://067. Snow.
The snow began that morning, to the rapture of the deluded skoolchildren and Zim's extreme dismay.
"It will melt by lunch," was Bitters' dire prediction. "This happens every year and hundreds die in the resulting black ice epidemic."
And yet, even with their teacher's assertion of doom, the glee of her charges remained irrepressible. Zim and Dib were the sole exceptions to the yowling frenzy of enthusiasm, the former because he had an all-embracing hatred of earth weather conditions and the latter because he had bigger things on his mind.
Nevertheless, out the kids poured come the recess-hour, catching the Invader up in the torrent. Zim only extracted himself from the deluge at the last moment, when he managed to fall back with the stragglers. He whirled away as his slower classmates descended upon the playground with squealing abandon, grinding the source of their happiness to slop within moments.
Zim sputtered with disgust at them all, and retreated to the benches. A space was claimed with one imperious arm-sweep to clear away the powder, and in a moment he'd hopped up on the damp wood to perch and glower at his supposed compatriots. Under the trees, the snow cover was a little lighter, which was a boon to him. The children were pelting each other with snowballs now, the slowest ones victimized by their more robust peers, pushed sprawling onto the ground, ganged up on, and forced face first into the the growing drifts. Bloody noses abounded and indignant howls echoed through the playground equipment. Zim shuddered, glad he had distanced himself early. Pathetic.
Appreciating his own superiority got a little old after a while, not that Zim would admit it, and he began to pay more conscious attention to his usual surveillance patterns, scanning the playground for deviant movement patters that might denote a larger skirmish or disturbance. And, of course, keeping an eye out for Dib, which was basically a prerequisite whenever he was out in public anywhere. He hadn't noticed the worm-child amongst the victims, which meant that Dib had separated himself early from the crowd as well.
The snow began again, lightly at first, but the flakes soon became larger, fluffy like angel down. Zim brushed irritably at them when they settled on his wig and skin; if he let them melt it stung. In spite of how obnoxious that was it was also a little relaxing. He would have been more worried and alert if conditions had conspired to make him feel totally secure. The skoolchildren had broken up from their slush war and were mostly standing around with their tongues out catching pieces of snow. A few kids kicked lazily back and forth on the swing sets, heads tipped back to nab snowflakes as well. Sound was swallowed up, and vision.
In spite of that he heard the footsteps as someone approached – Dib, naturally. Only Dib was obsessive enough to be concerned with him in the light of this sudden windfall. Indeed, his native rival came in at an angle, enough so that Zim had to turn to keep him in sight, but not so surreptitiously that it looked like a sneak attack. The boy's normally pale cheeks were rosy, his hair dampened in unruly feathered spikes to accompany the larger cowlick. "You know, space boy," he began, "any normal human kid would be out there playing with the rest of them. It's pretty suspicious to be just sitting out here alone."
"Tuh!" Zim snorted derisively. "The explanation is simple. I prefer to 'people-watch'." He made sarcastic air quotes with his fingers at the phrase. He couldn't imagine how anyone could derive interest in observing those crawling ants...
"Hah," Dib said, shortly, tone rich with cynical humor. He actually had the nerve to come closer and brush off a spot for himself next to Zim – well, on the other end of the bench, really, but more than close enough for Zim's comfort. The Irken's eyes narrowed slightly as he analyzed Dib's posture, the human slouching lazily, hands in his pockets, face seemingly turned towards the ground but his gaze still trained on Zim. Non hostile, at the moment, wary but not looking for a fight, other than perhaps a verbal skirmish. Well, Zim could easily oblige; Dib's non combative moods towards him were few and far between, and the human could be forthcoming sometimes, to Zim's advantage. The Irken waved lazily towards the other children. "Any normal human, eh?" he mocked, mimicking Dib's sing-song tone. "Why aren't you out there yourself, then, worm."
"Oh please," Dib said, a slightly arrogant smirk gracing his face for a second. "Loners are evil, don't you know? And someone has to make sure you aren't plotting anything. A snowball fight would be too easy, anyway."
"Eh," Zim said, shaking the snow off again distastefully. "I suppose. This stuff is disgusting anyway, it grows around germs and dirt and things, and you little wormbabies eat it like candy... disgusting."
By now, Dib's dark hair was spangled with snowflakes, and his trench coat well-dusted. The delicate spokes of the individual flakes (where they hadn't been incorporated into the larger snowflake-collectives drifting down) were visible against the pleather, and the delicate arms which branched off of them as well. The clarity of their form, sitting on a warm human, surprised Zim, but the flakes which rested on Dib's skin and hair were slowly dissolving into anonymity... The white sky had an opalescent quality, like radioactive milk.
"Well, maybe," Dib granted. "But I kind of like it anyway."
An unguarded admission – rare, always interesting. Zim was turning over the connotations in his mind when Dib made his move. The Invader tensed as Dib took his left hand out of his pocket, reached out, and turned his small palm up.
The snow was heavy enough now that it seemed to isolate them on the bench, in the trees. Dib caught a flake almost immediately, and in similar quickness it melted down in his warm hand.
For a second, Dib turned and looked at Zim directly, the expression on his face hard to read – but his eyes surprisingly deep and sad behind his glasses. Then he seemed to dismiss the alien. Very deliberately, he took his hand to his mouth and quickly licked the fluid from his palm.
Zim stiffened. "Disgusting," he whispered, or thought, not knowing which. Dib looked at him again.
"Well, maybe," he said. "But I'll live with that."
Easily he hopped off the bench, the snow lapping up to his thin ankles. An attack - ? Zim shook his head violently, pulled himself together fast. Then the bell calling them back inside screamed. Zim nearly screamed himself, it gave him so much of a turn.
Dib seemed to know without looking that Zim had been startled. "Take a chill pill, space boy," he said, and then began trudging back towards the skool doors with his head low. At every step he shook snow off his boots. It was deep enough, and Dib small enough, that he had trouble walking easily. Zim narrowed his eyes and glared after him. Don't like it so much now, do you.
The Irken stayed sitting for a few minutes more, wondering, thinking what that had all been about. The snow still came down in piles, heavy and occluding as velvet, and although he didn't know it, the exchange would return to haunt him for the rest of his long life: Dib's pallor and the flash of his tongue, and the drops of water gleaming in his hair like stars.
10/23/07.
