A/N: So I'm sorry that I didn't update last night, but I've been doing pretty good so far so I hope that you will all forgive me. I went and visited with my dear Hollie yesterday. We had a pretty good time, we watched some episodes and talked about the Irken language. We've come up with the decision that the creators must have just created a bunch of different symbols and just threw them up there randomized just to fuck with everyone because if you looked at that Irken alphabet that's floating around on the internet, it definitely does NOT match what is on the show when you pull up the Irken subtitles. But we DID come up with the symbols for his name. .com/#/d3d36qw I've never copied a web address for others to be able to click on it and go to it before, so I hope I did that right and I hope it works. If not, the just find her profile on Deviantart, her username is irkenvampyre777 I believe. She has a lot of amazing art so look her up. Be sure to comment on it and let her know what you think too if you don't mind. An artist can never get enough praise.
[Captor of the Crazies: Sorry, there wasn't a lot of lemonyness in this chapter, but it will get pretty hot pretty soon, I promise. And as you can see, I did put in the link for you to go see Dib with his Irken tattoos. Hope you like it. Be sure to read the comment that she put on it.] [Danielle: Here is another chapter haha. I do try my hardest to update frequently, I have promised myself that I WILL update AT LEAST once a week, but most of the time it's about once a day haha.] [Darkdeathr: I do plan to keep updating and I'm glad you enjoy it. Thank you. ] [jinx-539: Where is here? Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for your address, I'm not a creep haha, just give me like a state or something. Is it cold there? Just curious. I love cold. I live in Mississippi, not much cold here.] [ToRRiS: I'm so glad to see that you are so into my fic, that makes me happy. I can't wait to write the lemon for you guys haha.] [Reader: Okay so… I LOL'd my ASS off at your comment. Seriously. I mean, that was just funny. I showed my husband, he didn't find it as funny as I did for some reason, but I thought it was just hilarious. Thank you for the laugh, and I hope you continue to enjoy haha.] [Darkdagers: Thank you again for the compliments on my writing. Always appreciated! And yeah, stupid Pazak haha, interrupting them. What a douche.]
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim or any of its characters.
Chapter 9
Pazak just radiated supreme asshole. He was a few inches shorter than Zim and I, and he was dressed impeccably in Invaders finest. He stood severely straight, as though it would make him taller. His eyes were purple and narrowed, his mouth set in a disgusted frown. He had that look on his face that said that he had just realized that he had stepped in dog shit, and he was not very happy about it.
At Zim's acknowledgement, he held his head up even higher. I could tell that he was not happy at all about having to look up to us, and he was trying his hardest to make himself as level as possible.
"Hello Zim. What a coincidence, meeting you here." He sneered.
"Hello Pazak. Yes. Coincidence. Why are you here?" Zim asked, suspicion dripping from his voice. The two of them faced off, and I suddenly got the feeling that they were already familiar with each other.
"This is your zakri?" He asked, his narrowed eyes roaming over my face. I saw him study Zim's symbols on my cheeks.
"Yes. This is the Dib-human. He is mine." Zim said, I could tell he had tried to even out his voice, but I could still hear a hint of anger and discomfort underneath the calm in his tone.
"He is an ugly creature." Pazak said, looking over me again. Zim's eyes narrowed.
"That is why he is Zim's zakri, not Pazaks. If you will excuse us, we are leaving." Zim said, simmering. He walked passed Pazak and I followed him, giving Pazak a dirty look as I passed.
"Don't get too attached to your zakri Zim. There will be no more need for them when I become Tallest." He said to our backs as we walked away. I expected Zim to retort, but he kept on walking.
We didn't speak on our way back. I knew he was fuming, and I didn't want to set him off. At least not now, not in public. His walk was stiff, his movements jerky as we made our way back to our rooms. After we walked through the door and he locked it behind us, I waited for him to start ranting. It didn't take long.
"Stupid horrible Pazak! He thinks he is so special! He thinks he will be tallest, he thinks that he will rule the MIGHTY IRKEN RACE? Well he WON'T! Zim will not let him!" He raged, throwing his fist into the air as he spoke.
"And how are you going to stop him?" I asked. I wasn't sure how I felt about the possibility of Zim becoming Tallest. I had the feeling that I wouldn't be able to be with him if he did. He didn't look at me but he did answer me as he sat down at his computer.
"Zim is working on it…. Working on it… UGH! Pazak is not qualified to become Tallest! He is… ugh, he is not good enough! Pazak is a weak, stupid Irken! He would be a HORRIBLE Tallest!" He raged as he brought up his computers and began typing violently. I sighed when I realized that he was about to absorb himself in his work again. He mumbled to himself some more, half in English and half in Irken. He didn't notice as I left the room. I walked into the bedroom and then into my room.
I looked around the room. Most of my things were in boxes, packed haphazardly by him. It took me a few minutes to find what I was looking for, my sketch pad and pencils. I put them under one arm and grabbed my stereo that Zim made me with the other. I left the room with them, walking through the bedroom and back into the meeting room. He hadn't moved from his computers, he kept checking all three screens and typing more furiously. I set my things down on the large table that was in the center of the room and glanced at him. I pulled the table a little to one side, giving me a good view of his profile and then sat down. I arranged my stereo so that it faced me, and turned it on. I brought up my favorites list and hit shuffle and play. He didn't move when the music started. He was in his own little world. I opened my sketch book to a clean page and grabbed a pencil. I started sketching him, his profile and his rigid edges. He was still stiff and angry and jerky. I tried to capture his aggravation in the picture. So far, I was succeeding brilliantly.
"Dib-stink, what is this?" He asked, picking up one of the multiple foldres on the floor in my room. I was sitting at my desk doing our homework because he refused to do it himself. I turned around and glanced at the file and went back to my work.
"It's probably another file on you. I've got hundreds of them. You know that." I said, not really caring and trying to concentrate on the equation that I was working on. When I finished with my homework, I had to do Zim's in a completely different handwriting. I had had him write out every letter of my alphabet so that I could copy his handwriting. It was actually pretty genius of me, no one would be able to tell that I had done it. He was silent for a moment while I worked, and I could barely make out the sounds of pages turning as he looked through the file. After a few minutes, I began to get more interested in what he was doing. It was an odd thing, for him to sit silently and look at something like that. Usually he would have some comment about how my "stupid earth brain" was all wrong and how I didn't understand him at all. I finished the equation and turned in my chair to look at him. He was sitting on the floor, absorbed in the papers that he was holding. When I took a closer look at the folder, trying to see what number it was, I saw that it was number A-327. It was not one of my study folders. It was one of my art folders. I suddenly knew what he was looking at and I jumped out of my chair and tore the papers away from him. He looked up at me angrily.
"Dib! Give those back! Zim was looking!" He held out his hands in a "gimmie" sort of way that would have been kind of cute if I had not been freaking out.
"These are private Zim. You can't see them." I huffed, stuffing the pages back into their folder. He stared at me angrily for a minute before he struck fast, ripping the folder out of my hands.
"Hey!" I said, trying to grab them back and failing. He jumped up and away from me, and onto my bed. I followed him, grabbing his arm and causing us both to lose balance and fall into a tangle of arms and legs onto the bed. I wrapped my legs around his to hold him still and tried to grab the pages but he held them just out of my reach. We were both breathing heavily as we wrestled over the papers. His head fell against the bed at one point and his wig fell off, revealing his long black antennae. I grabbed the arm that was holding the folder and pulled it towards me, as he used his other hand to try and push it away.
"Give them back Zim!" I grumbled as his hand pressed into my face, slurring my speech.
"No! They are pictures of ZIM so they are ZIM's pictures!" He said back, not giving in. I finally stopped struggling and he eyed me suspiciously, I'm sure he thought I was trying to trick him into lowering his guard so that I could grab them. Which I did consider, by the way.
"Why do you want them? They're just sketches." I said, still entangled with him. He looked at me carefully.
"The Dib made these?" He asked.
"I drew them, yes." I huffed, sulking. He continued to stare at me for a second before asking;
"Why?" I moved a few inches away so that I wasn't so close to his face, so that I could see him better.
"Because I like to draw. And I see you all the time… and I mean come on Zim, you ARE an alien. That's not something normal, it's not something people usually see on a day to day basis. And I just… I don't know, I enjoy drawing you I guess." I grumbled, kind of embarrassed. He just stared at me, but not with an angry or negative expression, he stared as if he was thinking, as if he was studying me.
"You have e more of these sketches?" He asked finally. I nodded. "Show Zim." He demanded. I got up off the bed and walked across the room to one of my file boxes. I got all of my art folders out and proceeded to spend the next two hours showing him all of the sketches that I had done of him over the years. There were quite a few of them. He looked at them all, absorbed in them. I already knew that Zim was a very self-centered person, if you could call him a person, but he was just CAPTIVTED by these images that I had created. I had pictures of him sleeping, of him working and ranting. I had pictures of him while he watched TV or while he ate. I had separate ones focusing just on his face, or his hands or his clothes. Of every part of him. I was a little obsessed. … okay more than a little.
I had never seen him like this, with his eyes wide in wonderment like they were. He seemed almost… happy. My fingers twitched as I got that overwhelming urge to draw him. I moved away from him a few inches, subtly. It amazed me that he didn't notice, I guessed he was just that intrigued by them. I grabbed my sketch book from my bedside table and a random pencil that was laying on the floor under the bed. I sat back, leaning against the bed and began to draw him. He was laying on the floor, on his stomach looking at all the pages spread out around him. I drew his outline quickly but didn't finish it, I could always finish that up later. Right now, this moment, I wanted to capture that look on his face. I drew him lying there, with his eyes wide in innocent wonder, his mouth open slightly because he was so trapped by what he was seeing. Like he had never seen anything like it. I even drew all the pages around him. When I was finished, I looked from him to the picture and smiled, extremely satisfied with the result. I handed it to him, putting it on the floor right in front of him. He gaped at it, then looked at me. I smiled at him. He looked back at the picture and said;
"For Zim?" He asked. I hesitated, not wanting to part with it, but almost immediately when to him and bent down over the picture and wrote on the bottom corner;
"For Zim, from Dib. 11th grade." He smiled at it then, a real smile and picked it up. He held it carefully and his pak opened up, bringing out one of his long, extended mechanical hands. It grabbed the picture delicately and pulled it back into the pak, shutting it in. I never saw that picture again after that.
I drew different small pictures of him for a few hours. He stayed so caught up in his work that I doubt he even knew I was there. He had calmed down, now instead of being agitated he was just absorbed in his work, and ignored me. I didn't know how long had passed but I had decided to just wait it out, wait for him to get finished or become tired. I was still drawing when we heard a knock at the door. Zim looked up from his screens for the first time in hours. I didn't get up, instead watched him as he got up and walked to the door. I saw her bright blues eyes before I saw anything else. Neither of them said anything, Zim just let her in. Her strange Irken eyes took in his meeting room as he closed the door behind her.
"Hello Hak, Invader of my Heart." He said, watching her.
"Hello Zim, Invader of my Heart. I have come with a message." She said, monotone. He waited for her to finish but she didn't. Instead she asked; "What is that noise?"
"It is the Dib's earth music." He said. She looked at me then, and walked over to me slowly. She looked over my shoulder and down at the drawings I had been working on. She looked interestedly, touching the pages with the tips of her sharp fingers. She spoke as she looked.
"The Tallest require a meeting with you." She said, looking at my sketches but speaking to Zim.
"Why?" He asked suspiciously.
"We do not know for sure, but we suspect that Pazak is whispering dangerous words into their ears. You need to go put them at ease. I will stay here and guard your Dib." Zim sighed angrily, and walked over to his computers. He shut them down and looked over at me.
"Stay here with Hak." He ordered. He walked closer to me, and leaned down close to my face. "Do NOT leave this room DIB." He said quietly. I nodded, feeling a little anxious. I didn't want him leaving. He looked at Hak and nodded to her. She bent her head down in a small bow and said in her quiet voice;
"I will watch him Lord Zim. He will be fine." He looked at her, his eyes narrowed.
"I know he will be fine Hak. I will be back soon." He turned and left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
