The hallway was endless. On either side, it seemed to stretch out forever. Unframed mirrors lined the walls on either side, loaning an eerie kind of symmetry to the doorless passageway. "You're turning into one of them..." The echo bounced down the mirrored hallway like Zim's reflection. Shaken, he whirled around, finding nothing but himself staring back.
"Eh, what is this? Who's talking? Who are you?"
"You're turning into a human." The voice echoed again.
"What?? NO! Nonsense! There's no way I can turn into a human stinkmonkey! I am Irken, and I always will be!!" Zim shouted. The echoes sent back down the endless glass hallway. There was no sound but Zim's quickened breath for what seemed like an eternity.
The voice responded, much nearer now. Once again, Zim whirled around, only to meet his reflection. "You aren't an irken anymore. You're changing. You're mutating. You're something else. You're not an Irken anymore."
"No, I am ZIM!" His trademark battle cry that he hadn't used in three years had a twinge of fear hidden inside. "Zim the irken! Nothing can take that away from me! Nothing will turn me into one of those slimy fidgeting HUMANS! NOTHING!! Who dares to say otherwise? Show yourself!"
The voice answered, this time, in an uncomfortable whisper that seemed to be just behind him. "Are you sure you even want to BE an irken anymore? What does being an irken mean to you, anyway? The Empire doesn't want you. No irken can even stand your presence anymore. That's why you were banished, remember?"
"...I may be outside the empire, I may end up changing into a hideous mutant, but I'm still an Irken, dammit!" His uncertain words echoed down the glass hallways, bouncing off of unframed mirrors. Only one phrase managed to reverberate back: "Outside the empire..." Over and over the echo hammered against his antennae. Rolling the words over in his mind, slow threads of panic started to creep into his mind. "No. I didin't mean that! I'd be dead right now if I were outside the bounderies of the empire! That can't be why I'm--" He turned around again, to face another mirror. Instead of his true reflection, he saw himself, with hair. And pupils. And ears. And human fleshtones. It was him, as a human. His panicked look met the knowing smirk of his sapien counterpart, and Zim propelled himself against the opposite wall. "Holy prak!"
As he watched the mirror, the smile on his human self dissapeared, and was replaced with a look of agony, as his limbs fell off and it's skin started to melt...
Zim sat bolt upright, still screaming from the dream. After a few seconds of labored breathing, he reached up and clutched his head from a headache that had conveniently decided to show up, and layed back down on the glowing white slab. He blinked under the harsh overhead lights, and blurry shapes slowly formed into the cabinets and equipment of the medical ward. A series of repeating beeps drifted from a speaker above the glowing cot he was laying on. Absentmindedly rubbing his eyes, he wondered where he was, then how he got there, then how long he'd been out. His wits finally returning, he realized the eye he was rubbing was healed, as was the hand he was rubbing it with. He stared at his hand, his antennae falling backward in thought. Did Dib do this? Did he even know how to use the equipment in here?
Where was that human, anyway? Zim propped himself up on the cot and stared at the circular door to the hallway. Was he alright? Did he leave for home already? Did he and Min finally manage to kill one another while he was out?
Min, he realized. Maybe she was the one that used the stuff in here to repair him. Yeah, that made sense. More sense than Dib, anyway. That human was smart, but not THAT smart. He flexed his hand again. She did a pretty good job, too. He should find her and express his gratitude, he thought grudingly. He jumped off the cot, causing the beeping noise from the lifeforce monitor to stop. Zim shook his head and staggered, sitting back down and blinking from dizzyness. Maybe he'd better stay here for a while, he thought as he looked down at the tiled floor. At least until the room stopped spinning.
His eyes still to the floor, he noticed that the front of his sweatshirt had been turned almost completely brown by the color mixture of turquoise blood and red fabric. Reaching a green hand up to feel the stiffness of the fabric, he noticed that his gloves were missing. It didin't take him long to spot one glove next to him on the surgical table, with a pile of same-color fabric shreds next to it. His other glove, probably. He sighed irritably and looked back down at his shirt. Well, it was getting too small for him anyway, he thought, releasing his utility pak and pulling the bloody thing off over his head. He reattached his pak and unceremoniusly tossed the sweatshirt to the head of the cot.
"Computer? Warm up the matter fabricator. I need to get some decent clothes."
A holographic computer screen flashed in front of him, showing the matter fabricator main menu. "Specify search criteria..." The speakers sighed disdainfully.
"I don't know! Just find something normal-looking!" Zim yelled at the screen. Immediately, pics of "normal human clothes" flashed on the screen. "No, no, no! Unacceptable! What the prak is "Aeropostale", anyway? Show me something else!"
"I'M SEARCHING, alright?" The speakers whined.
Zim sifted though the choices, using the holographic touch screen, until he eventually found something that caught his eye. When asked for a size, he just told the scomputer to scan him again. He had no idea what size he was supposed to be, and even if he did, that would change again by next week, it seemed.
As the articles of clothing were being formed, Zim opened up his height experiment files again. Stupid dreams, he thought absentmindedly, watching the irken numerals scroll down the screen. This wasn't the first time he'd been scared awake, either. Irkens normally only needed one-third the sleep humans did, but recently he'd been operating at a constant state of near-exhaustion, because of the nightmares. To compensate, he'd adopted a normal human sleep schedule, but that only made things worse. It was just one more way he had to lose his Irken identity.
Zim glared in frustration at the figures on the screen. This entire week, he'd spent in the lab, partially to get his mind off of what happened between him and Dib, and partially because Min was down here. He sighed and relaxed a little, remembering how she had been more than happy to help with his experiments. Even when he told her about the bizarre changes his small green form was going through, she showed no sign of it bothering her. In fact, she became all the more helpful, doing whatever she could to help him figure things out. He leaned back on the cot, a smile begining to appear on his lips. Kind of strange, he thought, that the lithe green creature he had careened into last Friday would become his main pillar of support in such a short time. Zim blinked out of his reverie and scowled, realizing how he was just staring off into space. Again. He'd been doing it a lot, recently. Besides, even with Min's help, they'd made no progress towards figuring out what exactly was wrong with him. On the contrary, he seemed even healthier than normal: his height, strength, and stamina were at all time highs. But, what did it all mean? What exactly was happening to him?
"MASTER!!" Gir squealed, jumping down from his hiding spot in the ceiling and landing on Zim's stomach. Zim, gasping for air, grabbed the robot by the antenna and held him off the bed, it's legs dangling. "Ooooh! You look different!" The deranged SIR unit cooed.
Between labored breaths, Zim managed to get out "GIR, Why did you do that?"
"I wanted to suprise youuuuu!!"
"Yeah, well, you suprised me." Zim said blandly, rubbing his stomach.
"What're you staring at so hard?"
"Nothing." Zim replied quickly, glancing up at the holoscreen. "I was merely reviewing some data, that's all!" He dropped the squirming metal thing over the side of the cot, and he heard GIR hit the floor with a metallic thud. "The articles of clothing I'm having fabricated should be done soon. Go and retrieve them for me, GIR."
"Yes, my master!!" He heard GIR shout from under the cot, and the little robot sped out through the circular door, giggling creepily.
Zim watched him leave, it slowly dawned on him that three weeks ago, he wouldn't have been able to pick up GIR with one arm. But now he was just holding him in the air like he was some kind of toy. Looking down at the arm he picked him up with, he stared as wiry muscles he'd hadn't noticed before shifted under his skin. By human standards, it wouldn't have been very impressive, but he was an irken, and to an irken, it looked freakish. Looking up, he saw himself sitting in the reflection of the polished metal surface of he cabinets. Blinking in amazement and uncertainty, he slowly stood up from the cot, looking at his double in the polished metal. He had tried not to look at himself recently. He had himself scanned, analyzed samples and data, but he didn't actually LOOK, because he didin't want to see what kind of freakish thing he was turning into. This was the first time in three weeks he'd taken a good look at himself, and GIR wasn't kidding when he said he looked different. He was easily as tall as Dib, now, and his body proportions had changed dramatically. The wiry muscles on his forearm were covering his body. He narrowed one red eye and studied himself. If it weren't for the green skin, he would've looked almost...
Human...
Zim lurched back from his reflection and pressed himself against the cot behind him. "Holy slorbees! I AM turning into a human!!" He screeched, scrambling across the cot and falling over the other side with a fleshy thud and an tirade of curses in irken.
"Turning into a human? You've got to be kidding, right?" Min laughed from the open door. She stood there, leaning up against the circular doorway, holding a pile of black cloth in one hand. "You know, Zim, the idea of being in the medical ward is NOT to hurt yourself..."
Zim's head popped up from behind the cot. He hadn't heard her come in. "You'd do the same thing, Min, if you just saw what I saw! What in the great holy blorch rat happened to me while I was out? I look like... uh... like..."
Min sighed. "Listen, Zim. The only thing I gave you while I was repairing you was a stabilizer pack. My guess is what your body didn't use of it to heal itself, it probably used to finish... whatever it is you're going through." She tossed the handful of black cloth onto the cot. "Here. I think these belong to you. I found your SIR unit wearing the shirt on his head and playing jump-rope with the pants."
Zim stood up from behind the cot, and picked up the simple black t-shirt he'd chosen. Why black? He didn't know. He just thought it looked interesting. "...Thanks, Min." He said slowly, like it pained him. "And, thanks for repairing me..." Tossing the shirt over his bare shoulder, she looked back up at Min, who was still watching him from the doorway. Her fiery crimson eyes seemed to be studying him intently, blinking now and again behind those long eyelashes of hers. "...What?" He said finally, trying to suppress that uncomfortable feeling of awkwardness again. What was the matter with him? Why couldn't he keep his composure around her? And why did he feel so hot all of a sudden?
"N-nothing." Min replied quickly, suddenly finding the tiled floor very interesting. Her face was a bright shade of green. Was she blushing? "I'd better, um, go run some more data." She pushed off the doorway and took a step down the hall.
"Hey, wait." Zim heard himself say. Min stopped in the hallway, turning back. He maneuvered around the cot and started towards her, intent on asking her why she was staring at him like that. However, his foot caught on one of the legs of the cot, and he stumbled clumsily through the doorway, crashing into her and propelling the both of them into the hallway...
"Whoa! Watch your step. You're still a little weak..." She warned, trying to keep him steady. Cursing under his breath at his clumsiness, Zim looked up, finding himself almost at eye level with the irken female. His arms around her, his red eyes seeing his own reflection in hers, Zim just stood there, dumbfounded, trying to comprehend a sudden feeling of wanting that he'd never felt before, and didn't quite understand. He was speechless. Surprisingly, so was she.
"Zim!! Zim, where are you?!" Dib, however, was very vocal. When Zim had first jumped off the medical table, the life monitor signals Mimi was scanning in his room had gone flatline. In a half-panic, Dib ran out and grabbed the fastest thing in his dad's lab in order to get there quickly, which happened to be the experimental hoverjet board that hadn't REALLY been tested yet. Using this perfectly secure piece of equipment, Dib hauled ass to Zim's base, fearing the worst and thoroughly convinced that Min was to blame. The fact that he happened to skid around the last corner at just the right moment to see a shirtless Zim holding his caretaker in a rather close embrace was just one of those twists of fate that manage to make things like sitcoms and soap operas look that much more probable.
"Zi-- Whoa. Uhh, Zim?" Dib mumbled, stopping in his tracks. Both irkens simultaneously looked up, noticed the confused human, and split apart as though they were allergic to each other. "Uh, I was, eheh, just... Did I come at a bad time?" Dib said awkwardly.
"No." Both Zim and Min replied immediately, without thinking. Min started to back away towards the communications chamber. "I guess I'd better get that data ran, like I said I would. Zim, you look, uhh...definitely strong enough to move around, so..." Still backing away, her eyes on Zim, she bumped into the metallic walls of the hallway. Turning to see what she ran into, she looked back, a brightening green tint starting up again under her eyes. "Just don't strain yourself, alright?" With that, she disappeared down the hallway.
After watching her disappear, Dib glanced at Zim. One eyebrow arched over his oversized optical rims, and his lips curved into a knowing smile. "And I thought you just sympathized with her. I am so dense!"
"Aw, what are you talking about?" Zim mumbled, disappearing back into the medical quarters again, and, signaling to give him a minute, dilated the door behind him.
Dib leaned against the door. "Hey, I may have glasses, but I'm not blind. I saw you out here with her."
"I tripped. She caught me." Zim's voice resounded though the metal door.
"Uh huh, sure. Admit it, Zim, you have the hots for her! That's why you've been letting her stay here!"
"'The hots?' What is that, some kind of earth disease?"
"C'mon... Don't play dumb, Zim. I think you already know what I'm talking about."
Silence. Then, "...yeah. I know what you're talking about. The stupid human meatsacks on TV won't shut up about it. How wouldn't I know?"
"And I'm right, right? Then why don't you just march in there and tell her how you feel?"
"...Dib, you're a human. You think about things the way humans do. I know what you're talking about, only because I've been here for three irkenpraking years. I've managed to turn into a freakish mockery of an irken, too. I'm starting to sound, act and even LOOK like a HUMAN! That includes 'the hots', as you so colorfully put it. She's just a normal irken, though. She thinks differently. She wouldn't understand. This kind of thing just isn't what Irkens do..."
At a loss for words, Dib uneasily fiddled with his glasses. Wasn't what irkens did? What on earth did he mean by that? Oh, yeah. They use cloning to reproduce. They wouldn't know romance if it bit their antennae off.
"...Listen, you're not a freak, Zim. You're just--" Hearing a beeping noise on the other side, Dib stepped back as the door dilated. Zim stood there, wearing the black t-shirt, size-larger black jeans, and leather fighting gloves--black, of course. His face was impassive as Dib stared at him, suddenly realizing how he'd changed. "Hey! Wow, what happened to you? You DO look like a human! You know, except for the green skin and the red eyes and the antennae, but otherwise..."
"Dib..." Zim cut him off. "I really don't want to hear this right now."
"Sorry. So, what do you wanna do, then?"
Zim thought for a second. "I just came out of the medical ward, so I shouldn't strain myself too much... I need something to get my mind off of things..."
Dib blinked. "...Laser tag?"
"Laser tag." Zim nodded in agreement, smiling. Together, they took off towards the arena. "That way, I can beat you senseless without even breaking a sweat!"
"Eh, what is this? Who's talking? Who are you?"
"You're turning into a human." The voice echoed again.
"What?? NO! Nonsense! There's no way I can turn into a human stinkmonkey! I am Irken, and I always will be!!" Zim shouted. The echoes sent back down the endless glass hallway. There was no sound but Zim's quickened breath for what seemed like an eternity.
The voice responded, much nearer now. Once again, Zim whirled around, only to meet his reflection. "You aren't an irken anymore. You're changing. You're mutating. You're something else. You're not an Irken anymore."
"No, I am ZIM!" His trademark battle cry that he hadn't used in three years had a twinge of fear hidden inside. "Zim the irken! Nothing can take that away from me! Nothing will turn me into one of those slimy fidgeting HUMANS! NOTHING!! Who dares to say otherwise? Show yourself!"
The voice answered, this time, in an uncomfortable whisper that seemed to be just behind him. "Are you sure you even want to BE an irken anymore? What does being an irken mean to you, anyway? The Empire doesn't want you. No irken can even stand your presence anymore. That's why you were banished, remember?"
"...I may be outside the empire, I may end up changing into a hideous mutant, but I'm still an Irken, dammit!" His uncertain words echoed down the glass hallways, bouncing off of unframed mirrors. Only one phrase managed to reverberate back: "Outside the empire..." Over and over the echo hammered against his antennae. Rolling the words over in his mind, slow threads of panic started to creep into his mind. "No. I didin't mean that! I'd be dead right now if I were outside the bounderies of the empire! That can't be why I'm--" He turned around again, to face another mirror. Instead of his true reflection, he saw himself, with hair. And pupils. And ears. And human fleshtones. It was him, as a human. His panicked look met the knowing smirk of his sapien counterpart, and Zim propelled himself against the opposite wall. "Holy prak!"
As he watched the mirror, the smile on his human self dissapeared, and was replaced with a look of agony, as his limbs fell off and it's skin started to melt...
Zim sat bolt upright, still screaming from the dream. After a few seconds of labored breathing, he reached up and clutched his head from a headache that had conveniently decided to show up, and layed back down on the glowing white slab. He blinked under the harsh overhead lights, and blurry shapes slowly formed into the cabinets and equipment of the medical ward. A series of repeating beeps drifted from a speaker above the glowing cot he was laying on. Absentmindedly rubbing his eyes, he wondered where he was, then how he got there, then how long he'd been out. His wits finally returning, he realized the eye he was rubbing was healed, as was the hand he was rubbing it with. He stared at his hand, his antennae falling backward in thought. Did Dib do this? Did he even know how to use the equipment in here?
Where was that human, anyway? Zim propped himself up on the cot and stared at the circular door to the hallway. Was he alright? Did he leave for home already? Did he and Min finally manage to kill one another while he was out?
Min, he realized. Maybe she was the one that used the stuff in here to repair him. Yeah, that made sense. More sense than Dib, anyway. That human was smart, but not THAT smart. He flexed his hand again. She did a pretty good job, too. He should find her and express his gratitude, he thought grudingly. He jumped off the cot, causing the beeping noise from the lifeforce monitor to stop. Zim shook his head and staggered, sitting back down and blinking from dizzyness. Maybe he'd better stay here for a while, he thought as he looked down at the tiled floor. At least until the room stopped spinning.
His eyes still to the floor, he noticed that the front of his sweatshirt had been turned almost completely brown by the color mixture of turquoise blood and red fabric. Reaching a green hand up to feel the stiffness of the fabric, he noticed that his gloves were missing. It didin't take him long to spot one glove next to him on the surgical table, with a pile of same-color fabric shreds next to it. His other glove, probably. He sighed irritably and looked back down at his shirt. Well, it was getting too small for him anyway, he thought, releasing his utility pak and pulling the bloody thing off over his head. He reattached his pak and unceremoniusly tossed the sweatshirt to the head of the cot.
"Computer? Warm up the matter fabricator. I need to get some decent clothes."
A holographic computer screen flashed in front of him, showing the matter fabricator main menu. "Specify search criteria..." The speakers sighed disdainfully.
"I don't know! Just find something normal-looking!" Zim yelled at the screen. Immediately, pics of "normal human clothes" flashed on the screen. "No, no, no! Unacceptable! What the prak is "Aeropostale", anyway? Show me something else!"
"I'M SEARCHING, alright?" The speakers whined.
Zim sifted though the choices, using the holographic touch screen, until he eventually found something that caught his eye. When asked for a size, he just told the scomputer to scan him again. He had no idea what size he was supposed to be, and even if he did, that would change again by next week, it seemed.
As the articles of clothing were being formed, Zim opened up his height experiment files again. Stupid dreams, he thought absentmindedly, watching the irken numerals scroll down the screen. This wasn't the first time he'd been scared awake, either. Irkens normally only needed one-third the sleep humans did, but recently he'd been operating at a constant state of near-exhaustion, because of the nightmares. To compensate, he'd adopted a normal human sleep schedule, but that only made things worse. It was just one more way he had to lose his Irken identity.
Zim glared in frustration at the figures on the screen. This entire week, he'd spent in the lab, partially to get his mind off of what happened between him and Dib, and partially because Min was down here. He sighed and relaxed a little, remembering how she had been more than happy to help with his experiments. Even when he told her about the bizarre changes his small green form was going through, she showed no sign of it bothering her. In fact, she became all the more helpful, doing whatever she could to help him figure things out. He leaned back on the cot, a smile begining to appear on his lips. Kind of strange, he thought, that the lithe green creature he had careened into last Friday would become his main pillar of support in such a short time. Zim blinked out of his reverie and scowled, realizing how he was just staring off into space. Again. He'd been doing it a lot, recently. Besides, even with Min's help, they'd made no progress towards figuring out what exactly was wrong with him. On the contrary, he seemed even healthier than normal: his height, strength, and stamina were at all time highs. But, what did it all mean? What exactly was happening to him?
"MASTER!!" Gir squealed, jumping down from his hiding spot in the ceiling and landing on Zim's stomach. Zim, gasping for air, grabbed the robot by the antenna and held him off the bed, it's legs dangling. "Ooooh! You look different!" The deranged SIR unit cooed.
Between labored breaths, Zim managed to get out "GIR, Why did you do that?"
"I wanted to suprise youuuuu!!"
"Yeah, well, you suprised me." Zim said blandly, rubbing his stomach.
"What're you staring at so hard?"
"Nothing." Zim replied quickly, glancing up at the holoscreen. "I was merely reviewing some data, that's all!" He dropped the squirming metal thing over the side of the cot, and he heard GIR hit the floor with a metallic thud. "The articles of clothing I'm having fabricated should be done soon. Go and retrieve them for me, GIR."
"Yes, my master!!" He heard GIR shout from under the cot, and the little robot sped out through the circular door, giggling creepily.
Zim watched him leave, it slowly dawned on him that three weeks ago, he wouldn't have been able to pick up GIR with one arm. But now he was just holding him in the air like he was some kind of toy. Looking down at the arm he picked him up with, he stared as wiry muscles he'd hadn't noticed before shifted under his skin. By human standards, it wouldn't have been very impressive, but he was an irken, and to an irken, it looked freakish. Looking up, he saw himself sitting in the reflection of the polished metal surface of he cabinets. Blinking in amazement and uncertainty, he slowly stood up from the cot, looking at his double in the polished metal. He had tried not to look at himself recently. He had himself scanned, analyzed samples and data, but he didn't actually LOOK, because he didin't want to see what kind of freakish thing he was turning into. This was the first time in three weeks he'd taken a good look at himself, and GIR wasn't kidding when he said he looked different. He was easily as tall as Dib, now, and his body proportions had changed dramatically. The wiry muscles on his forearm were covering his body. He narrowed one red eye and studied himself. If it weren't for the green skin, he would've looked almost...
Human...
Zim lurched back from his reflection and pressed himself against the cot behind him. "Holy slorbees! I AM turning into a human!!" He screeched, scrambling across the cot and falling over the other side with a fleshy thud and an tirade of curses in irken.
"Turning into a human? You've got to be kidding, right?" Min laughed from the open door. She stood there, leaning up against the circular doorway, holding a pile of black cloth in one hand. "You know, Zim, the idea of being in the medical ward is NOT to hurt yourself..."
Zim's head popped up from behind the cot. He hadn't heard her come in. "You'd do the same thing, Min, if you just saw what I saw! What in the great holy blorch rat happened to me while I was out? I look like... uh... like..."
Min sighed. "Listen, Zim. The only thing I gave you while I was repairing you was a stabilizer pack. My guess is what your body didn't use of it to heal itself, it probably used to finish... whatever it is you're going through." She tossed the handful of black cloth onto the cot. "Here. I think these belong to you. I found your SIR unit wearing the shirt on his head and playing jump-rope with the pants."
Zim stood up from behind the cot, and picked up the simple black t-shirt he'd chosen. Why black? He didn't know. He just thought it looked interesting. "...Thanks, Min." He said slowly, like it pained him. "And, thanks for repairing me..." Tossing the shirt over his bare shoulder, she looked back up at Min, who was still watching him from the doorway. Her fiery crimson eyes seemed to be studying him intently, blinking now and again behind those long eyelashes of hers. "...What?" He said finally, trying to suppress that uncomfortable feeling of awkwardness again. What was the matter with him? Why couldn't he keep his composure around her? And why did he feel so hot all of a sudden?
"N-nothing." Min replied quickly, suddenly finding the tiled floor very interesting. Her face was a bright shade of green. Was she blushing? "I'd better, um, go run some more data." She pushed off the doorway and took a step down the hall.
"Hey, wait." Zim heard himself say. Min stopped in the hallway, turning back. He maneuvered around the cot and started towards her, intent on asking her why she was staring at him like that. However, his foot caught on one of the legs of the cot, and he stumbled clumsily through the doorway, crashing into her and propelling the both of them into the hallway...
"Whoa! Watch your step. You're still a little weak..." She warned, trying to keep him steady. Cursing under his breath at his clumsiness, Zim looked up, finding himself almost at eye level with the irken female. His arms around her, his red eyes seeing his own reflection in hers, Zim just stood there, dumbfounded, trying to comprehend a sudden feeling of wanting that he'd never felt before, and didn't quite understand. He was speechless. Surprisingly, so was she.
"Zim!! Zim, where are you?!" Dib, however, was very vocal. When Zim had first jumped off the medical table, the life monitor signals Mimi was scanning in his room had gone flatline. In a half-panic, Dib ran out and grabbed the fastest thing in his dad's lab in order to get there quickly, which happened to be the experimental hoverjet board that hadn't REALLY been tested yet. Using this perfectly secure piece of equipment, Dib hauled ass to Zim's base, fearing the worst and thoroughly convinced that Min was to blame. The fact that he happened to skid around the last corner at just the right moment to see a shirtless Zim holding his caretaker in a rather close embrace was just one of those twists of fate that manage to make things like sitcoms and soap operas look that much more probable.
"Zi-- Whoa. Uhh, Zim?" Dib mumbled, stopping in his tracks. Both irkens simultaneously looked up, noticed the confused human, and split apart as though they were allergic to each other. "Uh, I was, eheh, just... Did I come at a bad time?" Dib said awkwardly.
"No." Both Zim and Min replied immediately, without thinking. Min started to back away towards the communications chamber. "I guess I'd better get that data ran, like I said I would. Zim, you look, uhh...definitely strong enough to move around, so..." Still backing away, her eyes on Zim, she bumped into the metallic walls of the hallway. Turning to see what she ran into, she looked back, a brightening green tint starting up again under her eyes. "Just don't strain yourself, alright?" With that, she disappeared down the hallway.
After watching her disappear, Dib glanced at Zim. One eyebrow arched over his oversized optical rims, and his lips curved into a knowing smile. "And I thought you just sympathized with her. I am so dense!"
"Aw, what are you talking about?" Zim mumbled, disappearing back into the medical quarters again, and, signaling to give him a minute, dilated the door behind him.
Dib leaned against the door. "Hey, I may have glasses, but I'm not blind. I saw you out here with her."
"I tripped. She caught me." Zim's voice resounded though the metal door.
"Uh huh, sure. Admit it, Zim, you have the hots for her! That's why you've been letting her stay here!"
"'The hots?' What is that, some kind of earth disease?"
"C'mon... Don't play dumb, Zim. I think you already know what I'm talking about."
Silence. Then, "...yeah. I know what you're talking about. The stupid human meatsacks on TV won't shut up about it. How wouldn't I know?"
"And I'm right, right? Then why don't you just march in there and tell her how you feel?"
"...Dib, you're a human. You think about things the way humans do. I know what you're talking about, only because I've been here for three irkenpraking years. I've managed to turn into a freakish mockery of an irken, too. I'm starting to sound, act and even LOOK like a HUMAN! That includes 'the hots', as you so colorfully put it. She's just a normal irken, though. She thinks differently. She wouldn't understand. This kind of thing just isn't what Irkens do..."
At a loss for words, Dib uneasily fiddled with his glasses. Wasn't what irkens did? What on earth did he mean by that? Oh, yeah. They use cloning to reproduce. They wouldn't know romance if it bit their antennae off.
"...Listen, you're not a freak, Zim. You're just--" Hearing a beeping noise on the other side, Dib stepped back as the door dilated. Zim stood there, wearing the black t-shirt, size-larger black jeans, and leather fighting gloves--black, of course. His face was impassive as Dib stared at him, suddenly realizing how he'd changed. "Hey! Wow, what happened to you? You DO look like a human! You know, except for the green skin and the red eyes and the antennae, but otherwise..."
"Dib..." Zim cut him off. "I really don't want to hear this right now."
"Sorry. So, what do you wanna do, then?"
Zim thought for a second. "I just came out of the medical ward, so I shouldn't strain myself too much... I need something to get my mind off of things..."
Dib blinked. "...Laser tag?"
"Laser tag." Zim nodded in agreement, smiling. Together, they took off towards the arena. "That way, I can beat you senseless without even breaking a sweat!"