I do not own these characters, I am only playing with them.

Please review! I would love to have some feedback.

Dib Membrane was reading an article about a recent ghost sighting when he heard the doorbell. His father was at work (big surprise) and his sister Gaz was glued to her Gameslave 3 (another big surprise), so he decided it was up to him to answer the door. He finished the paragraph he was reading and got up from his bed with a sigh. He wasn't even sure why he would bother to answer the door anyway; it was probably just a solicitor. Maybe it would be Zim's robot, Gir, with a plate of muffins or something. That would be better than a solicitor anyway.

"Dib, get the door already," Gaz barked from where she was seated on the couch (which, Dib noticed, was only about 5 steps from the stupid door). Being used to being bossed around, Dib rolled his eyes at his sister and opened the door.

There was no one standing in the doorway. Sitting on the doormat, however, was a small grey puppy looking up at Dib with huge eyes and a wagging tail. At the sight of the dark-haired teenager, the puppy stood up and bounced around in an excited circle. Puzzled at this, Dib bent down to pet the little dog and saw that there was a note on its blue collar. To: Dib, Love: your secret admirer, it read. Well, that gave the scheme away pretty quickly. The moment anything looked promising, Dib was positive that Zim was behind it. A real secret admirer? Ha. Even Dib, the most hopeful of all the hope-filled idiots, had given up that hope. He didn't have a single friend, or even someone who wasn't embarrassed to be seen with him in public. Besides, Dib and Zim had a long-standing game of getting spy cameras into each other's dwellings. This cute puppy was probably a robot or something, and Zim left it here to spy on Dib.

"That's pathetic. Even for Zim." Gaz had been curious enough to look over and see the puppy with the tag. "The thought of someone admiring you is pretty funny, though."

Dib gingerly picked up the eager ball of fur and brought him inside, closing the door. "Yeah, he's had better attempts," Dib agreed. "But I think I'll keep the puppy anyway. I think he likes me." The puppy licked his hand, causing Dib to crack a rare smile. The only other time any dog had shown interest in him was during the horrible incident involving bologna DNA years ago. This was different, thank goodness. This little dog craved Dib's company, not a mouthful of his tasty flesh. "I can't leave him out there by himself, even if Zim sent him. He's pretty small and helpless."

Gaz had lost interest in Dib and the puppy and was back in zombie pig land, but her brother kept talking to her just the same, even as he walked back into his room. Narrating his actions was about as natural as breathing for Dib. "I better do something about the spy camera though. I hope I can disable it without hurting the puppy." Dib pet the puppy again and scratched his appreciative new pet behind its ears. "He seems like a real dog, I don't think Zim could make a robot this sophisticated." The puppy was all grey except for a black splotch on its left ear and another on his back right leg. He looked pretty shabby, but was tame enough to sit happily in the arms of his newfound master, sniffing Dib's shirt with its wet nose.

"I have to think of a name for you," Dib told the fuzz ball as he set it down on the floor of his bedroom. The dog set about exploring the room tentatively, pawing at the carpet and searching for a good place to lie down. "I'll get to that after I find that camera you're hiding." The dog looked up at Dib questioningly with one ear cocked, which offered no clue for the camera's location, but was cute nonetheless.

"I wonder if Zim has found my latest spy camera yet," Dib wondered aloud, powering up his computer. His most recent camera-planting in Zim's base had been so stupidly brilliant that Dib wondered why he hadn't thought of the method before. The alien's robot, Gir, had run into Dib's house randomly one day to throw a rubber piggy at his head and do a dance on his couch. Dib just happened to have a recently built spy camera in his pocket, so he decided to be bold and ask Gir to take it back to Zim's base and hide it in the lab. Surprisingly, the robot took the camera, yelled "Okey dokey!" and blasted off. About an hour later, Dib's computer was showing live feed from the unaware alien's most frequented room. "That crazy little robot's not so bad," Dib had mused while watching Zim make adjustments to one of his ships.

Hoping the camera had remained unnoticed, Dib opened the file on his computer marked "ZIM" and scrolled to "live feed."

"I'm in luck!" Dib exclaimed when he saw the alien appear on his screen. Zim was also watching a computer screen. Dib adjusted the resolution and zoomed in to see what Zim was watching. "Oh my god….is that?..." Dib trailed off. Zim's computer was showing Dib's own room. Zim was watching Dib through the dog's spy camera at this very moment.

"Here, boy," Dib called the puppy over and picked him up, turning him this way and that to figure out where the camera was. "From the angle of the video feed, it looks like the camera is somewhere….right….here," he located the tiny lens on the dog's collar and removed it so he could let the confused dog return to its exploration of its new home.

Zim had also noticed what was happening because he saw Dib's computer screen on his own and used the video projection to locate Dib's camera on his ceiling. He reached up and grabbed it with one of his pak legs, but didn't destroy it. He just held it and stood there in awe, watching Dib look right at him through the computer.

The human and the alien could now see themselves on each other's screens. There was no way to deny the fact that both had been caught. With the number of ways they had found to spy on each other, it really was only a matter of time before such an odd coincidence was going to happen, though neither had thought it ever would. Both outcasts were dumbstruck with the absurdity of the situation and could only stare at the other's face through the screen. Zim was twitching angrily, his mouth drawn up tightly.

Dib broke the silence with hysterical laughter that bubbled up slowly and burst out maniacally. He was practically howling at the ridiculous position the two had found themselves in, which only made Zim angrier. The Irken's pinkish red eyes narrowed and glowed with hate. The Dib-human's laughter was so painful to hear that he shouted, "Silence, human FILTH!"

This did nothing to stop Dib's uncontrollable laughter. The Irken's angry face seemed to fuel the hysteria, but eventually, Dib was able to calm himself down. Finally his laughter subsided most of the way as he wiped a tear from his eye. He was still giggling a little when he decided to speak. "Come on, Zim! This is so stupid! I mean, really, look at us!"

Zim could not think of anything to say, but only stared at his nemesis.

"Would it kill you to laugh at yourself, Zim? Really?" Dib challenged the stubborn alien. "Even someone as dense as you has to admit when he's lost."

"Zim has not lost anything, Dib-stink. I meant for you to find my camera. This is all part of my plan."

"Hasn't it gone on long enough, Zim? We both know that it's all a big joke. Your leaders have forgotten you; your mission was never real. You're not really going to destroy the planet because you have nowhere else to go." As Dib said this, he started to feel sorry for the alien he had been hunting for 7 years. The friendless, lonely creature really did have nowhere to go.

Zim's face looked sad for a split second, like he was ready to concede, but the alien was nothing if not stubborn. "How DARE you insult a great Irken invader?!" he burst out, clinging to the lie that was his pitiful life. The Tallest had just been busy, that was all. And they had so much confidence in Zim that they didn't think he needed any help. That was why he hadn't heard from them. Right….?

Dib saw right through the veil of Zim's denial and continued more gently. "Don't you know when to give up, Zim? It's time we called it quits. We had a good run, but it's over now. This is just stupid. We both know you can't take over the Earth because this is your only home."

This was too much truth for Zim. Dib had been the only human to ever take Zim seriously. If Dib no longer feared Zim, he had nothing to live for. In a burst of fresh anger, he snarled and crushed the camera in his gloved hand, causing Dib's screen to go dark.

Zim let out an unintelligible yell of frustration. Such intense denial was painful. The Irken was pacing in a fit of rage. "Pitiful HUMAN! He does not yet know the meaning of PAIN! I will DESTROY this planet for good and NO ONE can stop ZIM this time!" He set to work plotting something that would make Dib take notice.

Dib sat on the edge of his bed, petting the puppy sitting in his lap. He wondered if Zim had really snapped this time, if he should be worried. Oh well, even if everything fell apart, at least he had managed to break the monotony.