Arm: Weeeee'reeee baaaack!
Leg: (as the readers on fanfiction.net) Hooray.
Arm: Shut up. Anyway, here's chapter 2, and we got it up faster than we usually do…. We don't want to waste your time from reading our fic, so we'll explain things at the end, like normal people do.
Leg: You know we don't own Invader ZIM, we wish we did, but we don't.
Untitled: Chapter Two: Feelings
Zim slammed the front door behind him, trying not to curse at Gir as the poor android walked over and nearly tripped Zim up. Boy, was he pissed. He didn't care if Red and Purple hated his guts; it was the fact they banished him, again, for absolutely no reason at all this time!
Zim sighed as he sat next to Gir, who was now happily sitting in front of the TV, watching Digimon. Gir had his Brainfreezy in his mouth and just smiled goofily at the TV as he continued watching. Zim watched it with him, knowing that Gir "loved" this show almost as much as the Scary Monkey Show. He watched with interest as two of the characters (who he learned to be Matt and Tai later on) got into a fight.
Zim almost instantly found the show very fun to watch. Which surprised him because it was a form of human entertainment, and the main stars of the show were human, along with the Digimon. He didn't quite get the plot, but he figured he'd have to watch more episodes to fully comprehend what was going on in the show. Arm: Can you imagine the look on his face when he discovered that the Digidestined were trying to save Earth? Gir was yelling at the two boys who were arguing, telling them that they shouldn't be fighting and that they both needed a hug (from each other, no doubt ^_^).
The anime took Zim's mind off his troubles for a little while, but once the show ended, Zim began to mope around the house. He began to wonder how he was going to get his things from planet Irk. His disappearance would almost definitely go noticed, since it was a yearlong trip to make going to Irk and back. And did he really want to do the trip with Gir with him the whole time?
Zim was beginning to toss the idea of not even going back to Irk around in his mind. He did have nearly everything he would ever need right there in his home base. He could get help from Jazz as well, if he really wanted to bother his friend like that. He already fit in pretty well, and all he really had to do was to keep his true identity a secret. Zim knew that it would take him even more time to get used to Earth, but he knew that Gir probably didn't want to leave this planet anyway.
Zim asked himself if he should talk to Dib about all this. After all, he was concerned about it, surprisingly. Zim always wondered about that filthy human scum, and he never understood why. Dib was his enemy, his rival, but he did not understand why he filled is mind so much.
"Why is Dib so concerned with my problems anyway?" Zim asked himself as he strode to the toilet entrance to his lab. "I believe that he hates me. Why would he be concerned anyway? Shouldn't he be happy that I will no longer be a threat to the human race?" Zim sighed. He would never understand humans, especially Dib.
Invader Jazz read the email that Zim had sent him. He felt really sorry for his friend, being an Invader was Zim's dream, and the Almighty Tallest had shot him down in his prime (if you want to call it that). Zim had asked him where he had gone wrong, what he did that could have caused him to be banished for a second time. Jazz did not know either, at least, besides the fact that the Almighty Tallest disliked Zim because he was so short and what he had done to deserve banishment the first time.
Jazz knew that Zim would be fine, in time, and that he would get along on Earth. That human that he kept talking about (Dip or Dob, something like that) seemed to be Zim's newest obsession--and hope to survive on Earth. There wasn't an email that Zim had sent him from his home base on Earth that hadn't mentioned the boy. And by the way Zim talked about him, Zim could get along with the human, but they didn't for some reason.
Jazz sighed as he continued writing his response to Zim. Zim never knew the things that Jazz understood about him. If there was anyone who knew more about Zim than Zim himself, it was Jazz. He stopped typing as Red sent him an order. Jazz rolled his eyes; those two were always "busy", but busy in a sense that he didn't want to think about right now. Jazz saved the unfinished email and did as he was told.
Dib looked up at the starry sky, almost expecting to see Zim's ship go flying through the air as he's seen it do many a time before. It had gotten dark a few hours ago, and he always took breaks from his research to look up at the sky, to study the stars. It helped him think, and to let his mind wander for a little while.
Tonight he was worried about how Zim was doing with that problem of his. He just couldn't forget that look of betrayal and hurt Zim wore when he talked to that guy he called "Red." But it was almost like Zim was waiting for it to happen, even though he didn't want it to. It was almost like he was in denial, and when it finally happened (whatever "it" was), it was like a slap in the face for Zim.
Dib shook his head. Those were Zim's problems, and if he didn't want help, that was his decision. Why should he care about how Zim handled his problems in the first place? This was Zim he was talking about, and Zim never accepted help, or at least so it seemed.
Sighing, Dib went back to his biggest project to date. It was an invention he was going to use to capture Zim once and for all, but now he couldn't complete it. The reason why was because Zim looked as if he wouldn't be posing a threat to the human race anymore. There was no use to try and stop Zim if he wasn't going to do anything in the first place. Dib knew he was going to miss the Zim that was bent on making everyone on Earth his slave.
Dib nearly smacked himself at that thought. Why would he miss that side to Zim? Sure, he was going to miss chasing Zim all over the place, that was pretty fun when he really got down to it. Zim always looked pretty adorable when he was in his mercy, and it always shocked and intrigued him whenever Zim got the better of him. Zim was the challenge of his life, the thing that kept Dib up at night, planning and analyzing everything he could do to get the better of Zim the next day.
To most people it looked like Dib hated Zim, but Dib knew that wasn't the case, deep down. Dib knew that he liked Zim, maybe even more than a friend should, but it was Zim's ambition to take over the world that caused him to become Zim's rival. (That, and Zim also proved himself a very worthy competitor, and Dib always loved a good competition.) Dib didn't want his planet taken over by some alien race, so he got in Zim's way whenever he got the chance. Like I had said before, Dib also enjoyed whenever he got to case Zim around the city. By now, Dib believed the insults he threw at Zim were just a way to grab the Zim's attention.
Dib had tried fighting the truth for a while now, but tonight the truth was too stubborn, and Dib couldn't fight it anymore. Dib had fallen, hard, for his rival, no matter how much he hated to admit it. He had no idea why he felt that way about Zim of all people (or should he say 'out of all aliens'?), he just did. He always knew that his rivalry with Zim was going to be trouble, and now he knew why.
Dib closed his window and began to dismantle his unfinished project. He knew he was never going to finish it now. Dib sighed; it was getting late, so he decided to call it a night. He hoped that Zim would be like himself tomorrow. Dib couldn't stand the thought of having Zim act like he did earlier that day.
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Zim continued working diligently on his files on humans. He had no idea why; they were no use to him now that he was banished. Maybe he thought it would help him fit in better on Earth, since he decided to stay there on that miserable planet. It was better than Irk, most of the time.
Zim's fingers suddenly stopped working the keys. He had stumbled across his files on Dib, all the research he had done on the human boy. Zim was compelled to look through them all. He sighed. Why was he always so interested in that human anyway?
Zim never understood his feelings for Dib. He knew they were rivals, and he loved it when he out smarted to boy. But there was something else, some kind of a…attraction…for Dib that even he, an ex-member of the Irken Empire, couldn't understand. Dib made his life on Earth exciting, and he somehow couldn't imagine what Earth would have been like without Dib trying to foil his plans every day. Zim probably would've had all the humans on Earth as his slaves right now, if it weren't for Dib.
Zim shook his head, like getting everyone his slave in less than a month would have been fun. His job would have been too easy that way, but now he didn't have to take over the world, and he almost felt…glad, at that. Maybe now he could focus on getting friends. That reminded him of Jazz, how he had said that he and Dib probably would have gotten along if the two weren't so competitive with one another. He tried not to smile at that thought, even if he and Dib were to become friends, it would be in a long shot from now.
Zim suddenly cursed to himself in Irken. He can't even sit there and think of his only friend without Dib entering his thoughts. He remembered an email Jazz had sent him, it had asked "Zim, it's your first week on Earth and already you fell for someone?" Zim, at the time, had been appalled at that. How dare Jazz even think that was the case?! But Zim had been fighting the truth for almost as long as Dib had, and now he was afraid that Jazz was right. He wouldn't say that he loved Dib, at least, he sure hoped not. The two rarely got along since his arrival on Earth. But he knew that he had feelings for the human other than friendship, no matter how much it pained him to admit that.
Zim yawned as he finally moved away from his computer. It had been a long day, and he decided it was time to get some sleep. Besides, he was going to have to be awake enough to come up with plans to get back at Red and Purple. Those two dared to make a fool out of Zim, and now they were going to have to suffer the consequences. Nobody dared to make a fool of Zim and got away with it, Dib had proven that.
Zim woke up that morning, and nearly forgot about what had been said and done the day before. He was his normal self for about twenty seconds, but then everything came back to him in a rush. Zim glared at the ground as the conversation he had had with Red came back to him, and he hoped that Gir would act semi-sane today.
Zim walked to his computer to check his email like he did every morning. Jazz had sent him an email, along with someone else. He read Jazz's email and shook his head. Jazz had offered to bring Zim his things from Irk so that Zim didn't have to leave Earth. Zim sighed as he replied Jazz and told him to do as he pleased. He looked at the email address of the other email, and nearly deleted the email. It was from Dib, but he didn't delete it, just kept it as new email. How Dib got his email was always a mystery to him, but he figured that only people as intelligent as Dib would find a way to figure it out.
Zim got out of his lab and started getting ready for skool. He was still going to go, there was no point in getting the humans to worry about him. As he ate his breakfast he hoped that everything would go his way.
Arm: That's it. End of chapter two. We want to thank all of you who gave us your wonderful reviews! We never got any reviews stating that you enjoyed the way we wrote before…. We found it very flattering. I just hope that we somehow realistically pulled off the feelings that Dib and Zim could possibly have for one another.
Leg: Yeah. We're more focused on getting them to like each other and end up being friends instead of getting them to be romantically involved with one another. Think of it this way: In the Gundam Wing realm, +'s mean really, really good friends who love each other, and tell one another, x's mean they're romantically in a relationship. Does it all kind of make sense?
Arm: I wouldn't know. All right, we're done talking your ears off. Now go review, if you want to.