"And then the iskreet nearly chewed my arm off, but luckily I was able to fight it off!" Zim concluded his tale.
"You had an… interesting childhood," Gaz said. She wasn't all that impressed by the story, but she did like hearing them nonetheless. Zim really had a way of bringing his stories to life with extravagant gestures, facial expressions, and tones of voice.
"Wanna hear about the time I put packets of mustard under each of the toilet seats in the lavatories?"
She wasn't particularly keen to hear that one, but even if she said no, he would probably start talking about it anyway, so she said, "Sure, knock yourself out."
Zim drew himself up, walking with a more arrogant gait, like he always does when beginning a story. "Well. It all began when Skoodge and I were caught in the middle of a particularly rowdy food fight in the academy's cafeteria…"
Gaz looked up, noticing that there were several dark clouds in the sky. It was probably about to rain. She tried to tell Zim that, but he just kept going.
"I had to get back at that guy somehow! And the one who got the sugar in my eyes! Oh, and that one chick, she… she deserved to be punished. So me and Skoodge got some packets of mustard…"
Gaz decided that if Zim wasn't going to bother checking the sky, she wasn't going to warn him. She might be his sort-of-girlfriend, but that didn't stop her from being mean to him on occasion.
She tuned back in on the other.
"You should have seen Tenn with gooey mustard running all down her pink pants, oh she was so furious, I'm lucky I got out of that alive! Hahaha!" Zim started laughing at the memory.
"You're so mean," Gaz said, laughing too. It was nice being around Zim just because he was one of the few people that could make her laugh. She didn't do that very often… she needs to.
She vaguely felt something drop on her face, leaving a lingering cold feeling. Then another. She looked up again. Oh, so it was going to rain.
Zim jumped about a foot when one hit him. "Water!" He flattened himself against a building, under its eave.
Gaz shook her head. "It's just a drizzle right now." But it was steadily coming down harder.
Zim continued to look terrified.
"Don't you take paste baths?" she asked.
He thought about it. "Well, yes, but… I still don't like water. And what if the paste fails? You never know!"
Gaz continued to stand out in the middle of the sidewalk, tilting her head back to let the rain hit her. In the middle of summer, rain was welcome.
"Do you have an umbrella?" Zim asked.
She shook her head, brushing her damp hair back. "I didn't know it would rain, it came on quickly."
"Then I guess I'll just wait it out."
Gaz sighed, then smiled and moved toward him. "Zim, life isn't about waiting for the rain to stop." She grasped his wrist. "It's about learning to dance in the rain." She tugged him out into the rain, and though he struggled, she was able to lead him to the middle of the sidewalk and spin him around in a circle.
He eventually stopped fighting, following her lead as she draped her wrist around his neck, putting his own arm around her middle, dancing with her, blinking occasionally to clear his eyes of the water running down his face. This wasn't too bad. Though the rain did make his clothes heavy, and his skin tingled where it touched him, he could ignore it in favor of moving carefully across the sidewalk, laughing when he saw that Gaz was having to kneel down just to be more on his level, but it didn't affect her grace at all.
They soon grasped hands, spinning around as they continued on their way back to her house, both smiling and laughing, Gaz tossing her head to get her hair out of her face; it had been straightened out by the rain and almost reached her shoulders.
They decided to stop when Zim slipped in a puddle and fell hard on his butt in the middle of it, splashing it everywhere. He flailed about before stumbling back up, groaning and rubbing his backside. "OW."
"Okay, that's enough," Gaz said, with a dark chuckle at his misfortune. She took his hand and pulled him along. "You're such a klutz. Come on, we're almost to my house."
They broke into a run, soon making it to the Membrane residence. They were soaked by the time they got there, and went inside quickly, closing the door behind them.
"Hey, you're back," Dib said, looking away from the TV. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Got caught in the rain, obviously?"
Zim grinned. "Obviously. But it wasn't too bad." He flicked some water off of himself.
"It wasn't too bad? I thought you hated rain."
Zim shrugged and took Gaz's hand. "Someone taught me that rain isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes you shouldn't just stand by waiting for the rain to stop, when you can be out there dancing in the rain."