Disclaimer: I do not, and unfortunately never will own Invader Zim.
Thank you to Zim'sMostLoyalServant, Invader Johnny, and mh793696 for the wonderful reviews! Also, I promise that we will get a Zim POV soon, it would unfortunately reveal too much at this point.
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I hate this facility. It's creepy as hell, and the light in the break room always flickers once every two minutes. I know because I've timed it. There's always some weird gunk on the floor outside of room 407, and I swear Doctor Norton is some sort of psychopath with the way he's always skulking around everywhere. The atmosphere here is just wrong, somehow. Although that could be because all the air here has to be pumped down and recycled, making it feel a bit stale.
I know I should feel lucky to work here. I know things most people would never even believe to be true, and once upon a time this was my dream job, but it didn't end up being what I wanted to be. I thought it would somehow be more… magical or something. Silly as it is, a bit like a men in black facility. Unfortunately all I got was bitter coffee and beige walls.
Then, my boring days suddenly seemed over when a ship crashed in a field near the Appalachian mountains early Friday morning. It's 7 a.m. on Monday morning, and I report to room 342.
"Good morning, major Johnson." General Alex Drewey is standing in front of a team of scientists and other generals, all sitting comfortably around a large, circular white table. "I trust you had a good night's sleep last night, even with all the crazy going on." He cracks a smile, and a few of the personnel in the room chuckle softly with him.
"Sir, yes sir I did. Thank you. I apologize for my lateness, you know how traffic can get." Yeah, that sounds like a lame excuse and it normally is, but it was honestly traffic this time.
"That's all right son," Don't call me son. "Just take a seat right over there, and we can get started!" I take my seat at the round table, and start looking at the dossier left for me.
"Alrighty then!" The general starts. He has a loud booming voice that captures everyone's attention. "As most of you know, a ship was recovered not seventy miles north of here that is not of this world. No occupants, alive or dead, were recovered at the site, and we are still looking for any trace of that occupant. In the meantime, let's review what we did find. Doctor Prentiss, you go first."
Prentiss is a skinny woman, with long brown hair that she keeps in a tight and matronly bun. Her labcoat always has three pens tucked in the left pocket, two blue, and one red. She specializes in microbiology, I believe.
"Sir, the microbiome found at the scene is absolutely fascinating. I have discovered some microbes that aren't even carbon based! It's an incredible find, and while they are obviously not the main occupant of the ship, it's safe to say that the bacteria inside the ship is not from Earth, and therefore concrete proof of life on other planets." She smiles a tight lipped and forced smile at the slight clapping from her colleagues and sits back down.
"Well, that's good Prentiss, but I think it's safe to say the ship itself is proof enough, isn't it?" General Drewey scoffs a bit and continues. "Anyway, good work. Okay, who's next? Did we find anything interesting inside the ship?"
"Sir, yes sir! Colonel Brigain reportin' sir! Inside the ship some packs of what seem to be emergency food and water were recovered. This indicates that the creature eats and drinks, and doesn't just absorb electricity for energy. The ship also has a small waste disposal room, sir, indicatin' further that it has a basic digestive tract, jus' like humans."
Brigain is an asshole, if you ask me. He's constantly asking Carol from accounting out for drinks at the base diner and he never gets that she's married.
"We also recovered what we think is a weapon, sir." Brigain continued.
"Ahh yes! The pistol we found." Drewey clasps his hands together excitedly. "Has anyone figured out how it works yet?" Silence in the room. "Oh come on, somebody has got to have fiddled with it a bit."
"Sir," Brigain stands back up. "We honestly don't know what we're doin' wrong. It has a trigger, and no visible safety, but it won't fire. I think it somehow needs to be loaded, and the lab boys think maybe only the occupant can get it to work via some DNA coding or somethin'."
"Well then, it looks like we need the occupant! Good work colonel, you can sit back down. Now the obvious question then is why did this occupant leave it's craft without bringing protection? Which leads me to my favorite bit of evidence. Doctor Norton, if you would tell the class what you found?"
Doctor Norton, the creepy bastard, doesn't fit the creepy stereotype. He looks a bit like a stock photo, clean shaven, with well trimmed and combed back brown hair. The only thing out of place about him is the dark circles under his eyes, as if he never sleeps.
"As the ladies and gentlemen can see in the photos in their dossiers, the windshield of the craft was shattered on the right, or starboard side of the ship. Now, this could have been from the occupant smashing the glass on the inside to get out if whatever mechanism designed to allow access and entry was broken, however a small detail near the dashboard of the ship begs to differ. As you can all see, a small amount of human blood was found on the edge of the broken windshield." Sure enough there's a close up picture of a few drops of blood on a jagged piece of windshield glass.
"This means one of two things. Either this person stumbled across the ship and explored after the occupant left and before we got there, or, somebody helped the occupant escape. There were some tire marks that drove as close as four feet away from the craft, which I think was our human friend loading any and all items from the ship into their car.
I took the liberty of testing this blood, and I'm pleased to tell you all, that we are looking for a caucasion woman, blood type O+, and possibly has hazel, or blue eyes. Whether or not situation one or situation two occured, I would still love to interview this woman, see if she saw anything. Right now we have a team narrowing down all the women within a two hundred mile radius, who fit that unfortunately vague description. Once that's done we'll start the interviews. Any questions?" He smiles a strangely unnerving smile as he takes his seat.
"Excellent!" General Drewey definitely seemed pleased by this news. "Now I know I'm not using the scientific method here, doctor, but I'm at liberty to think that this woman helped the occupant. Think about it this way, a normal person finds a spaceship and the next thing you know the pictures are all over the new york post! However, this person was there and hasn't said anything to anyone? Seems strange for someone with nothing to lose, unless they have the occupant. If we find her, we'll find our occupant."
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I have never in my life had a slower school day than today. It's the first day I've left Zim alone in my apartment, and I gave him strict instructions to make as little noise as possible. I don't honestly any of my neighbors know my routine or would think any of it if they did hear something, but you never know how observant someone could truly be. I want to go home and make sure he doesn't blow up the unit or something.
Ugh, I don't know why I'm so worried, he's probably just working on Gir like he does every day, and I'm getting worked up over nothing. Plus this art history class is so boring, I have a theory that Mrs.. Macecevic is secretly dead and nobody has noticed, and her droning voice is the result of her soul refusing to give up and leave already! Something like that anyway.
I'm considering writing out the script for Hamlet in wingdings out of sheer boredom when finally the last class of the day is released with a homework assignment I didn't catch, but I'll look it up later.
Trying to get home as fast I can without breaking the speed limit is a new struggle for me. Usually I don't give a shit about what cops think, but I need to be completely under the radar all the time right now. Which means no fights, speeding, or threats… Damn. After parking in my wonderfully creepy designated parking spot and making it to my apartment, I can smell it before I open my door. Smoke.
Frantically unlocking my door and rushing inside, I follow the smoke to the kitchen, and standing out of sight in the hall, I can see Zim… cooking? Not successfully at all, as he's seemed to burn whatever it is he's trying to make. I'm glad he wasn't burning down the house though. He's standing in front of the stove sautéing a fresh batch of sausages and some assorted fruits and vegetables? I think he's sautéing apples, which is an odd choice if you ask me. There's a lot of odd things out on the countertop, like pickles and vodka, which is probably how he burned the last batch.
I'm not particularly surprised he's trying to cook, as he's watched me do it enough the past few days to understand how the appliances work, I think, but he definitely didn't grasp earth cuisine. He looks focused and stressed at the same time, so I think I'd better give him a hand.
"Hey Zim, I-" I step towards the kitchen doorway and barely start talking before he twists sharply and flings something in my direction. Thanking whatever god or mystical force there is out there for my fast reflexes from years of my father's and dib's experiments, I have just enough time to slam myself against the hall wall and see a fork embedded in the wall behind me. The handle part is in the wall. Zim threw a fork hard enough to stick the handle in the wall. Shit.
"Khúv!" Zim's voice starts rapidly approaching where I'm standing in the hall, and he sounds panicked. "Gaz, kaí kho ad ngaoa!" I'm sorry! "Úshúj kaí! Kaí finoíchú aíz daov!" I'm staring at the fork and only notice he's in front of me when he shakes my shoulders. He's speaking so fast I can barely tell the words apart.
"Khí al yú?" Are you okay? "Gaz, khí al yú?"
"I-I'm okay Zim." Holy shit. "You have got to stop doing that, okay? No more… of that." I point to the fork in the wall. He turns his head around to look at the fork and winces, his antennae flattening themselves against the back of his head. He turns back and sputters and shakes his head at me.
"Kaí finoíchú aíz daov!" I... something. "Al vaí daov míg kaí! Kaí finoíchú aíz daov!"
"Zim, slow down! It's okay!" I put my hands on his shoulders to get him to stop. "It is okay." I say carefully and make sure to keep eye contact. "It's okay. Yes?" His breathing finally starts to stabilize and only then do I realize how hard he was gripping my shoulders when he starts to release the pressure.
"It is okay?" He breathes at me, and nods his head a bit. "Yes. It is okay."
"Yeah, Zim. Everything is going to be okay. Look, go sit down." I point to the couch. "I'll fix the kitchen."
"No! I fix the kitchen." He finally lets go of my shoulders and takes a step back. "I cook." He smiles ever so slightly, as his left antennae constantly twitches, which seems to be the way he expresses anxiety.
"Um, yeah, I see that… Do you like to cook?" I cannot believe we are having a conversation about cooking right now.
"I do not know." He laughs a bit. "It is new."
"You have never cooked before and you decided to try it for the first time while I was gone? Why would you do that?" I find myself smiling a bit at the absurdity of it all. He shrugs a bit and the twitch in his antennae gets worse.
"I want good for you. You cook for me, I cook for you."
"You want good… you want to do something nice for me?" His antennae perks up at this.
"Yes, nice!" He smiles then tilts his head. "I want learn do good cook." He wants to learn how to cook. My alien roommate wants to learn how to cook. Okay then.
"Well, um, first can you get the fork out of the wall?" I point at the wall, and smile to reassure him. His antennae flatten against his head, he mumbles a quick 'sorry' in Irken, and plucks the fork out of the wall seemingly with zero effort. After dinner, we really need to talk about his violent responses to being startled. I don't want to die because Zim can't handle sudden appearances of people. Although, I'm a bit impressed with his accuracy of fork throwing. When we get over the surprise hurdle, I'm going to have to have him teach me that.
"Alright, let's see what we're dealing with here in the kitchen." I walk in the kitchen and stop in front of the stove and his… food creation. Gordon Ramsey eat your heart out. "Here, give me the fork. Don't want any more accidents, okay?" He sheepishly hands me the fork and his antennae twitches.
"Sorry Gaz…"
"It's okay Zim. Really. We'll talk about it later, okay?" I make eye contact and give him a nod so he understands.
"Okay, that is good."
"So, Zim. What are you trying to cook here?" I can't help but laugh. It looks like the aforementioned sausage and apples, plus what I think may be… grapes?
"Food? Meat and good food. I think it is good to eat?" He looks rather embarrassed, and my laughter definitely isn't helping him, but it's a bit nice that he wanted to help.
"And that?" I point to the charred saucepan that was haphazardly deposited in the sink, still slightly smoking. He laughs, the first full-hearted laugh I've heard from him this entire time. It's deep, like his voice, with a touch of breathiness in it. It's the kind of laugh that makes someone else smile when they hear it.
"One try. No good."
"Yeah, no kidding. Let's start from scratch."
"What is scratch?"
"Oh, beginning. New food this time. You want something with meat, right?" He smiles wide at this.
"Yes! Meat and pixie sticks."
"Ha, okay then. But the pixie sticks are dessert, er, after-dinner. Okay?" Raising my eyebrow and smirking, he chuckles in response and nods in agreement.
"Well, with that in mind, let's get started!" I tie my hair back for this cooking exercise. I've let it get long, for me that is, and it's a few inches past my shoulders. I still keep it in the violet hue I've had since middle school though, I think it suits me.
"I'm sorry to get rid of your effort, but can you clean this up a bit?" I gesture towards the stove and the sink. I don't think I've taught him half of those words yet, but he gets the idea. Two of his spider arms emerge from the PAK to help him clean. I'm almost jealous, to be honest. They look incredibly useful. After we clear up his attempt at cooking the first time, I begin to pull out the ingredients for what we're going to make now.
"We're going to make spaghetti." I say as I grab some peppers from the fridge.
"Spaggetee?"
"No, spaghetti." I sound it out slowly for him. "It's easy, you'll be able to do it without me."
"Good!" He's examining the vegetables I've lined up next to the shopping cart as I go to open the cabinet where I keep noodles.
"Zim? Could you get that for me?" I'm only 5'5", and haven't made spaghetti in a while, which means the idiotic me of the past that overstocked spaghetti last time I bought it put it on a shelf that's annoying and uncomfotable to reach. Green Giant over here gets it with such ease it almost irritates me, but the smile he gives as he hands it to me pushes that irritation down.
"Thanks, good. Okay first, we're going to need a big pot of water." Once we get the pot going, and I teach Zim how to properly salt (just a pinch!) I can start teaching him the hard part.
"So, I'm going to teach you how to cut vegetables, cool?"
"Cool." I cut an onion in half, and slowly demonstrate how to properly dice it for the sauce, then I cut a pepper in half and show him how to deseed and chop one half.
"Alright, I'm going to give you this knife now, and you will do the same thing. Be. Careful." He nods vigorously, his left antennae twitches, and he carefully accepts the knife. I slowly take a few steps back, just as a precaution.
This man is a dicing wizard. His first few cuts into the onion are hesitant, and thankfully he's holding it the right way with his fingers curled under, just like I showed him. I also notice for the first time that he's left-handed. I wonder if that's more common on his planet or if he's rare, just like on earth. Once he seems to get the hang of it, he dices the onion faster than I ever could, then moves on to the peppers and the rest of the vegetables.
"I am done!" He smiles as he steps away from his work for me to inspect.
"It looks really good! I'm actually impres-" I turn around to look at Zim as I'm talking. "Will you stop that?" I smile so he knows I'm joking, but he was tossing the knife up and down in his left hand while he waited for what I was going to say. As soon as the words leave my mouth, he catches it, flips it around his hand so he's holding it by the blade, and hands it back to me.
"Sorry, it is… me." I think he means habit.
"Again, it's okay. We'll talk about it later." We finish making the sauce, with almost no cooking mishaps (Zim almost over salted the sauce) and I get to have him pour the spaghetti through the collinder, which means I don't have to do it! I show him how to serve himself, and then we sit down at my tiny breakfast table/dining nook and he is taught the wonders of parmesan. Thank god he has not had any insane allergic reactions yet. Somehow.
"This is delicious, nicely done, Zim!" Chowing down into the food makes me realize I haven't eaten all day, which probably makes the food ten times better. Zim already knows how to use a fork, albeit he holds it differently than humans would, but it's not surprising that other planets would invent something similar to eat food with.
"Thank you, but it is you I thank. You teach me." It hits me all of a sudden how surreal this all is. I'm sitting in my kitchenette, eating spaghetti with an alien, who I just taught how to cook. It's so much I just start to laugh. I must look insane to him, this goth chick who's cracking up over a plate of spaghetti, and somehow that just makes the situation all the more funny!
"What… Am I good?" He looks a little nervous, which is completely understandable.
"No, no, it's good Zim," I manage to choke out. "It's just that this is so weird!"
"Weird?" He's starting to smile now.
"Yeah! I'm having dinner with an alien! That's weird!"
"I am eat with human!" He starts laughing too, and the two of us idiots sit there and laugh over spaghetti and the absurdity of life. I haven't felt this happy in a long time, it feels… nice. My life has been flipped completely upside down and I've almost died a few times, but I'm under a small sense of ease, even still. I feel that peaceful, just like I do when I stargaze. As if I want to frame this feeling and keep it forever.
Slowly, we're able to get over ourselves and get back to eating. I still feel the craziness of this all tickling at me, and we both quietly chuckle into our bowls here and there. Then, Zim breaks the silence.
"How you learn?" He asks me. He's set his fork down in his bowl, set his hands on the table and interlocked his fingers.
"How did I learn to cook?"
"Yes."
"Oh. My mother taught me." I don't like talking about her, but it's not like he's going to relay this information to anyone else.
"Mother? What is word?" He leans in and tilts his head, just like when he's focused.
"A mother is… a mother…" I don't know how to explain it with words, so I grab the grocery receipt from yesterday and a spare pen on the counter. Leaning in across the table, I draw a basic family tree with a mother, father, and child.
"This is a baby, a child, right?" He nods. "Then this is a father, and this is a mother. Understand? They are parents."
"Oh." That's it. Now he's staring at his pasta without saying anything, his hands still folded in front of him.
"Do you have a mother? Parents?" He frowns.
"No."
"I'm sorry." He looks up at me and squints his eyes, like he's struggling with what to say.
"I do no want talk." He looks back at his food.
"I understand." That can wait for another day. However… "We need to talk about the fork." I shake my fork for emphasis. "It's okay, I'm not mad." I have never smiled this much in my whole life, but he wouldn't understand otherwise.
"I am sorry, sorry."
"I know you're sorry, and it's okay, but you need to not do it again." He avoids eye contact and seems to be looking at the other side of the room. "Why did you throw the fork? Or the knife on the first day? I'm not going to hurt you." He huffs and rests his head in his left hand, propping his elbow on the table.
"I know, you is good." I am not good, but do go on. "I am sorry, it is me. I do no want."
"Is it a reflex?" He squints and his antennae twitches.
"What is word?"
"A reflex. Look." I pull my chair out from under the table and cross my legs so he can see my knees. I hit myself in the knee, and my leg juts out. "Reflex. Understand?"
"Yes." He looks so sad. "It is reflex."
"Well, that's not great. We're going to have to work on that."
"Okay. I no want no good to you." He smiles ever so slightly. "You is good." I don't want to stress him out any more than he already is right now, so I make a note to bring it up later, and to not let myself out of his sight for now to avoid any further mishaps.
"Let's just enjoy dinner, okay?" He laughs and leans to the left.
"Okay, that is good."