Dib occasionally in elementary, had respected the intense hatred Zim brandished for water.
“Hey Zim!,” Torque said unleashing his cruellest laugh, “how’s your skin condition?” he punctuated the last word by dumping the bottle directly over ZIm’s head.
“IT BUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRNNSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!” was the blood curdling shriek that echoed over the school grounds.
Zim ran screaming past him and Zita who both had been staring paralysed in shock, promptly knocking Dib over into some prickly bushes behind the bench.
“Owww…”Dib whined.
The horrible scraping noises probably meant Zim was rolling around in the gravel trying to relieve his pain.
“You ok Dib?” Zita said worriedly dipping over the side of the bench to check on him.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled miserably, “this happens a lot.”
The rest of the skool day went off without a hitch. Zim sat in his usual spot, snickering at Dib plucking thorns from his arm for the rest of the day. It apparently still amused Zim endlessly to see prime examples of human ‘weakness’. Dib being his highly tolerant self just gave him a dirty look.
Everything seemed perfectly back to normal but it wouldn’t be for long. Zim had been back in Dib’s class for only about two weeks, when something odd began happening.
Well, to Dib it wasn’t terribly strange, since of course weirder things had happened in their elementary days, but none the less it was unusual. Especially for Zim. Dib had caught the alien at least half a dozen times in one day haphazardly looking in his direction, as if trying to be discreet about it. At one point Dib just thought Zim was daydreaming about something, and happened to languidly look in Dib’s direction. He realised quickly when his eyes had briefly met Zim’s he had been mistaken. The Irken had flushed purple and quickly looked down at his hands. Then other things came to his attention as well.
Dib and Zita usually sat together during lunch and break but now with Zim around it quickly became a threesome. Zita was really nice to Zim trying to include him in conversations and being generally hospitable. Although Zim returned this to a decent degree, which was shocking in itself, he would glare at the girl ceaselessly if her attention strayed as though trying to bore a hole through her head. Eventually it dawned on Dib; Zim must be jealous. It had been just the two of them hanging out for the longest time, having another person round them at school must just be hard for him to deal with he reasoned. Plus he was an alien, probably not even familiar with human relationships anyway. He decided he and Zim would have a talk about it next time they were hanging out, which unfortunately would be a while with the workload he had been given. The joys of high skool Dib thought miserably.
The alien across the classroom had been sitting perfectly still eyes wondering towards the boy on the opposite side of the room. Yes, Zim was truly struggling with jealousy, Dib had been spot on about that. Yet, too late would he realise, the alien was also desperately attempting to understand instincts from a terribly unfamiliar past. There was something old clamouring to get a hold in Zim’s mind, an ancient urge that was slowly usurping his strict upbringing in the Irken elite. However, it wasn’t hindering his thought processes, oh no, it had sharpened them to a wicked point. A plan was forming, and it most certainly involved Dib in the most intimate of ways. A very Irken like smile appeared on his lips. The thought of it made Zim feel giddy, as his left antennae twitched rapidly under the wig; why not, after all a well planned mission was truly beautiful to behold.
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Two Of Us