AN: I rewrote this chapter three times! Still not satisfied. Cliffhanger warning. From here, the story will move fairly fast to its conclusion.

Some Kind of Crazy Love Potion

Chapter 8

"Sex"

"Zim, get on the table."

"No."

"Just do what the computer says, okay? Take off your clothes and get on the table."

"I am not taking my clothes off in front of you, human."

"Computer, restrain--"

"FINE!" Zim huffed and turned to the hospital bed in the med-lab. A standard Irken hospital gown was neatly folded on it. It was lavender, not white, yet it retained the horrible design of its cousin in that it tended to fly open in the back and show one's rear. Dib had his own back turned for the moment, so Zim hastily removed his clothes, slipped on the gown and sat on the table while his hands held the fickle garment in place.

"I'm done meat creature." Dib looked over his shoulder. He hadn't seen Zim's bare legs or arms since that horrible, fateful day at school, and even flashes of his green skin sent shivers up his spine in the most unagreeable manner. Zim's mouth was set very angrily when he noticed Dib's stare.

This was all very, very wrong.

"Lie down," Dib ordered. Zim narrowed his eyes to slits and swung his legs up and positioned his pak in the hollow of the bed. It was actually very comfortable, yet it was unpleasant overall, and Zim was incredibly queasy for two reasons. One, he had just thrown up about ten donuts and some candy bars, and two, he was nervous about this "procedure" the computer's medical programming said was necessary. Zim didn't understand why the computer needed to actually touch him; it had been scanning him for Dib's pleasure from day one, but now it demanded samples of blood and other fluids.

Zim wanted to vomit at that word. Fluids. Dib stood nearby as the computer took blood.

"I don't see why I had to take my clothes off for this Dib-human," Zim said with a slight wince at the prodding in his skin.

Dib shrugged. "I don't either." Dib, as always, was fascinated by Zim's alien structure, and as the computer violated Zim physically, it was also scanning him at the same time, and the results popped up on a screen for Dib's viewing. He looked at Zim's weight first.

"Wow!" he shouted involuntarily. "You've gained sixteen pounds Zim!"

"Excuse me?" Zim sneered.

"Sixteen pounds," Dib repeated, though sheepishly at Zim's reaction.

"I hope this amuses you," Zim crossed his arm when the computer finished, "Look at me. Your filthy genes are multiplying like bacteria germy things. Or yeast."

Yeast? "You look fine Zim. What, did you expect to be flat or something?"

"I don't know!" Zim shrieked. "I didn't expect anything!" Zim gently laid his hand over the now prominent bulge of his growing child.

Five months, and an infinite amount of sugary calories later, Zim was now officially pregnant looking. Now that Dib could really see him half-way naked, he noticed the subtle softening of his prisoner's body. The thighs were fuller and his arms more curved. His face, too, was different. A darker green sat on the soft skin of his cheeks, and his lips were pouty, but not in an irritating way.

Even when Zim was in a horrible mood, he radiated the clichéd pregnant glow.

Dib blushed when he realized Zim was staring at his face. It was his fault for looking so hard at Zim's fattening body, and if Zim could read his mind, he would not be very happy to know that Dib found him much more attractive (or as attractive as Dib could imagine). Zim kept silent about Dib's boldness and saw the computer prepare for another procedure. It brought up a tray at the end of the bed, and two strange looking things popped out on either side of the bed.

The computer's voice echoed in the room, and its tone indicated that it had never known Zim to be its master. Completely indifferent it said, "Please place your feet in the stirrups and relax."

"Huh," Dib huffed. "Wonder what that means?" He looked at Zim expectedly. "Do what it says Zim...I think." Even Dib wasn't sure what the strange command meant. Zim cocked his head to the side, looking at the "stirrups," as the computer called them, with the utmost skepticism.

Well, the sooner I get this over with the better. I can go eat and sleep. I wonder if there's any of that pie left...

Zim leaned back and put his feet in the stirrups, his heels fit perfectly in the devices, and his legs were now propped up very inappropriately. Zim felt a cool draft come up his gown. It was very evident that this exam was like no other exam Zim had ever had. The computer used two robotic arms, cased in shining silver metal, to do the work of a real doctor. One arm picked up a tool from the tray, while the other squirted something on it. Dib felt he had seen this somewhere...and then he gasped. He put a hand over his mouth to stifle the laugh and the wicked smile that came over him.

It was the result of too much TV (and the internet) that gave him even the remotest capacity to know what this was.

The dripping tool moved between Zim's legs, hovering about two feet away from its destination. Zim sat up a little to see what was going on. He was stupidly innocent to this "procedure" and was surprised when the tool began moving closer and closer to his so-called vagina.

"Hey! HEY! What is this?" Zim shouted and pulled back from the prodding thing, promptly jerking his feet out of the stirrups.

The computer said nicely, "Please relax and remain in a lying position."

"I will not! Dib-human, what is this...this thing going to do?"

Dib coughed and blushed again. "Um, well, you know I think Gaz has done this before. It's a thing that girls do--"

"GIRLS! I AM NOT A GIRL!"

"I know that! It's for your own good Zim, now shut up and lie down before I have the computer tie you down!" Dib sighed and tried to relax himself. God, Zim was so infuriating! "It's just going to see if you are healthy...down there, okay?" Dib came to Zim's side and pushed him down, looking into his angry red eyes to reassure him that this was perfectly safe and normal.

"Eh..." Zim groaned and examined the strange tool that was going to go there, the place he had not divined to be a place of very much importance before all this mess. Now he was defiled, in body and mind, and his innocence, virgin or not, would be tested again with a machine's tool and an exam that he didn't even know was programmed into his computer. Dib was staring at him expectantly, not pushing or pressing him to do anything (besides ordering the computer to force him) and he seemed particularly patient when it came to his physical well-being.

Zim was never convinced that Dib could be anything but cruel.

Zim's distressed, but assenting sigh, made Dib gently smile. It was the sound of giving in. Zim very reluctantly laid his head on the soft bed below him and wiggled down the bed enough to put his feet back into the stirrups. The arms began to move again, sensing its patient's position, but they did not move again until Zim was completely still.

"I hate you Dib," Zim whispered; his voice quivered with nervousness. He was torn between closing his eyes or leaving them open to this horror, but Dib's soft brown eyes seemed sympathetic and unmocking, so he could not close his own eyes or tear them away from Dib's silent reassurance.

Dib didn't dare look back at whatever was happening when Zim's eyes widened. He bit his green lip to cover up what would have been a very high pitched squeak, and each muscle in his face contorted, as he experienced the strange, tickling feeling deep inside his body. He tried to put on a very obvious facade of composure for Dib when the tickling disappeared and was replaced by an agonizing pressure.

"So, Dib," Zim spoke quickly, "you've been stealing wormhole technology."

"What?"

"Humor me. I need the distraction." The computer harshly scraped something inside him and he winced. Dib nodded his head, understanding the dilemma.

"How did you know that?"

"Gir told me. You shouldn't trust him with secrets."

"Well I had to give my father something. He thinks I'm doing independent research. Besides, he doesn't have the whole formula for the wormhole, but I still think he pissed in his pants when he saw what little I gave him."

"Oh, well are you...ahh...wha--ow! OW!" Dib spun around, despite his internal protests, just in time to see the computer arm retract the tool glazed with Zim's blood.

"Procedure complete. You may now dress." The computer took all evidence of the very intrusive exam to analyze immediately.

Dib asked stupidly, "Are you okay?"

"No!" he snapped. "I'm all...sticky...and hurt...and sad." Zim's lips quivered uncontrollably and his usually perky antennae fell as far as they possibly could. He looked at Dib, who was listening intently, and stated very matter-of-factly, "I'm going to cry now."

Dib simply said "Okay" and examined with great awe Zim's sobbing.

Boo-hoo was not adequate to describe his cry. It was more like the banshee's wail, and though Zim was not likely to foretell death anytime soon, his weeping could probably raise the dead.

This was hormone induced, with a hint of post-traumatic-gynecological-stress.

"Shower," Zim sobbed the single word and slid off the bed, grabbing the lavender robe tightly around him (it was specked here and there with blood) and he pointed in the direction of the shower facility one floor above.

"I'll be upstairs when you're done," Dib said, as if to offer his services or a nice conversation when he was done. Zim ignored him of course and disappeared into the elevator. Dib ordered the computer to put every result of the exam on his Irken "PDA," a small and very useful device that was connected to the mainframe. He went to the kitchen and pulled a pack of microwaveable ramen noodles from the pantry, fixed it to his liking, sat at the table, and ate as he scrolled the finished results.

Everything was in order so far.

The clock ticked to five. The sun had set in the early onset of winter. Warmth could only be found in a good jacket and inside a house with central-heating. Dib peered past the kitchen doorway to see darkness through the front windows and the glint of useless orange light from the street lamps. It was easy to loose track of time without school. The innards of the base were dayless and nightless. Hours stretched on end when he worked, and even now, he wasn't quite sure what day it was. Thursday or Friday? It was the beginning of December, definitely. His father called to check on him yesterday to ask if he would be home for Christmas.

Dib didn't want to leave Zim alone. He didn't want to think about it now.

His ramen finished, Dib held his PDA and wandered to the windows. Zim liked to sit here. There was his chair. He looked around the much changed living room. Since Zim's moods had started, he had thrown about six bad tantrums in this room, and unfortunately, most of them had been aimed at Gir. The little robot never meant to be so adorably stupid, but Zim was never in the mood to put up with him anymore; now Gir avoided his master like the plague. Dib hoped that in the end Gir would forgive Zim and that Zim would apologize, but the selfish alien never asked about his robot, as if he never cared about him at all.

The living room was no longer a place of solitude for Gir or Dib. It was Zim's domain when he wasn't in one of his rooms. The green monkey painting above the sofa stood vigil and witness to everything here. It bore the scars of Zim's bare, sharp claws. Dib didn't have the heart to take it down, and Zim would have himself, but it was a gift from someone, Zim refused to say who. It's eyes stared at Zim, and he sometimes accused it of mocking him as he napped on the sofa. It whispered things to him, but what it supposedly said, Dib would never know. Whatever it was, bad or good, it remained on the wall.

Shaking himself from the memories, Dib finished scrolling his PDA's contents, finally coming across something he hadn't thought about.

The sex of the baby.

He grinned from ear to ear.

"Wow, that's the best news I've had all day."

Behind him he heard Zim's soft footsteps.

tbc…