Saving Zim by Dib07

Summary:

He was almost autumnal in a sense, as if he had lost the leaves of youth and didn't quite know what to do as a chill swept in. There was a gloom in his eyes, and a new slouch to his shoulders. When he held Dib's gaze in the rear-view mirror on the way home there had been something in his eyes, something that he couldn't quite say.

Disclaimer:

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

Cover art beautifully made by TheCau! All credit goes to her, please do not use without his permission, thank you :)

Warnings:

Character angst.


Dib07: Boom! Updates! Sorry for the wait - now and again I'll pop back to 'tweak' them as I go, but they're more or less as good as they'll ever be I suppose. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for the continued support and love. You've kept me going!

little side-note:

Please review, same as always, it might make new chapters appear faster!


That Sinking Feeling

Dib smiled in that detestable way, his amber eyes fixated on hers as if it was simply the two of them in the universe. Zim suspected that the humans were standing behind veils of politeness, and he knew it should not bother him. Every word and gesture seemed to draw them closer, and he watched this serenade, their unseen chemistry as strange and as mystifying to him as black magic. Though he tried to snap crack the spell engulfing them, they were scarcely distracted by his voice, and would turn back to each other in seconds. They were climbing that plateau together, while he seemed to sink away.

The vortex of worry started to return, Gir's robotic words lying plain for him in his mind, and he brought his claws to his forehead, staring down at the coffee when all he saw was a bottomless chasm. To try and allay the tension he placed a hand on the silk of the table cloth, but those black, pronged fingers went back to clasping and digging and aching. He smashed his fist on the table, relieving the constriction as the claws finally broke their grasp. Dib and Clara turned towards him, and though her face was a distortion of confusion, the investigator's eyes crinkled in concern.

"What?" He croaked without going to the bother of sounding even a little bit repentant.

"That's okay!" Dib smiled apologetically, rubbing his boot against the back of his calf. "You were the clumsiest idiot in school after all. Guess some things never change, huh goofball?"

"You two were old classmates?" Clara asked, looking between them with growing amusement. Zim's eyes narrowed and the claws stabbed into the fabric on his palm again when she reached out to touch Dib's hand.

"Yeah. I'm surprised we made it out of school alive. We hated each other, didn't we, Zim?"

"We still do, don't we?" He asked, which caused Clara to giggle, but the disguised Irken was looking to Dib, realizing that there would be no going back: that every push and climb and battle had eventually led to this awful finality. He just hadn't expected this kind of path. Unlike his simulations, there was no restart button.

"Remember Mrs. Rullen's biology class in high school?" Dib began, holding his hot coffee with both hands, "And the shit we used to get up to?"

"Oh yes. Bio-lodgey." Zim rested his chin on his gloved claws. "I hated you so much on that day."

Mrs. Rullen, an old woman with a pouty face and dirty blonde hair, walked around the classroom carrying a grubby cardboard box. Everything in the school was grubby in one way or another.

"Today we are going to go over the human body in this lesson. You are to take this lesson seriously, for even an idiot should know basic human anatomy. Clive, sit down please, you'll be given a pen later!"

Zim chuckled to himself as he flicked through a human anatomy book. "Humans have waaaay too many organs! How wasteful!"

Before each child was a test sheet with the customary questions. As the teacher came round, she started ordering them into pairs. Zim and Dib, sitting on opposite sides of the room from each other, groaned simultaneously. In the next few minutes as kids shuffled around the room they watched as they became the only two pupils yet to pair up.

Dib rolled his eyes, expecting the inevitable. No one ever chose him to join their little group, and if they ever had to pair up, he was always stuck with the alien. If he refused to cooperate, he either got a detention or a letter home apologizing to his father again that he could not work responsibly in a 'team-building exercise.'

Mrs. Rullen came over to Dib. "You, go and join Zim this instant. I don't have all day."

"Yes, Mrs. Rullen," he drawled, pushing back on his chair, grabbing his sheet of paper and walking over as slowly as he could to Zim's desk. Snatching up a chair, he sat down next to him.

"Now class, we are going to be learning all about stethoscopes." And as the teacher came to each desk, she dropped down two stethoscopes, two to each pair. The kids grabbed at them, and started to play with the tubing and ear pieces as if they were exotic toys.

When she dumped them on their desk, Dib only groaned harder.

Zim grabbed the device and proceeded to test the strength of the plastic tubing with his teeth before pulling away at how foul it tasted.

Checking to make sure everyone had an instrument; Mrs. Rullen put away the box and stood at the front of the class. "Now, who among you knows what this is used for?" And a forest of hands went up.

Dib did not participate. He sat, listless and despondent while Zim sniffed at the ear pieces before making another grimace of disgust.

"Yes, uh, Mackey." She said after selecting a pupil.

"Listening to the heart?"

"Very good. But that's not all it's used for. Can anyone else tell me what else I can use it for?"

Another sea of hands went up, just as eager as before. Even Zim put his hand up this time, ignoring the dark looks Dib was giving him.

"Yes Zim?"

Zim smiled triumphantly as if his answer was the answer to all answers. "To dive down into one's guts and suck out their insides?"

There followed a stiff silence, broken by the occasional kid giggling.

Mrs. Rullen shook her head. "No! That's not what it does at all. Anyone else? Yes, Clive?"

"To listen to the stomach?"

These questions and answers went on for several more minutes until Mrs. Rullen thought they understood enough to apply the things. "Now class, working in your chosen pairs, I want you to listen to your partner's chest and stomach, and write down what you hear. The test questions are on your paper. You have until the clock hits twelve."

Dib eyed Zim darkly. "Don't you touch me." He said while everyone else started to have fun with their instruments.

"Why? Worried that I might kill you with it?" Zim muttered, looking pleased with himself. He was swinging the stethoscope round in his claws as if it was a lasso.

"You don't even have a heart in there, so this entire lesson is pointless." He continued, folding his arms in front of his chest. "When I looked inside your body using my X-ray vision goggles you just had a... a giant... ugly... squibbly spooch thing!"

Zim scowled, not liking the fact that Dib had learned to look inside his body without him knowing about it. "And what do you have? You humans have about a thousand organs all jammed up in there! When I removed one or even two organs when we had Ms. Bitters, you snotty children just collapsed: defeated!"

The teacher slapped her ruler on the desk between them, causing them to jump. "Is there something wrong with your instruments?" She asked, sneering down at them, "Well? Use them!" She gave them one more baleful glare before making her way around the other desks. Dib watched, noticing that everyone else was enjoying the lesson.

Zim eyed him apprehensively when Dib turned back to him.

"Just swallow the... stethie-thing, before she comes back!" The alien exclaimed without the accustomed bitterness.

Dib just slotted in the ear-pieces and held out the disk. "Let's just get it over with before she returns. I can't do with another letter to my dad, especially for biology class. To him it's as close to science as I'll ever get."

With both instruments hooked up, they aimed the disks as if they were trying to blast each other with invisible bullets. They strained to get closer, and strained to get away.

"Why don't we just kill each other and be done with it?" The Irken asked with a scowl.

"I have lunch. It's a good lunch, and I want to be alive so I can enjoy it. Now let me listen so I'll know exactly where to stab you." The disk brushed Zim's sternum, and the soldier's carefully set composure broke into a million fragments. With a jerk he kicked the boy's chair, and Dib went flying backwards. He fell into the kid behind him, and that kid smacked into their partner until there was a bunch of kids and chairs all over the floor.

"Dib!" Mrs. Rullen heaved him up by the hand and hurried him out the classroom.

"It's all Zim's fault!"

"It's always his fault!" She returned, taking him straight to her office: a room he knew better than the insides of the classroom.

"How could I do the lesson if he's not even a human?"

She didn't look up as she wrote down her complaints to Prof. Membrane. "I don't even know why I'm listening to you, young man. Every student who gets admitted to this school has to go through a preliminary health check before admission. If he was an 'alien' we would have picked it up, wouldn't you think? You just don't want to work with him."

"Let me see those medical files! They've been tampered with! They must have!"

"No, Dib. No child is allowed to see those files. Now take this letter and give it to you father."

Clara started laughing before being told the full sum of the event, Zim watching with his chin perched on his claws. Dib hadn't left much out; and the fact that Zim's biology might be very different was totally lost on her. The wine. He thought, glancing at her empty glass. She's too drunk to put two and two together.

"Before... before the uh..." Dib motioned at his head with a hand, referring to Zim's antenna, "...we had some pretty wild times, huh?"

"I should have killed you." Zim informed casually, still resting his chin on his claws. "Now I just fix your heap of shit car, and let myself be dragged to your cold and stinky paranormal quests."

Clara burst into more laughter. She was then busy wiping at her teary eyes and smudging some of her mascara. It brought an ironical smile out of him. Then she said, "This has been fun! We've got to do this again some time!" She reached out and took Dib's hand in hers. Dib, who was in the middle of drinking down his coffee instantly choked on it.

-x-

Clara was dropped off home, and then Dib turned towards Maple Street. He fiddled with the dial on the radio. "Hey, what kind of music do you like?" There was no reply, and he wondered if he had not spoken loud enough. He glanced towards the backseat as he stopped in traffic to see that the little alien had his eyes closed.

He turned back to the road before helplessly looking over at Zim in disbelief. He had never seen him nod off before, especially when they were in each other's company. The alien couldn't relax enough to even close his eyes for a second. Did he even need sleep? He still knew very little about him after all these years. In retrospect the Irken had done well to keep many particulars hidden, and Dib had been very selective about what he told the Irken.

The drive took another ten minutes. The sky was as dark as oil, and the wind slew about, making the trees bend and lurch, their spindly fingers clawing at the sky.

He parked outside Zim's glowing house, deciding how best to wake him. Being with Clara had been fulfilling, but it had also been stressful. Every moment was another opportunity to embarrass himself with. He'd never tried to impress anyone except his father, and it was a tiring and stressful undetaking. Now he just wanted to go home, get changed, have a shower and crawl into bed.

Dib angled the rear-view mirror his way. "Wakey, wakey Fudgekins. We're here."

The Irken jolted forwards as if he had been physically pushed, with eyes wide and unfocused. He looked around with sharp movements of his head, mouth moving soundlessly. When he recognised Dib and the car's glowing interior, he began to breathe.

"We're here." Dib repeated.

"Oh? W-We are? I can get out of your dirty and rusty car now?"

"My car is not dirty and it's not rusty!" He defended.

He'd bought the Toyota as soon as he'd finished high school, and as it turned out, the old car was quite an insult to his father who prompted the enterprise of economic efficiency, such as electric cars. But there was just something genuine about old cars that he liked. Maybe he hadn't got over his ordeal with Tak's ship, and that was one of the reasons why he didn't like hybrid cars, the eerie sounds they made, and that feeling of weightlessness. Zim loved stabilisers and suspensions in vehicles – and rattled and screamed whenever his car went hurling over a bump or stone. The only time he had driven a hybrid was when he'd burrowed his father's car to rescue the damn alien in the frozen hills of Montana, and the experience had been enough of an incentive to hold onto his old car for as long as possible.

The Irken fell back on his dark mutterings as he went to open the side door. His claws paused on the handle. "Want to meet up at that detestable 'Treaty' on Friday, Dib stink?"

He shook his head. "I've got to decline the offer this time, Zim. I gotta keep myself available in case Clara wants to spend more time with me."

"But... but of course!" Zim hastily agreed. "You humans must... eh... frolic together. Be seeing you then, Earthsmell."

Dib pointed his thumb towards Zim's house. On the porch, just by the door was a huge brown box. "That's a big delivery Zim. What have you ordered?"

"Oh you know, just the 'end of the world' kinda stuff."

"Should I be worried?"

"Oh definitely!" Zim smiled and jumped out the car.

Dib watched him march to the box on the front doorstep, hands squeezing on the steering wheel, asking himself why he kept dragging Zim along with him to every silly event. It started with the haunted locations, wanting an audience as much as the company, even if that company happened to be angry and screamed a lot. Their passions couldn't have been more divided.

In the dim light of the neighbouring streetlamps his PAK ports seemed to produce a special kind of warmth, bathing his littleness in softest pinks.

You'll never let me in, will you space jerk?

What Zim had told him in titbits, about the Empire and planet Irk haunted him just enough for the information to creep back to the forefront. Though he might never be able to see the full picture, the crumbs were enough to connect what dots were there.

The PAK established dependence on Empiric affairs: demonstrating strength and durability as much as it demonstrated enslavement. The removal of their wings encapsulated this much, if Zim's account could even be viable.

Irkens and their militarism sometimes made him think of ants and their behaviour. When their nest was intruded, the ants would storm the invaders, the soldiers coming to the defence of the workers to protect their queen. Maybe, eons past, Irk was invaded by aliens with superior tech, and they, like the ant, had reacted and stormed out of their nest to attack any and all threats, and soon became invaders themselves. But ants couldn't live long. Ants were weak on their own. They needed technology to surpass their fundamental and inferior nature. During which, the Empire was born.

He shook his head, smiling at his far-fetched speculations as he turned towards home. He knew it was best to keep his distance from Zim so that he could focus on his own goals. Life was fleeting, time waited for no one and he couldn't keep going back and forth every time Zim needed validation and company. But whenever he turned his back, whenever he went to walk away, the promise snapped him to a halt, unseen scars ran deep, but it was the way Zim went to pieces every time he turned away – as if he was waiting for the moment when Dib would finally keep walking and never go back.

-x-

He gazed down at the large box sitting on his front porch with gleaming lilac eyes before bending down to lift it, only to immediately drop the idea. Whatever was inside it was heavy. Knocking on the door summoned the little robot, and where he once felt glad of the assistance, he now paled. "Gir! Carry this in at once!"

The robot saluted, eyes shining bright crimson and Zim staggered backwards on the instant, but the robot promptly carried the big box through the front door. It barely fitted, and Gir strained to squeeze it through. The Irken hesitantly followed, making sure to maintain a modest distance between them as Gir planted the box down on the lounge carpet while he shut the door.

Gir waddled around the box, showing only mild interest in what it could be. "New TV?"

"No, Gir. It's some new equipment for you." He removed his disguise, first popping out the eye contacts to reveal dark fuchsia; the damaged eye a little paler, and he lifted the stifling wig from his antennae. He secreted his disguise away and began cutting at the highly-resistant-flammable tape using a pair of scissors on a box that was almost as tall as he was. When all the tape was cut he stood on a stool and opened the top cardboard flaps. As soon as he had opened it a foul stench began to creep into the air. After looking into the darkened contents, Zim's smooth antenna drooped.

"What's in the box?" Gir asked in whispery undertones.

"There must be some mistake!" He started pawing through the contents and in doing so his claws became marred in sticky green fluids. "There's... there's nothing in here but...!" He shrank back from the box, compulsively wiping his hands on his uniform in an effort to rid himself of the blood. "Computer!" He choked. "Analyze the contents!" Bile rose up his throat as he turned away, bloodied claws covering his mouth.

The computer replied in its customary aloofness. "The contents are deceased remains of six Irkens."

Zim's spooch cramped and knotted, the nausea rising despite the willpower to hold it in, the smell permeating the air weakening his walls of self-discipline. The resulting dead cadavers should not have caused such an effect. He had waded through blood and limbs on the battlefield to keep up with the regiment. He had seen lazer strobes cut an Irken straight down his centre. "Computer... tell me, what did they die of?"

"Insufficient data."

The answer was at the eve of his every despair, the foundation that built every loss. It gave rise to another corridor in a maze where the exit was becoming more impossible to find. He turned slowly round to look at the box, a hand holding his stomach. "Computer! PAKs! Do they have their PAKs?"

"Analyzing..."

He waited, trying to hold his breath against the noxious smells but this only encouraged a persistent coughing. If they had PAKs he could break them apart and maybe use them to replace his worn-out gears and parts and...

Then: "Negative, Master. Their PAKs are not here."

The smell was like the deeper stench of an abattoir drain. How long they had been dead in there was anyone's guess. He approached the box only to seal up the flaps and quickly tried to re-tape the opening to blunt some of the smell trying to get out. Upon his command, the TV screen broadcasting cartoons was whisked away to make room for a lowering viewscreen that emerged from the ceiling. "Computer, contact the Tallest at once! Uplink their feed onto the main view screen!"

"Yes, Master."

The main viewscreen filled with blinding white static as he waited for long-distance communication to be established. His hands opened and closed. The white from the screen paled his face and the front of his uniform: exaggerating any wrinkles and highlighting the rims under his eyes. His tiny shadow was thrown behind him: flickering in time with the zipping lines of fuzz. Everything else in his world, the base, Gir, all dropped away into oblivion as his eyes stared into the consuming static, little heart beating hard against his sternum. Suddenly the static lifted, and his leaders were gloomily looking down at him from narrow faces.

"My Tallest!" He entreated, his remaining antenna bowing to lie flat on his head, "There has been a mistake! Those special S.I.R unit parts have not arrived! Instead I have received a box of... horrible dead Irkens!"

The amusement on their faces was clear. It was Red who spoke. "Don't you get it, Smallest Zim? It's a joke. You're a joke. So we sent you a box full of jokes."

"But... but my equipment! My S.I.R unit is malfunctioning! He could not only jeopardize the mission but jeopardize the great ZIM as well! I do not have much time! His glitches are getting worse!"

"So?" Answered Purple. "He was malfunctioning to begin with."

"No, no this is different...! Please, I need those parts! Or better yet, just give me a new S.I.R unit and I'll switch out those parts with Gir's! He'll be like new!" The solution was so simple, so accessible!

"Well, isn't that something." Remarked Red. "After everything we've tried, it looks like your own S.I.R unit that may just kill you. Saves getting our claws dirty. Well, so long Zim. Been horrible knowing you."

They cut the transmission as suddenly and as finally as an amputation. "Wait! No! Please! My Tallest!" He banged on the screen with bloodied fists, screaming until his voice was a choking croak. He leaned against the dark screen and wilted down it, skull pressed to the reflective glass. Slowly he lifted his head and looked to Gir, and the fear came down like a wall.

Inside, something broke.

In that same instant where all else had fallen away, a deeper part stepped in, pushing him aside.

Use the Voot. Take its fucking controls and go to them! Forget the robot! I will not die here! ZIM will not GIVE UP! Do it! Do it now! While you still have time!

He curled where he sat, claws running down the sides of his head, remembering a thousand Irkens marching forth, their foreheads freshly emblazoned with the Irken symbol, with the Tallest standing on a platform above, watching from blank faces. He was a combat drone, a thing born on a conveyor belt where only promotions and height could open new channels for him in the great machine. Without those two things, he would not be renewed or reinstated.

He curled his arms about his chest as he rocked himself to and fro, willing as much as walling in the pain before it could burst out. Eyes a little clearer, he looked to the window and at the scrim of moon as it sailed clear of the clouds.