…Or Doesn't
"Now you have all the time in the world," Gaz simply said as the shards of plastic fell from her hand. Dib watched them, stiffened, as if freezing in his tracks would magically repair his most valued possession. Zim took the moment of ceasefire to pounce on the boy, but was thrown off rather anticlimactically. Dejected, Dib collected the pieces of the pendant and trudged off down the sidewalk.
Disappointed at the effective but lackluster retaliation, Zim stomped after his enemy.
"Hey! Hey! That's it? You dare walk off on Zim? Come back here!"
When his nemesis paid him no mind, Zim growled and stormed off. "Fine! But you owe Zim a better fight tomorrow!"
Gaz herself felt a little cheated. "Hey!" She caught up with her downcast brother. "Didn't you hear me? I said you have all them time in the world now to play with Zim!" No answer. "Aren't you mad about this? Go beat Zim up!"
Dib stopped, and said something familiar to her before continuing on home.
"You just don't get it."
She had expected him to cry. She had expected him to panic. She had happily anticipated her sibling's hands trembling with worry as he desperately made the futile attempt to glue his precious trinket back together—
Dib was silent that afternoon and evening. No sobbing, no visible mourning or anger—and Gaz could hardly stand it. She almost felt as though she deserved a more satisfying emotional response for her efforts; a better return for the time she invested in this persecution. Things did not seem to add up. Dib was normally neurotic and extroverted; he spoke his mind about significant situations. So if he truly felt so strongly about this cheap jewelry, why was he not saying—
"It's just a game to you, right?"
Gaz looked up in rare surprise. Dib was standing right in front of her, drawing her attention to her surroundings. Preoccupied by her confusion with her brother's uncharacteristic behavior, she just now was truly noticing that it was after dark, she was sitting on the couch—and she had just lost a level.
She growled and reset, momentarily forgetting about Dib's presence. But she had not the time for even a single pig-kill before she saw a flash of beige and black—and the Gameslave was gone from her hands. It took her a moment of shock to realize.
Dib was still standing there, looking more than cross, this time holding her beloved machine.
"I said, 'It's just a game to you, right?' That's all life is to you. Nothing's sacred; everyone's just a pawn that Queen Gaz can manipulate and then throw away when it suits her."
Gaz blinked. She was genuinely taken off guard; a highly unusual occurrence. "Dib—you—" she shook it off "—give that back."
"Why?" Dib's voice began to shake. "It's not important to me." He clenched his grip on the Gameslave. "What do I care if it's important to anyone else?"
"Dib, you give it back now!" Gaz lunged at him, but Dib expertly pulled away from experience.
"Or," the boy fumed, "maybe I should hang on to it and make you do stupid stuff to get it back!" A cracked grin spread across his face. "Then again, maybe we can share."
Before Gaz could snatch it from him, Dib took the screen-half in one hand—
—and snapped it off its hinges.
Gaz looked on in shock as her brother tossed her the bottom half of the Gameslave.
"What's-the-matter?" Dib taunted; but in heaving, faltering gasps. "I gave-you-the bigger-piece."
"…You…" Gaz's eyelids began to twitch in fury. "Do you even know what I went through to get that? And all because of your stupid Mysterious Mysteries show that night?" Her eyes began to spit fire. "Do you know how many hours I spent getting to Level 115?"
Dib would normally be cowering and pleading for his safety at this outburst, but he stood there stoically, almost as if he felt Gaz could take no more from him. A bizarre quivering was increasing in her stomach; she felt something was glaringly wrong.
Dib dropped his piece of the Gameslave 2 as if it were poison, and held his hands as if they were contaminated with it. He glared at her in novel disgust, and spoke to her the same way—
"At least you didn't get that thing from Mom."
