Behind The Tube Glass
By alien freak And Xmimi89eR
story may contain gore/blood/violence/strong language
rating: T
ZaDr/ZaDf
Enjoy chapter eight!
English is my second language, my apologies if there are any mistakes.
disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim.
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The boy disconnected the wire on the irken's back, Zim hissed,
the alien broke his folded hands and rose them in the air for Dib to help him. it was hard to be helped walking if you parley can move your legs.
he held the alien by the arm around his shoulder like before and started walking towards where the ship is supposed to be, the room was far away in the lab, and the fact that Zim can't walk made the hallway seems bigger and will take them at less two or even three minutes to get there, so Dib decided to fell the air with some questions,
"so, how are you going to fix your ship if we don't really have any tools? i mean not alien tools for ships at less,"
"my voot can fix most of the stuff itself, I'll just need some t- t- tools from my SIR unit, if it's still functioning, I doubt that..."
"your SIR unit?" Dib asked, he didn't see anything inside the ship, rather than broken metal,
"it's my robot, it can help me fix the ship and my PAK, but the fall was hard, I'm sure its head is apart from its body,"
"neat..."
Zim stopped for a second making Dib stop with him, he looked at the ground then gazed at the boy, he studied his face then his body.
"you haven't touched the ship, right?" he asked, still looking for something on Dib's face,
"uh, no? why?" was he so protective about his ship that much?
"good!" he nodded, but never took his eyes off of the boy, "it would have killed you..." he said the last part for himself, but the human seemed to have heard him,
"kill me? but my dad has-"
"uh-huh, yeah he almost died," he shrugged, "I remember his white coat turning black w- w- when he walked back, my voot shot electricity at him, heh," he shifted to his original position and started to put a foot in front of the other shakily letting Dib know he wanted to continue their walk.
Dib imagined how painful that would be, he started walking as he felt Zim push forward, "did you tell him about that?..." he asked as they walked, maybe his father was a monster of what he did to the irken, but still, he was his father, and he cared about him.
"yeap, I asked about my ship and he said something about going there and all, so I told him to s- s- stay away, not because I care, but because I feared that the ship was too damaged to defend itself and let him explore it,
so I said that so he'd stay away, but he didn't." Zim explained, he almost laughed at the image of a fried man.
"Oh..."
Silence...
"I haven't seen my voot since I crushed here," Zim imagined how bad it was damaged,
"Well, let's say that it kinda survived, i'm amazed by this fact," crushing on a planet after being attacked and surviving was also a thing Dib finds amazing.
"My voot is advanced, no wonder it'ss--Aaaaaah--!" Zim's words were cut by his scream of surprise and shock as he entered the room,
His voot didn't even look like a ship anymore; the windshield was broken, glass landed on the crushed keyboard and console, the pilot chair was almost burned, dried pink blood was everywhere, on the floor, the keyboard, and especially his chair; the blood had sank inside the fabric of the chair, it was no longer pink but a shade of dark purple or even dark orange, the blood on the floor has froze of how cold the place was.
Zim could see wires hanging from the ceiling, metal was everywhere, dust on the dried blood. The ship from the outside looked like it was crushed under irk moons, what was once a super powerful weapon on its sides was now some melted purple metal,
The purple and red color was now almost orange as the ship seemed to have been burning out for a long while when he crushed, scratches everywhere. The bottom was covered in dirt and what he assumed was grass.
nobody would believe that this junk was an irken elite voot once.
Zim twitched where he stood, if Dib wasn't holding him he would have collapsed on the floor,
"How on irk..." he paused to stare more at his long lost ship, "am i going to f- f- fix this...?" His eyes wide with shock, mouth hung open, he held tighter at the boy, his legs felt more numb than before.
"If it still can attack my dad then it's not that damaged," the boy tried looking at the positive side.
let's say Zim looked the other way.
"...i'll never be able to fix it..." Zim whispered, not blinking.
Dib gazed from the broken ship to the broken alien, they were standing in front of it, the boy didn't dare to get any closer looks.
Yet he felt weird as he saw how the irken didn't seem to have any hope for his 'voot'.
Dib looked away, he was never good at comforting, maybe better than his sister but when she put her mind into it, she gives him real good advice and comfort.
"I'm pretty sure you can do it," Dib said, that wasn't too bad, maybe.
Zim looked away, "...how do you know?" He asked, the feeling of not being able to leave the planet ate his insides.
An irken isn't supposed to feel.
And this fact made the whole 'feeling sad' much worst.
"You survived a 'Meekrob' attack twice! If i'm not wrong; so a broken ship shall be an easy task,"
Zim went quiet, now he thought about it, he DID survive two Meekrob attacks, the first time was why his tallest choose him for the mission.
No irken has ever survived a Meekrob attack.
Did that really made him special?
He gazed at the ship, it was broken, horribly broken; but yet it also survived.
He likes that ship, no matter how his fellow people thought it was too small for an elite, he still saw it big.
"I want to get closer," Zim demand, not looking at Dib,
"It's going to shoot me!" Dib snapped, does the alien want him fried!?
"Don't touch, just get me close enough," he pushed forward making the boy walk again. Dib's paces were slow as he got close to what can be his doom.
"Stop," Zim moved his hand in front of Dib, they were inches away from the ship. Zim took in a deep breath and pushed himself from Dib to his voot.
He hung on the ship open window as he tried getting inside, he felt his skin scratching and drawing thin bloodlines as he leaned on glass and sharp metal.
The boy was shocked as he saw the blood from the green skin, he wanted to yell at Zim for being an idiot to clime in such a mess and hurt himself without caring,
But he had no place to say that.
Zim got in, he removed what was in the pilot chair of glass and sat. The ship only reminded him of how low his chance was to get back to space.
He looked at the keyboard, sighed and hoped that maybe at less the ship well recognized him; he drew his hand on the keyboard as it silently scanned his hand, he then waited,
A sound came from beneath him as the keys glowed, slight smoke came from between the keys, but thankfully it didn't last long.
Dib watched as he took small steps behind, he blinked in surprise as he heard the ship come to life, inside was the irken who was typing something, he was frustrated as he kept typing a command after the other, but kept hearing the same weird language that was muffled and glitchy, the light from the hologram screen kept turning red after each command.
and with that Zim leaned back, his hands squeezed his face as he tried not to yell at the ship, he stayed like that for a few seconds.
Dib put his hands on his pocket as he watched, but after a while, he couldn't help but ask, "what just happened?" He rose his voice slightly since he was away from the deadly ship.
"I can't call the tallest..." Zim's voice was muffled and he didn't move an inch.
"I couldn't call them, I couldn't even send one pathetic signal to them!..." he complained,
"Why do you wan--" Dib said fast but Zim cut him,
"They could've send s- s- someone to get me...!" His hands fell from his face to the side of the chair,
"Hey! I told not to tell on earth!-" Dib accused, he won't let the irken forget the whole truce.
"Don't be s- s- stupid..." Zim said, his voice quiet, "i was gonna say I crushed only. You're the ruler, and you're helping me, that's e- e- enough..." he pointed out, still looking at the ceiling of his voot.
Dib was about to tell him again that he was not the ruler of anything, but thought better of it.
"Did you find your robot?" Dib asked trying to get the alien out of his thoughts,
"Eh? Oh i still didn't check..." he said not moving, his gaze then went to Dib who was standing far away. Zim pushed himself to face the keyboard as he typed something else,
"Get close," he ordered the human, "and don't move."
"What? Why?" Dib said as he took shy steps forward,
"If you want t- to help then you'll have to get close, and a dead Dib isn't good at helping." He said this as if it was some mean joke but didn't laugh.
The boy stood close as he waited for the alien to do what he wants.
Zim gazed at the human then pressed a button on his keyboard, a pink flashlight start to scan the human, "Don't move, moron." Zim said as he saw the boy flinch.
The scan was quick and didn't take a second. In the hologram screen, some small information about the human boy displayed, "okay now, you can get close," Zim said as he turned the screen off.
"You just scanned me? Neat!" Dib pointed out as he walked towards the ship, but didn't touch it, still not trusting it.
"Of course it's neat!" Zim nodded to himself as he watched the boy, the idea that the human never saw an alien made Zim flatter with himself, but the boy never saw an alien space ship too that made Zim feel more special.
Inside the ship, Dib could see how damaged it was as now it lighted up.
Seeing an alien in his spaceship reminded him of his old doodles from school, it was drawn with blindness since no one really knew what an alien spaceship would look like.
He fought the urge to touch the ship surface, he feared he'd cut himself.
Zim looked from right to left as he searched for his SIR.
"Where could he go?" He murmured under his breath, did the robot fell from the ship when it crushed?
He looked behind his chair at the broken metal on the floor, his eyes then caught something,
In there a robotic small form laid, its left eye was broken, and his left arm was thrown beside it, his round eyes were grey color.
Zim leaned down and walked on his knees through the junk on the floor, he took a better look at the robot, it looked too broken, but maybe there was some hope to fix it.
Zim held the SIR unit in his arms like he was holding a baby and made his way to the windshield, he held the robot with one arm as the other held the edge of the ship,
His legs hang almost lifelessly from the windshield, he looked at Dib and waved his arm in a 'gimme' motion letting the boy know he wanted to get out.
Dib looked at the alien then at his robot unit, it was small like a new born baby, and the way Zim was holding it tight to his chest made the whole scene rather cute.
He saw the alien signal and moved forward to help him, the alien jumped while catching Dib's shoulder witch cost them to almost fall face first at the floor, but Dib held his feet tight.
Dib sighed when they were stable and looked again at the broken robot.
"Where's the tools?" Zim broke the boy's stare with his question,
Dib looked around the room, it looked like an advanced garage since his father kept his weird tools in there.
His eyes then landed on a table that had some small tools, "there," he pointed his hand at the corner of the room.
They walked passed the weird objects on the floor, as they finally made it, Dib got a chair from beside the table to set Zim on it then got himself another one.
Zim sat and put his SIR unit on the table, he could hear some broken junk move inside the robot head.
The boy watched the alien get some tool from the table as he opened the robot's head, some smoke came out at Zim's face, the alien coughed and shut his eyes, but quickly recovered.
"What does it do?" Dib couldn't help but ask, the small robot looked cute for an invader who probably would kill for his mission, this though made Dib feel sick.
"..." he gazed at the human, some aliens also didn't know what a SIR do, but even so, the human amber eyes were full of wonder, "it helps in my mission..." he knew that wasn't enough for an answer so he added, "it gathers information for me, and help me fix and build things,"
Dib gazed from the alien to the broken robot, he rested his cheeks on his palm and his elbow on the table, watching an alien fix advanced things was amazing, he wasn't bored but he hated silence,
The boy watched Zim play with what was inside the robot head, he cut some wires and plug others, he got a small device out of the robot and started working on it.
Dib's eyes followed everything, from Zim's three claws, his arm that moved a lot, to Zim's twitching antennae, they kept moving with everything he did.
He studied it, and for the first time, he was really close to see how it looked like or at less looked at it in a room that wasn't dark.
He could see small hairs on the base of it and on its pointed end, it was thin in the middle, the way it moved assured Dib that it was breakable and not like most bugs.
He noted what natural angle was.
When the alien is upset his antennae fall back down at the back of his head, they could stick in there if he was too upset.
When the alien is angry his antennae rose slightly upwards its natural position, they would go from angry to upset every now and then, Dib noted that there was a difference between the two.
When he was confused or questioning something, one antenna rose high and the other still down, he would title his head to the direction of his high antenna has taken, he would also shift them to do the opposite when he's waiting for an answer for his confusion.
This reminded him of eyebrows.
If he was excited, they would rise high in the air, they won't flinch or move a lot, but they won't stay high for long. Dib noted that they do the same if the alien was shocked or surprised by something.
And the last pose he recently discovered was when the alien is happy or pleased, his antennae would lean forward, exactly the opposite position when he's upset.
The boy was drowning in his thoughts.
It was weird how he knew all that in a few days, but what was normal now Dib didn't know.
He liked how weird everything is now.
He never was normal, so he liked the whole thing.
He was sane, but not normal, not like other people, but did it matter now? He was normal in his own way, he was talking and befriending with his childhood dream, could he wish for anything better?
Being normal now did not matter.
He was happy being the weird kid.
He liked being weird. Different.
Only now he did.
Dib gazed at the twitching antennae, he studied it more as he stared, his eyes then noted something, he didn't notice before but at one of the antennae, the right one to be exact; an uneven broke looking area was at the end of Zim's antenna.
It was slightly broken, it reminded him of heartbeat lines.
He wondered how he didn't notice it before.
Before he could think twice, his hand found its way towards the broken area, he slightly ran his hand on it, the alien antennae felt like a smooth breakable stick, he could feel some thin and soft hairs with his finger.
If Zim had hair on his body, they'll probably have stood straight as he felt the human's hand on his sensitive antenna, they rose high in the air with shock.
His eyes went wide and the tool in hand almost fell, his shoulder jerked high to cover his nick, a fast hand made its way toward the human's one.
Dib jerked his hand back when he realized what he just did and saw the alien's reaction.
Zim gave him a weird look as he stroked his antenna, his eyes wide open.
The boy thought he'd hurt him as the antenna looked actually broken, he gazed back at the shocked alien.
"Does it hurt?" He asked, his voice quiet, and not really embarrassed about the whole thing, but rather curious.
The irken stayed quiet for a while as he calmed his antennae back, he blinked at how to answer that,
"No," he replied, this time it wasn't a lie, not actually, "it doesn't, that was just weird," he added, the whole feeling was weird. in space, if another species touched an irken antennae they'd be dead where they stand, not even another irken was allowed to do so, they all agreed at the forbidden feeling they get from it and decided it was illegal to touch it.
"Oh," Dib leaned back, he slightly relaxed by the fact he didn't hurt the alien,
"Yea, don't do that again." Zim finally said as he focused again on his work.
"Would it heal?" Dib knew irkens heal fast, so if this was from the 'attack' from the Meekrob then it should be healed,
Zim went quiet, he draw his fingers on the broken area before answering, "if my PAK is fixed then there might be a chance for it to heal back, maybe." He hated this fact, his antennae are precious.
The boy rested his cheeks on his arms as he continued to watch the small alien work.
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After a while, Zim let out a huff as he leaned back at his chair, he didn't seem pleased with what he did,
"Agh..." he gazed at the robot that refused to be fixed, "stupid robot, stupid ship, stupid planet!" He yelled and held his hands on fists.
Dib's head snapped as he heard the irken scream, he looked at the robot then at Zim. The alien was frustrated, he held his robot in his hands then tossed it hard on the floor behind him, then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
"This will never work!" He spatted his words.
Dib was about to say something, but thought better of it, he wanted his head in place after all.
Behind them was the small armless robot, he looked slightly better than before, yet it refused to be activated.
The boy gazed at it on the floor, what were they gonna do now? Their final hope was shuttered again.
Zim's anger has vanished leaving him lifelessly sitting on the chair, he now accepted death, there was no way he could fix this.
As silence fell the room, a small noise was heard; Zim didn't react but Dib looked back at the robot, he focused his gaze on it, and for a moment thought he imagined the whole thing.
Suddenly the robot sat with his blood-red, expressions hard.
Dib almost gasped at the creepy sight.
The robot jumped on its feet with ease, his hand beside his forehead, "Gir, reporting for duty." He voiced.
Zim's antennae rose up as he heard the SIR unit talk, both he and Dib looked back at the small robot.
What Zim said wasn't what Dib excepted, "Gir? What does that supposed to mean??" He asked with confusion.
The robot didn't answer for a while, "sir! It stands for--" a glitch in his voice cut him off, his eyes then went blue, "i don't know !" He giggled.
Zim looked from the robot to Dib who was giving him a confused look as well.
"It's more broken than I thought!!" He rant,
The robot stopped giggling when it heard the irken yell, its eyes went red again, "sir, my scanner shows damage in the PAK, I'm waiting for orders!"
Zim blinked at the sudden change of voice, he looked back at the robot, maybe, just maybe there was still hope.
"Call the tallest!" Zim ordered,
"Yes, my master, calling the tallest!" The SIR unit said as a hologram screen showed from its head, a weird black simple showed in the red screen that said something in the other language.
They waited but the line was cut off,
"Sir, i cannot seem to be able to send any signals to the massive, my program has been deleted." The robot told its master.
Zim's expressions were shocked and rather sad, "what do y- y- you mean your program has been deleted?!" He yelled as he held tighter to his chair arm,
"Open a communication line to all irkens!" He ordered, Zim could feel his limps shake, yes this was his end.
The red screen loaded for a second, but went black, "failed to send signals." The robot gazed at his sad master, his eyes turned blue, "aww, don't be sad master!"
Zim sank down in his chair more, he felt betrayed and alone.
He hugged his legs tight to his chair, "if you want to kill me and c- c- cut me open... then do it, i don't care..." he whispered, not looking at the boy.
Dib was so confused, the robot called 'Gir' even though Zim didn't seem to recognize the name, was switching from his red deadly eyes to blue ones.
His eyes went wide at what the alien said, he gazed at him, Zim seemed to have given up on any hope he had.
Gir walked towards them and jumped on the tabled to get his hand, and plugged it on, he smiled while his 'tongue' was out.
Dib looked at him, the robot did seem broken in every way, but the boy didn't help but ask him, "do you have anything that could help?..."
Gir gazed at the human then shrugged, "hmmm, let's seeee," tools got out of his head.
Dib blinked in surprise, he wondered how the robot could have all of those things in his small head, he thought it might be empty.
"Maybe we could fix your PAK, then--" Dib suggested, but the irken cut him off,
"There's no way i can fix my PAK..." his voice muffled on his knees,
Dib stared at him, he no longer knew what to say, his gaze went to the thin bloodlines that the irken ignored, maybe they'll heal, but not soon enough, he could see small pieces of glass stuck on the alien's arms, they looked painful, he knew the alien would never admit it.
The boy stood up to get the medical box that was on the wall, then leaned to face the irken,
"You're such a moron," Dib said as he got his chair close to Zim's.
The irken gazed at him behind his knees, his eyes were tired, he gave a questioning look, "i'm not a moron," he muffled, his eyes then went to the box in the human's hands,
"What a- a- are doing?" He asked, his eyes slowly blinking as he felt his body sank more and more in the chair, he wasn't that sleepy, but rather drained.
"You're a moron because you cut yourself," he glared hard at Zim as he opened the box,
Zim's gaze moved with the human's hands as they searched the box, "don't even think about it." His hold loosened as he tried to move away,
"Stop moving, You're not getting anywhere," Dib said, his words sounded dark even though he only wanted to help, "you just said i can kill you if i want, now you're hesitating?"
Zim shot him a hard glare, he knew he can't move, he knew what he just said, he wanted to run but he had no power and no capable legs to do so.
He could feel all his body go numb with every move he makes.
"Zim," the boy called the freaked out irken, "would you please calm down!" He yelled, but the irken didn't even look at him as he tried to move away, but failing horribly.
"You're just hurting yourself!" Dib added, he saw how slower the irken moved with each attempt, he was running out of power.
"Zim!" He screamed the name and finally got the alien's eyes to look at him, when that happened he took aback at what to say next,
"I'm not. Going to. Hurt you! When will you get that?," he gazed while trying to hold Zim's hands without touching the wounds.
"How c- c- c- can I trust you!?" Zim screamed back, that loud words took more power than it should have.
"If I wanted to hurt you i would have done this while you were sleeping!" He argued, "and i'm not helping fix your ship if you didn't let me help you first!" He fought the urge to slap the alien.
"Why would you care!?" Zim snapped, that question got Dib to be quiet for a second,
Why did he care?
That was a good question.
Dib glared hard as if that would answer the question, Zim glared back but couldn't help the dizziness that was written on his face.
"I didn't know irkens give up." He said, trying the same method as before.
"We don't give up!" Zim snapped at him.
"Then let me help you!"
"Why d- d- do you want to help me!?"
"Because you agreed to be friends!, and that's what friends do."
Zim blinked,
"And let me guess, an irken never breaks an agreement, right?"
The alien didn't want to admit that, it was true.
He didn't realize that his head has rested on his arm as he stared, he was feeling tired, everything was becoming a blur, he needed to be plugged in, oh he hated this fact!
"You need to get back to the main room, and i won't hold an arm that is full of glass, that will cut me too." That was half the truth, "your part of the truce is to not hurt me." Yes, he liked where this was going.
The alien didn't say anything as he stared, he was an irken who always sticks to his words, and now he was tired, too tired.
Dib took Zim's silence as a permission to get a hold of the numb arms, he would have thought Zim fell asleep, but his arm kept twitching with pain.
The boy knew what products he should use that won't hurt the alien's skin,
He removed the glass, and wiped the dried blood off, he heard Zim hiss as he put the medicine on his cuts,
He knew what to do, he was used to injuries.
Rather from the bullies or something else.
His body was fall of them, people would usually mistake the cuts on his hands with self-harm, so he always wears long shirts an less he was in his house.
His bullies times came in handy these few days.
END OF THIS CHAPTER!!!
Alien freak: god! This chapter was loooong, i had no idea how i was going to end it, so im sorry if the ending was fast and all that.
I'll fix everything in the next chapter I promise!
By this time,
The was alien freak, signing off.