as opposed to public gym locker rooms, at least in school locker rooms there are no naked old men coming up and trying to chat with you bare-ass naked. if that isn't the case then there's something wrong.


"I never agreed to this 'dressing out' process!" Zim's voice is shrill and loud in the spacious gymnasium as he stands before the PE coach. In his hands he clutches a small stack of clothes: three white t-shirts and three pairs of red shorts. It is the first day of middle school, and day one of sixth-graderhood would not be complete, Dib supposes, without a patented Irken Temper Tantrum.

"Sorry, kid," the stubbly gym teacher grunts. "You don't wear the uniform, you don't pass the class."

"You dare threaten to fail me?" Zim says, one eye twitching in outrage. "Do you know who I am?!"

"No."

"I AM ZIM!" he screeches indignantly. In a fit of rebellion, he throws his PE uniforms to the ground.

"Yeah, well Zim had better pick his uniforms up and get his ass into the locker room," the coach says dispassionately before walking away. Dib approaches the alien then, as Zim mutters furiously under his breath and stoops to gather his uniforms.

"What's the matter, Zim?" Dib says with sadistic glee. "Afraid to get undressed in front of people? Afraid to show everyone how you have no…nipples?!"

The uniforms tumble out of Zim's arms as he shrieks and claps his hands over his chest like a modest woman surprised in the shower. "Don't talk about my nipples! Wait—"

Dib is unimpressed. "You're an idiot." He kicks at one of Zim's gym shirts, hooking it on the toe of his boot and flinging it up into Zim's waiting hands before turning and going to the locker room.

Their fellow male classmates have already squeezed themselves into the tiny, smelly room and have begun to change. Dib squeezes through the crowd as they point and laugh at each other's fat rolls and ribcages and disturbing birthmarks, and he finally finds an empty locker to shove his things into. He sheds his coat, admittedly somewhat self-conscious seeing as no one has ever seen him without it, and he can hear Zim squealing prissily amidst the mass of sweaty, awkwardly proportioned bodies, and barely spares the Irken a glance when he finally staggers to the free locker next to his own, gasping.

"I hate you all," Zim says with a terrible shudder, trying in vain to dust himself of their classmates' touches. "You're all disgusting." He flings the empty locker open and throws his uniforms into its depths with a scowl.

Dib snickers at Zim's misfortune and grasps the hem of his shirt to tug it up and over his head. It snags on his glasses and again on the spike of his hair, and he kicks haphazardly in Zim's direction for roaring with laughter when he runs into his locker door painfully. When he finally disentangles himself from his shirt, he finds himself under Zim's scrutiny.

"Don't watch me undress, you creep," Dib snaps, uncomfortable. He tries not to feel too much like a sissy when covers his bare chest with his shirt. Zim looks away, glancing around the locker room at their peers, trepidation plain on his face.

Dib laughs at him, pulling one of his three white t-shirts on. "You don't wear the uniform, you don't pass the class, Zim!"

Zim rounds on him stupidly, "THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NIPPLES!" He huffs and puffs, his eyes darting this way and that nervously as Dib changes into a pair of red shorts. Dib pulls off his boots and sits on the floor to lace up the dirty, thousand-year-old tennis shoes he'd been given with his PE uniforms.

He jumps, startled, when something heavy and warm falls into his lap and Zim says waspishly, "Hold that, and don't do anything to it!" Dib looks at the object in his lap and sees that it's Zim's PAK. He looks up at Zim, prepared to taunt and make him regret letting his PAK fall into his hands, but Zim is preoccupied with undressing very furiously and very clumsily.

Taking off his clothes is obviously not something Zim does a lot. He grumbles angrily, gnashing his teeth as he yanks off his gloves and boots (he staggers briefly, thrown off balance, and Dib is disappointed when he doesn't fall on his face) and climbs gracelessly out of his pants/leggings/whatever it is he wears under what Dib has ultimately concluded is, in fact, a dress. Despite previously snapping at Zim for staring as he undressed, Dib watches eagerly as Zim pulls on his red shorts and sets about fumbling his way out of his dress, and is not disappointed when he sees Zim's chest bare.

"See?" Dib shouts excitedly, pointing at Zim. He tucks the PAK under his arm and leaps to his feet, staring around at their classmates and jabbing a finger at Zim's chest. "He has no nipples! None! What kind of person has no nipples at all?"

The locker room goes quiet for a moment, until someone pipes up, "So? He has no nipples, I have seven. See?"

Crestfallen, Dib looks back at Zim, who clutches a white shirt and wears an expression of relief at the lack of reaction to his lack of nipples. Dib looks at Zim's stomach, and desperately tries again to convince his peers.

"Look!" he cries, pointing. "Look! No belly button either! How is that possible unless he didn't have an umbilical cord? He's not human!"

"I have seven belly buttons, too."

Dib drops his face into his hands and scowls at Zim, who only gives him a smug smile and grasps Dib's hair spike to quickly stab two holes in the back of his PE shirt before tugging it over his head.

"I hate you," Dib says sourly, holding out the PAK. Zim turns his back on him and the PAK zooms out of Dib's hands and reattaches itself to Zim's spine.

"Thanks, Dib-monkey!" Zim cackles, shoving past him and exiting the locker room.