Pre-Teenage Revelations
Epic Eight
Written by Cartman's Girl and Poe

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Vist and Athra were in an elevator, one going down to the base of the lab; it was the first time Athra'd actually been over to Vist's house, since she had a reason to be there, them being assigned one of those partner-up research projects and were going down to Poe and Cten's lab for research perposes.

"Jeeze," Vist muttered, taking off his wig and stuffing it in his coat, "Never thought Poe'd let us by.." The tall Reject had been a bit suspicious, afterall, knowing how much the two seemed to hate each other he didn't want to find any dismembered bodies in his lab.

"I'll say." Athra muttered, folding her arms glaring at the ground. Her wig and contacts were already off, she was glad to get them off. More freedom and no itchy eyes at all. "Say Vist, I been meaning to ask you something."

"Mh?" He held open one eyelid and pulled out his contact, "Shoot."

"Why don't you call Poe 'Dad'? I mean, he is your Dad..." she'd always found that weird. I mean, she knew of the old show known as the Simpsons and how the son always called the father by his first name, but this didn't seem slightly right. He blinked, and not only because his contacts were out. He seemed somewhat put off by that question, but shook his head and put his contacts in his pocket.

"Athra," he started, turning towards her, "Lookit me. Where do orange eyes come from parents with black'n blue ones?" Athra stared at him for a while, then narrowed an eye.

"Did your Mom play around?" she sounded slightly surprised, knowing Cten was obvious she wasn't like that. He shrugged,

"I can't say anythin' for certain." The elevator stopped, opening up onto the lab, "But Poe's never liked me. He tries," Vist's lip twitched, and he headed out, "But he just does it for Mom."

"Then.. why don't you try for your Mom?" Athra knew she was tredding on thin ice, but his family seemed at odds almost all the time. She stepped out of the elevator, pulling a book from her pod. He furrowed his brow and made a slightly annoyed sound.

"You want me to call someone I ain't even related to Dad?" He shook his head, "It's either my real one, or no one." He stopped, staring at the floor, his antennae backing slightly, "Wonder what he was like sometimes."

"Why don't you ask your Mom then...?" she sat down at a table set up in the main lab room, putting the book down. "I'm sure she'd tell you at least."

"I tried to, once when I was younger," He made a motion with his hand to indicate how tall he'd been at the time, "She seemed t'get so upset I felt too bad to ask again." He sat down beside her, holding onto the edge of the table, "Maybe she'n Poe were seperated at one point an' she found someone else.. who didn't want a kid." He slid back onto the table, staring down at his lap.

"Oh.. I'm sorry." Athra patted his arm, looking up at him. "Well maybe one day, when you feel ready you could just ask her again. She probably wasn't in the best of mind back then with her disease.." He sighed very quietly, his antennae going slightly limp,

"Dunno.. part of me.. part of me jes.. wonders if I'm happier not knowin." She nodded slightly, opening her book.

"Truth hurts I guess."

"Yeah." He shook his head, "Anyway." He got one of his own books out of his pod and looked through it, as well as a notebook and pen. He scribbled something experimentally, grunting a curse when the pen produce nothing but a line of indented paper, "They must have some pens down here somewhere," he muttered, setting the book and paper down, rifling through a nearby drawer.

"Ah stupid pens." she picked up the old one and shook it, tapping the pen on her book. "I hate em." He found nothing of use, kneeling down to the bottom drawer, opening it and rooting around through the contents, until he came upon a box shape.

"Mebbe I got.." He pulled the box out; it was covered in Irken lettering, which he couldn't read. He scowled, shaking it, "What the heck.." She turned her head to him, antennae quirking.

"What'd you find?" Athra leant over to see the box, reading over the writing. Being Zim's daughter, he felt she had to know how to read Irken in case of any events she needed to know. Her eyes widened, then she smirked. The smirk formed a giggle, then she laughed up roaringly.

"What?" He scowled, feeling like he was left out of some kind of joke, looking at the box again for some sort of clues. Athra stopped laughing, then leant over and took the box from him. She lifted the lid and held up a small wrapper.

"It's.. Irken condoms!" she smirked, "Good God I didn't know your parents would have them!" He stared at her blankly for a moment, before reeling back and nearly dropping the box. He groaned and shut his eyes tightly, shaking his head,

"That ain't somethin' I wanted to think about.." She smirked, unwrapping it.

"Oh please... thinking of any parents doing it is disgusting." Athra held up the condom-esque thing, "Huh, it becomes invisible once on and you can't even feel it. That's gotta be useful..." He raised an eyeridge at her,

"Useful?" He echoed, taking one out of the box to study it himself, "Remember overhearin' Mom sayin' somethin' about how every time Irken's screwed around they'd more likely than not have a kid… wondered why I didn't have any li'l brothers or sisters with the way Mom'n Poe act."

"...maybe cause of what happened before I was born, they're not chancing having others." Athra mused quietly. Zim had told her about it a while ago, some way to drive her out the idea of reproducing. He snorted slightly, but his mind seemed to be wandering and not quite paying attention. His eyes slid away from the condom and over to her. She blinked, then looked over at him.

"…what?" One of his eye-ridges slowly quirked up, and he smirked slightly, forming a rather sly look on his face. Athra blinked, then stared at him now with raised eye-ridges. She knew that smile, but it seemed more… devious.

"Why Vist…"

"I tol' Poe we'd be busy for at least'n hour studying… Y'know… no disturbances." He tilted his head slightly downwards, looking devious indeed.

"Weeelll…" Athra looked at the object in her hand, then waved it at him. "Nothing without this though, I don't want Daddy having a squeedly-spooch attack." He snickered lowly, setting the box and the one he held down to the side, sliding over to her and snatching the condom from her with one hand, the other sneaking around her shoulders,

"Don't worry." Her antennae quivered as her hand rested on his leg.

"Okay then… but don't go bragging, all right? Not like you could brag, but still…"

"Hey," He reached up with the hand on her shoulder, his arm still around her, lifting up one of her shaking antennae with his knuckle, "I tol' you I could be a gentl'min. I ain't gonna go around and disrespect a lady's honor'n her privacy like that." His devious grin softened, his eyelids half-closing.

"Hmmm.." Athra let go of his leg and went up to his antennae, holding the joint between her main fingers. She then leant up and kissed him gently on the lips. "Get it on first, then... we'll see." He purred quietly, for him anyway, usually being akin to a lawnmower. He kissed her back, the finger tilting upwards and curling around her antennae,

"Fine, fine.." He murmured, then pulled away from her reluctantly, sliding back a bit further on the table. He reached up, loosening his collar, then proceeded to unbutton his shirt. Athra nodded, then started to take her boots off. In the past, they had been semi-naked a few times before, but never had actually seen each other full on nude. She was somewhat nervous, heck who wouldn't be? Placing her boots to the side, she pulled her gloves off.

"Is there anyway to lock the lab off…?" she asked quietly. He was nervous too, but not about to show it. He shook his head, pulling his arms out of his sleeves,

"Neh… Gotta know the security code… everyone else in the house knows it 'cept me, probably for this exact reason." He snorted slightly, actually folding his jacket up, a nervous behavior, then finally pushed it to the side. The odd light in the lab seemed to reflect the pigment in his skin differently, maybe it was natural 'Irk' light - but either way, certain parts of his hide, especially on his upper arms and back, seemed a bit darker, duller than the rest of him, almost like he had… stripes. Athra pulled her shirt over her head and pod, then looked over at him. He had his back to him while he slowly slid his pants down half way to do… you know. She tilted her head to the side at the stripes, but then folded her shirt up. They were a bit hard to make out at first, but there were slashes across his back and arms. He made a few frustrated sounds, then took a deep breath, looking back over his shoulder at her. Her antennae rose as he looked at her, then smiled slightly since she had just grabbed onto her black pants, about to pull them down herself.

"I… like your stripes…" she smiled.

"Stripes?" He held out his arms and examined them curiously, "Oh, yeah, those… I… din't think they were anything odd." He backed his antennae, maybe actually flushing a bit at the compliment?

"I like them…" Athra then slowly and cautiously pulled her pants down and started folding them up. "Unique…"

"Unique? I didn't know they were unique… I mean I never seen another Irken naked till-" He happened to glance back at her, and his breath caught. He blinked a few times, then quickly scrambled to regain his train of thought "Till… now."

"Ditto…" she replied, blushing brightly as she put her shirt down on the ground, then sitting down on the floor. Athra loooked at him, smiling shyly - possibly one of the few times she ever would be shy - and curled one of her antenne around her finger. He turned around slowly, still staring at her, with a look that wasn't just hungry lust - well okay, there was a bit of that - but mostly genuine appreciation. He slid off of the table, getting down to his knees in front of her, a tiny smile curling the corner of his mouth.  She smiled back at him, shyness pretty much melting away now as she slid one claw tip up over his arm to his neck, her antennae quivering pretty much in antisipation about now.

Either she took notice of his, *ahem* endownment or not, she seemed very ready indeed. His skin flinched slightly and he leaned over, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. The floor beneath the desk was softened by a patch of carpet, at least, and one of his hands slid downward, dipping her down onto her back gently.  Athra wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding onto him as he slowly laid her on the carpet. She leant up and then kissed him on the mouth gently. And this is a good a time as any to at least pan out to leave the two to… do stuff.

And indeed stuff did happen. But not too long into it, the sound of the elevator could be heard slowly decending through the Earth. Vist was far too preoccupied to notice it at first, but one of his antennae rose at the sound, and he pushed himself up off of her chest,

"Oh slark," he hissed, rather breathlessly, and without much further explaination yanked himself off of, not to mention *cough* out of her, scrambling for his pants. Athra laid there for a while, panting heavily as she slowly sat up. She was about to ask what was happening, when she picked up the sound as well. She 'eeped' and quickly began pulling her clothing on. First her shirt, her gloves, then pulling at her pants, then finally her boots.

"Slark slark slark…" she hissed to herself, since she had been very much into it. He threw on his shirt, buttoning it up in a panic and getting half of them in the wrong holes, he soon gave up trying to straighten it and quickly got back onto the table, kicking the rather incriminating box that'd been on it to a distant corner and hopefully out of sight, pulling up his book and pretending to be reading intently, though he had a rather… distressed look on his face. Athra picked up the non-working pen and stuck it into her teeth and started reading, failing to notice said upside down book. The elevator finally opened, Cten stepping out. She stood there for a while, looking at the two who were sat on the far end of the table.

"You two still down here?" she asked.

"Yeahmah," he said rather quickly, not to mention without much breath, practically rocking back and forth with tension, legs crossed, toes curling and uncurling in tension, "J-j-es studyin…" Cten raised an eye-ridge at Vist's reaction, then blinked as she suddenly smelt it. You know the smell all right. She looked at Athra, who's book was still upside down, then at Vist.

"I see." she said simply, leaning on the table. "So, what have you learnt so far?" He froze, then his eyes quickly darted, pretending to be re-reading a passage,

"I-I-I d-dunno Mah, it, it's pretty borin…" He paused to take a breath, blinking a few times, "..Borin stuff,"

"Athra, do you usually read upside down?" Cten then asked, crossing her arms. Athra blinked,

"Umm… it's a diagram, Ms. Cten it's just… funny looking upside down."

"U-huh."

"Y-yeah, this stuff, this stuff's so boring you, might 's well be readin it backwards and it make about.. about as much sense!" He raised his voice suddenly when he crossed his legs a bit too tightly, then blinked and scrunched back over his book.

"Hmm-mm." Cten mused, couldn't tell if she was enjoying doing this to the kids or not. But, now wasn't time to say anything. "Well... I'll let you two get back to it.. but don't study too hard. you'll wear yourself out." with that she turned and walked from the room, into the elevator and was gone. Athra, who had pretty much been holding her breath all this time let out a large gust of wind. Vist did as well, but didn't seem terribly relaxed, because part of him certainly wasn't.

"That.. was close," he panted.

"I know..." she muttered, then looked over at him, then *cough* down at him. "...ah." He glanced down as well, his cheeks tinting visibly,

"Well.. uh.." Athra slid over to him, her hand vanishing from sight under the table.

"Aw, Vist are you still tense..?" she asked quietly.

"K.. kinda.." He looked over at her blankly as she slid back over, his antennae held back against his skull. Her free hand went up to his neck and she kissed his neck, then whispered up to his antennae.

"I should fix that, shouldn't I?" He blinked, but the glazed look returned to his eyes, the lower lids drawing up slightly,

"Nnnngh.." he wasn't able to make a more intelligent reply, his antennae perking. With that she actually pushed him off his seat, onto the floor and the two vanished out of sight again since the angle was on the table after all…

[To be continued – ha, no sex for you!]