Dib walked into the living room, his father called him down and seemed rather insistent about it.
"What is it dad?" Dib asked while his father shifted nervously.
"Son we need to talk about something." He said not making eye contact; Dib was unsettled by his father's lack of confidence.
"Did something explode or something? Cause I kind of have stuff to do."
"That can wait for now… sit down or something."
"Okay, so what is it?" Dib asked sitting on the floor, his father whipped out two puppets one male and one female.
"Well you see, when two people like each other… that is well… just pay attention, okay?" Dib nodded as his father started to animate the puppets. "When a boy and a girl like each other it usually plays out like this."
"I like you." Said the male puppet.
"I like you too." Said the girl puppet.
"Or something like that." His father said, "Well sometimes there's rejection, but that's not the point of this. In our family though it goes a little more like this."
"I like you." The male puppet said once more.
"I don't." snapped the girl puppet. "I hate you!"
"Wait no, I love you!" The boy puppet begged. The girl puppet turned away, grunted, and made an aggravated sound. "NO!" The boy puppet said as he started to harass the girl puppet. "No look at me! I'm crazy! Look at me! Look at me! I'm insane! Look at me! Look at me! I'm being an idiot! Look at me! Please, I'm acting like a deranged lunatic! Look at me! I'm a moron! Look at me-" Membrane dropped the puppets and looked at his son.
"That's how it's been for generations, the best way I can explain it is that it's genetic. I know when I went through it I would make up the stupidest reasons to be near your mother. I would say anything to justify sitting outside her house every night. I even managed to convince myself she was evil and had to be stopped." Dib didn't respond to his father's words, he just stared off blankly, "I'm glad we finally had this talk. I wouldn't want you to get obsessed with someone and not know why or anything like I did. That's what happened to your uncle Dante; he never did recover after that restraining order nonsense." Membrane shook his head sadly and left the room with his son still sitting on the floor in a daze. Little did the scientist know that his son was going through every single encounter he had, but with Zim.
Like the time he had tackled Zim to the ground, or when Zim had saved him from his own mind. He never could express just how much stopping Zim meant to him. Even he, himself, could never find the reason why he was so obsessed. He had tried to stay away before, but it didn't last every time he would always find himself back at Zim's heels. Every time Zim had looked at him it gave him a sort of satisfaction, that he was the only person in the universe who could have that effect on the Irken. If what his father said was true, then it would explain why Dib's absence half the time didn't bother him. He had always wondered why his father found Dib's habit of following Zim normal. That wasn't what bothered him at the moment. His father had basically told him that he was in love with Zim. So hopelessly in love with him to the point that resistance would be painfully futile. That and the fact that he would always be crazy until he could stop being so obsessive. From what he gathered the only way for him to stop acting the way he did and have people view him as normal was to get Zim to reciprocate his feelings. Finally Dib spoke.
"I'm doomed."
AN: I got the idea from Malcolm in the Middle. If you've seen the episode, then you now can see why I thought it pertained to Dib. Also could be considered the mind behind Zadr.