The main room of Zim's base was dark as Dib entered. Some light came in through the window, but only basked a bit of the floor in some orange-y quadrilateral forms.
Gir was curled up on the couch, snoozing happily.
Dib walked by, being as quiet as he could. While Gir wasn't entirely useless and incompetent, he didn't really want to listen to the screeching nonsense that came out of him. Especially right now.
He found Zim again working on the voot cruiser, the tips of his lekku peaking out the top.
"Uh... Zim?" Dib asked.
The lekku twitched in response before the irken head appeared above the cockpit. "Yes, Dib-thing?" His eyes were surprisingly calm, not their usual aggressive and hostile selves.
"So, you remember Tak, right?" Dib asked.
The response came out in a low growl. "Yes. I do."
"You remember her ship right? Like the one that I modified and rep-"
"I do remember the Dib-shit ship," came an even lower growl. "Somehow even more annoying than the original," he grumbled off and went back to yanking something out from under the dash in his cruiser.
"I still have it... and I managed to get most of the trash smell out of it. Is it in any way useful?" Dib asked.
"Maybe as a trash-can," came another grumble and Zim threw something over his shoulder, which hit the wall with a louder-than-expected thump for what looked like a piece of plastic.
"But you know, it can fly and everything right? It just needs fuel or something. I just haven't been able to figure-"
"It needs no fuel, just someone not completely incompetent. Zim can fix it." There was currently a loud screeching noise from where Zim was working, but all Dib could see was a bright, welding-torch-like light.
There was an almost triumphant final snappig sound and th elight vanished before Zim's head popped back up from where he'd been working. Then a clawed hand reached down and grabbed Dib's shirt and yanked him in.
Dib let out a startled cry as his face suddenly met the floor of the cockpit. "Zim!" he protested and right himself, pulling his feet in just before the glass dome shut.
"What? Did you not want me to look?" came an annoyed response.
"I could've just, you know, climbed in," Dib said as the cruiser lifted and then flew from the open roof.
"That would've wasted time," Zim huffed. Dib saw the landscape underneath go by, as he had to awkwardly situate himself in the cockpit. It wasn't exactly made for tall human forms, after all. And he could see Zim's hunched neck as well and wondered if he was at all comfortable as his hands worked the controls. He didn't have to see the buttons and levers in order to steer, muscle memory being enough by itself.
Maybe Zim was right. Perhaps Dib wasn't as good of a pilot as him. But he wouldn't let the irken know that.
They reached Dib's house in under a minute, an interstellar travel capable vehicle more than a little faster than walking. It almost annoyed Dib he had spent so much time walking around.
Zim plopped his ship down on the back lawn and opened the cockpit back up. Dib clambered out after Zim, who had no trouble in agilely hopping down.
Before Dib could tell Zim where the ship was, Zim had already weaseled underneath the garage door and dove head first into the cockpit, feet sticking out as he messed with something underneath that Dib couldn't see.
Dib pushed the garage door open enough he could comfortably walk in and found Zim already having ripped something out of the sensitive electronics in the ships belly.
"Hey!" he protested and picked up the same plastic-y looking thing Zim had ripped out of his own, it was even the same color and had the same irken armada logo on it, followed with what looked like some kind of warning written in irken text. Dib had ot wonder what it was. The majority of Tak's ship was nothing like what Dib had been able to see of Zim's, so a part that was exactly identical felt strange to him. Perhaps it was some kind of power source that only came in one form. Or a hard-drive or something. Regardless, he put it carefully on a workbench.
"You filthy huuman-" Zim was grumbling in a mixture of English and Irken profanities and there was more loud screeching sounds, accompanied by bright light. this time Dib could tell the invader was fusing something else into the mess of electronics down there. He finished with the same triumphant snapping sound as the electronics got pulled back into the inner workings of the ship and the compartment closed.
"Okay, Dib-thing," Zim said and flopped back into the pilot seat. "You need to know how to start this thing first." The irken pointed to a button Dib had tried unsuccessfully to figure out what it did. "This is the thing that starts it. Does your pathetic human brain understand this?"
"But," Dib started, going to explain that he'd tried that one, many, many times.
"It starts it," Zim snapped. "This," he pointed ot the button Dib had long believed to be the starting button, "boots up the computer. You press this, then this." Zim demonstrated and the ship purred alive, the console lit up with all the different confusing irken texts and icons.
"Oh," Dib said as he recognized the feeling of being on what felt like a boat, like all the irken ships when they first took off.
Zim let out a long sigh. "While I don't particularly want to draw attention to ourselves, it may be useful to cart this along. Even if it is just to shove oyu in here when you get too annoying..." he trailed off and then hit the ignition button again and the ship lighted back down onto the garage floor. "If that's the case though I should teach you how to pilot it- though I'm sure your pathetic huuman skills will be undeserving of the term- 'pilot.'"
Zim was mean, but the idea of being to actually understand what his hands were doing on the controls was more than enough to set aside any offense Dib took at the insults.
"I would love to learn how to fly this thing," Dib said excitedly. "It would be amazing to be able to fly about in space," he went on and took a couple steps back to get outside and stare at the sky, but clouds hid the stars, and he couldn't help but feel a bit let-down.
Author's note: So fun fact, I also have a pat reon. If you have any interest in looking at my original works or animations you can check it out- my author-y name thing is still KamiKitty so /kamikitty after the com in the url.
Hope you're all well and good, the cold season is coming. Had to control myself today when I heard Christmas music. But regardless, have fun with my writing. Anyway you want, that's why it's there you know. ;) 😉