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Under Glass	By : LiesDee Category: +G through L > Invader Zim > AU/AR-Alternate Universe-Alternate Reality Views: 3260 -:- 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
- 6
- 7
Author’s note: Okay, I know I said this would only be a six chapter project, but as always it’s gotten a little out of hand. One more chapter after this one and then an epilogue, promise.

Chapter 7

Dib climbed into the lift. It hadn’t even made its full trip downwards before he could hear Zim’s frantic pounding against the airlock doors.
No – no. I’m okay, see! Don’t hurt yourself over me!
Dib couldn’t bear the sound – he pried the doors open and dove out just as the lift cleared the ceiling of the habitat. He came out at the exact spot where Zim had been trying to get in. They ended in a tangled mess on the floor.
Zim’s hands were bleeding from trying to scratch through the lift doors. There were bruises on his palms, elbows, shoulders, sides – nearly everywhere. Zim’s skin normally healed quickly. The force with which he’d bashed himself repeatedly against the lift doors must have been great to cause damage of such severity. Zim pressed Dib onto the floor, antennae forward, trembling. His lips were drawn back in fierce grimace. His eyes were wild and he seemed to be growling, as if he’d been reduced to some feral state.
Dib tried his best to console him, but it seemed as though there was very little he could do. His soft caresses and comforting words didn’t sink into the pit where Zim had fallen. It was his presence alone that Zim needed, drinking it in frantically, tasting his flesh, running his hands over every inch of skin, rubbing his antennae over Dib’s own in the way they’d discovered sent sparks down both of their spines.
Only when Zim finally drew his face up close to his, and Dib said his name, Zim, did there finally begin to surface from the crimson abyss of his eyes some semblance of sanity.
It had been a question among the research team whether or not the alien they held as their captive and upon whom they subjected to countless intrusive experiments and autopsies was capable of crying. He had never done so, until now.
“How dare they? How dare they take you away from Zim?” Zim rasped, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. . .” Was all Dib could say. He used the end of his shirt sleeve to help Zim dry his cheeks. It was funny the way. . .how Zim could do that sometimes. He could make Dib feel as though nothing else really mattered. It didn’t matter that they were stuck on this planet where neither of them belonged, imprisoned in his father’s research lab, and watched at every turn. Dib tilted his head up so Zim could kiss him and they made love on the metal deck in front of the lift doors, as gently as Zim’s damaged body would allow.
*******
Dib watched Zim eat the tasteless, bready rolls of nutrients that were provided to them daily. Or more accurately, he snarfed them. The largish pile with which he'd started out was quickly diminishing. Apparently he hasn't eaten in over a week.
“Slow down, Zim. You'll make yourself sick.”
Zim grunted. He could be incredibly stubborn sometimes, but to Dib's surprise, he made a visible effort to follow his advice. Unfortunately, it was a little too late. Soon Zim joined him on the rag-bed, lying on his back, rubbing his bloated belly and
groaning.
Pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged, Dib leaned over and began to stroke Zim's arm absentmindedly.
This probably isn’t the best time, I really just want to get this over with.
“I’ve got something to tell you, Zim. . .”
Zim burped, then turned his head to indicate that Dib had his full attention. His brow furrowed with impatience as Dib began to hesitate, trying to find the appropriate
words.
“Well?” Zim asked.
Dib took a deep breath. “Zim, would it matter to you if I wasn't Irken?”
“What?”
“I mean, what if, say, I was just a clone, designed to resemble Irkens physically, but, well, with some human genes in the mix, and a mostly-human brain.”
Zim looked at him strangely. “Did they tamper with your head while you were out there?”
“No. At least - I don' t think they did.” Dib tried to suppress the paranoia that he was prone to and concentrate on the task at hand. “Will you just answer the question? Would it matter to you?”
Zim eyed him critically. “No. It wouldn't matter. Why should it?” He finally said.
Dib looked him in the eye. “Because I am a clone.”
Zim frowned. “No you’re not.” He said, matter-of-factly.
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I am. I think I would know if I was a clone.”
“NO YOU WOULDN’T because you’re just NOT!!!” Zim was suddenly on his feet, screaming at him.
“I thought you said it wouldn’t matter to you if I was!”
“Of course it doesn’t matter to me because it’s not TRUE!!! It can’t be true! You can’t be one of those. . .filth-creatures. Are you insane?! What did they do to you up there?!”
“They gave me a warm bed to sleep in and a hot meal because I’m the son of one of their top scientists.” The words were out of Dib’s mouth before he could even think about them. It was strange – in the human world he tended to be meek. There was something about being with Zim that drew out his more rash side.
“YOU’RE NOT HUMAN!!” Zim grabbed his collar and screamed into his face. “It’s NOT TRUE!! You may be different from any Irken I’ve met, but to go claiming that you’re human is just. . .just. . .LUDICROUS. . .You, you don’t know what you’re talking about. . .” He was ranting now, babbling, spittling with rage on Dib’s face.
Dib slapped Zim, hard, trying to bring him to his senses as Zim had done to him so many times. It didn’t work. Zim slapped right back, and soon they were tussling on the bed, rolling each other over, battling for dominance. Zim was smaller, malnourished, his body already battered and worn, but he still managed to pin Dib under him in very little time.
“If you were one of them then you would be my enemy, and I have to kill you.” Snarled Zim.
“Then why don’t you just go ahead and do it?” Replied Dib calmly.
“Because. . .because. . .” Zim stared at him, sputtering, trying to put words to something that he felt in his blood, his very bones, something that had long ago faded from his native language.
“Because whatever you are, you’re mine.” He finally said.
“Yes I am. I’ll always be.” Dib told him.
Dib offered no more resistance, so Zim freed him. Dib pulled a sheet up over both of their heads and they lay there, looking at each other. Zim seemed a little numb.
It niggled in the back of Dib’s mind that the research team was still watching them from every angle. Their heat-sensing equipment could read their shapes, and their microphones could pick up every whispered word. He took Zim’s face in his hands.
“Listen to me, Zim. I’m not Irken. I’m not human, either. Not totally. But I still have a chance to make it out there, with them. If you could make the choice, where would you rather be? Trapped in here, powerless? Or would you rather be out there, free?”
Dib brought Zim’s hand, palm out, onto his chest. With his finger he drew the Irken symbol for Wait onto Zim’s palm.
Wait. Wait.
Zim stared at the message. Dib prayed that it was too subtle for the cameras to pick up.
“You’re not. . .you’re just not. . .” Zim shook his head, weak and bewildered.
“Zim, please.”
Dib didn’t know how much he could say without being heard and making himself suspect. Zim just didn’t have words for any of the feelings that were eating him up from the inside. They met for a kiss, then drew back.
“Stay here with me, please.” Whispered Zim. “Don’t leave Zim alone. We can wait here together. These water-based creatures never live more than two hundred years, if that – their empires rise and fall like suns. Not one of them has ever reached past their own solar system. All we have to do is wait here, and watch all of this melt around us.”
Dib had been tempted by this decision already, but with Zim there beside him it wasn’t so simple anymore. It would be so easy to stay with Zim, to completely forget the human world outside. Eating, sleeping, making love when they pleased. Zim had only just started to teach him the elegant spoken language of his homeland – the way that it rolled off of his long, thin tongue just seemed so right.
Dib swallowed hard. “I can’t wait here, Zim.” He said.
Looking him in the eye, Zim seemed to understand that he meant it.
“Go then. Just go.”
Zim looked away. He was retreating, Dib could see it. His eyes were getting dull and his limbs started to sag – all of his seemingly boundless energy was seeping out of him.
“Zim? I’m not going unless. . .I need to know that you’ll keep yourself safe.”
Zim shrugged. “I’ll be. . .”
Waiting? No, they couldn’t say the word. It would round suspicion. Fine? No. Zim wouldn’t be fine. They both knew it. There was nothing else Zim could think to say. He closed his eyes.
“I’ll be here. Go.”
They held each other close and kissed one last time before Dib left him alone under the covers. Most of the light had already gone out of Zim’s eyes by the time Dib reached the lift doors and knocked on them. He didn’t even hear the hiss of hydraulics that carried his lover away.
******
It was hard at first for Professor Membrane to make a move against Simmons. The man was very good at taking credit for all of the major breakthroughs in his lab projects when he was away tending crises around the world. The last virus study had been particularly good for Simmons’s career, in that he’d managed to both find the cure and hide the death toll from the press.
Still, when a man with Professor Membrane’s considerable mental talents took a task upon himself it wouldn’t be too long before it would eventually be accomplished. In this particular case it was about two months before Simmons had been drummed out of the scientific community altogether. He couldn’t even get a job cleaning petrie dishes.
Dib bided his time. It would be four years before he would see Zim again, and only even then only from a camera feed when he interned in his father’s lab after graduating.
There had been a sudden, brief surge of public interest in the project after the ‘alien sex videos’ had surfaced. This brought with it a surge of funds that had increased both the size of the lab and its security detail. The lab had become one of the largest on the continent, the most famous in the world, and more heavily guarded than a top military prison after there had been several attempts made by radical groups to attack the facility and free the alien. This situation didn’t last long, fortunately. Interest died down soon after Zim stopped doing anything interesting, and in fact stopped doing anything at all.
Zim was sleeping. It seemed to be some sort of suspended animation that resembled a coma – the researchers hypothesized that it was intended to be used during long distance space travel. Every month or so he would get up to eat a little, but otherwise remained in his makeshift bed with his covers pulled up over his head like a shroud.
The public forgot all about him, and about his clone-partner whose name had never been revealed. The public had always had a short attention span anyways. Soon much of the new space in the lab sat empty, only the core stations remaining operational.
Dib took his time. He had been reinstated back into the human race, but he knew that it wouldn’t take much for him to be thrown back into a lab, especially once he was an adult and no longer his father’s ward.
He learned. He traveled. He tinkered in his father’s basement lab with as much of his time as he could spare.
He saw Professor Membrane about once a year, only a little less than when he and Gaz had been children. It didn’t bother him much anymore – he understood now, how a quest could eat up a person’s entire waking thoughts, and most of their sleeping ones too.
*****
Zim didn’t remember being picked up. Slowly he opened his eyes to see the fluorescent tube lighting on the ceiling above, passing again and again as he traveled through an endless series of hallways. The arms carrying him were large, and clad in a starchy white material. He looked up at the person responsible for this unusual foray outside of the habitat.
It was a human, just some human – they all looked alike to Zim. Still, the fire of hope had been ignited briefly.
“Dib. . .?” Were the first words out of Zim’s mouth. The human looked down at him. “Are you Dib. . .in disguise, or something?” Zim asked.
The human smiled eerily. “Nope.” He replied.
“Oh.”
Zim closed his eyes and willed himself to go back to sleep. The process usually took at least a few minutes, and in the half-conscious state between waking and sleeping, he listened to the voices drifting past. . .
Security. . .haven’t seen you in awhile. . .busy, you know how it is. . .interesting package there. . .seems to check out. . .welcome back, Mr. Simmons. . .

End of Chapter 7
- 6
- 7
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