The aftermath of very long chapters is always fun to write in its own way because it's like a wind down chapter lol

Enjoy!

Part 52: Something New

Dib woke up groggy. The product of being awake until the wee hours of the morning and his body's internal alarm clock refusing to let him sleep in. Gaz had passed out long before he or Zim had. Well, he had—he was certain Zim hadn't slept at all. Dib blamed the two of them fawning over him—in their own ways because neither of them would admit that they were that worried to his face, prideful assholes—coupled with being unconscious for as long as he had been for his current muggy consciousness. He stretched, pulling something in his calf and swearing, before fumbling for his glasses. In the very least his headache was gone. The migraine had persisted well until he finally passed out the night before. Morning before, if he was honest. The last time he'd checked the clock it had almost been sunrise. Dib noted the blanket tacked to the wall to keep the light out of his room. He didn't recall putting that up there but he did recall Zim asking where they stored extra blankets before he had passed out on the alien. Again.

Dib set the glasses on his face, blinking through the glass confusedly. It was blurry. That couldn't have been right, he was wearing them just yesterday. Dib took them off, shocked to find the room looked just fine. No blurred lines or blobs of color—just crisp edges and solid forms. He took his glasses off and put them back several times. That was strange. He set them on his collar, hooking them by one arm over the fabric, and kicked off his sheets. He was grateful not to be met with a spike in head pain at the sudden jerky movement.

Dib marched his way down the stairs, spotting familiar boots hanging over the edge of the couch. He leaned over it as silently as he could, catching sight of something he could definitely use as teasing material later. Zim was curled on the couch, hugging a pillow and looking just about as out cold as he could. To top it off Dib could hear the low purring coming from Zim's chest. Honestly, Dib had momentarily forgotten about that particular teasing incident and hadn't cashed in on it yet. He decided he'd hold off on it for a while longer. Dib tiptoed around the couch, really debating if he was about to do what he was about to do.

He crouched down, snagging the last spare blanket they had off the spare seat. He draped it over himself, setting down onto the couch to cover Zim as well. He had debated just sitting against the armrest, but no, he wasn't risking accidently kneeing Zim in the face. Not with a PAK that shot out first, asked questions later. And he really didn't need to try and find some excuse for why the couch was either destroyed or replaced when his father came home next. Dib nestled up next to Zim, laying as close to his PAK as he would allow himself. He was still wary of the thing—it had a mind of its own, he knew it—and still very aware of the four (to six it seemed sometimes) metal legs with knives on their ends that rested just inside it.

Dib sighed, feeling as relaxed as he felt he possibly could be. He'd had a hellish week and he couldn't even rant to Abed, or Eric, or Daren about it. Damn, Daren would have loved to hear about it, too. Explosions were something he was going to school for.

Dib laid up against the PAK, the warmth of the blanket and the ambient heat of the PAK lulling him back into sleep with no effort at all.

Zim woke up slowly. His purring puttered out as he woke up. He didn't recall going into sleep mode, just setting Dib down for bed, making a crude shade on his bedroom window to block out the soon to be rising sun, and curling up on the couch. Stupidly curling up on the couch; now that the thought of it. He wasn't keen on leaving Dib alone just yet. The anxiety of the days before were still fresh in his mind and he knew if he left him alone and the boy managed to hurt himself he'd be paying for it with Gaz.

Zim registered he was still on the couch, but the cushion felt different. It felt like it was being weighed down at his back and he knew his PAK wasn't that heavy. Zim was also still waking up and he didn't feel like he was in any danger. His PAK would stopped any assault before it began, after all. He cracked an eye open, seeing the back cushion of the couch. There went the possibility his PAK had somehow slipped between the cushions. A predicament he'd found himself in not just a handful of times at his own base—and one that Dib would never find out about if Zim could help it. He would never live it down.

Zim turned over, spinning without moving very much at all, until his PAK was against the cushion. He froze, catching sight of Dib and fully recognizing that he'd been having trouble waking up because of the accumulated heat under the blanket.

Just when had this happened?

Zim blinked, not believing it despite being right there with it. Dib was asleep, again as it seemed, because he'd had to have come down the stairs at some point. Zim flushed at the revelation that meant Dib had caught him SLEEPING of all things. Sleeping after what had just happened, and unprompted, no less. Zim wasn't sure why he was so flustered about it. He'd fallen asleep around Dib before. Granted it was mostly when he was injured, but he felt it counted on some level. Given the last time he'd fallen asleep on the couch he was surprised Dib laid so close to his PAK to begin with.

Secondly, why he had joined him on the couch was another thing Zim didn't quite understand. He wasn't entirely complaining. The warmth was more than welcome. Like the heat of the sun in the trees, it was comforting and relaxing and just… nice. Zim looked at Dib, scrutinizing him. He didn't look worse than the day before. He had forgotten his glasses; but that aside, he seemed ok.

Zim sighed, only realizing afterward that Dib wasn't completely passed out because he wasn't snoring. This confirmation came from Dib cracking an eye open and his face changing colors. Zim made a mental note to ask about that strange reaction later. They stared at each other for a few moments in silence, each deciding whether they should break the quiet. Finally Dib smirked.

"Are you blushing?" he asked. Zim buried the bottom of his face deeper into the pillow.

"NO."

"Then why is your face darker than usual?" Dib asks.

"BECAUSE IT'S HOT UNDER THIS BLANKET!" Zim says quickly. Dib makes to lift it and Zim's arm shoots out, pinning Dib's arm to his side. "I didn't say I didn't like the heat. Why are you on the couch?"

Dib blinked at him and smirked again. "Why are you blushing?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I asked first."

"WRONG, I asked first!"

"Wrong-er, I asked if you were blushing first."

"And I answered." Zim says smugly. Dib swore at himself mentally. It was obvious Zim was lying when he had answered, but he HAD answered. Dib took the loss for what it was. Damned loopholes.

"Okay, fine. Liar. Anyway," Dib started again, waving Zim's growing annoyance off before he could scold him. "I saw you snuggling up to that pillow and I wanted to, I don't know, I wanted to lay down. Besides, I had a question."

"And that is?"

"I didn't need my glasses this morning. Why?" Dib asks, waving his hand in front of his face. Zim started to calm down now that he wasn't being interrogated for his own stupid body's reactions and pocked Dib between the eyes.

"I had to inject some Irken medication in your system to stop the bleeding from your head. It's likely fixed your eyesight temporarily." Zim explains. Dib rubbed at his head. He furrowed his brow. "The headache may have in part been the eyesight shifting."

"Huh. Shame if it's temporary. Not having to be blind every time I lose my glasses would be nice," Dib muses. He settled back down, his eyes already feeling heavy again. He didn't know how much sleep he'd gotten—his suddenly perfect eyesight had distracted him from even bothering to check the clock. Zim's antennae perked up under his wig at the idea.

"Noted."

"Noted for what?" Dib asks. Zim pursed his lips and his eyes darted to the side—which would at the moment be the ceiling.

"Why are you still laying next to me?" Zim asks back. Dib froze in place, his brain trying to come up with some snarky backtalk and coming up empty. He instead used the only ammo he had.

"You said you liked the heat," Dib says, sounding rather dumb even to himself. Zim blinked slowly at him. To Dib's surprise Zim hunkered down more with a sigh.

"True." He says, hugging the pillow closer.

His arm pinning Dib down pulled him right up to the pillow. Zim took a moment to realize he hadn't ever removed his arm and buried his face in the pillow, taking his arm back and hugging the pillow. He wanted to purr but resisted doing so. His brain already felt fuzzy enough as it was. Dib's face was entirely red, and he wasn't sure it was the heat. He also wasn't sure he wasn't about to fall asleep again because the warmth WAS very inviting. Dib was seconds from passing out to do just that when a weight was added to the back of the couch and he felt Zim stiffen.

"Get a room."

Zim shot up, glaring at Gaz even as she resisted smiling at him. Dib sighed. "Morning, Gaz."

"It's two in the afternoon."

"It is?" Dib asks, slipping off the couch and stretching. Zim gave Gaz a final glare and whirled around to face Dib instead. He was still holding the pillow, like an angry child, and was pouting. Dib yawned. "Hey, where is Gir?"

"I left him turned off in the storage container," Zim grumbles. He gave Gaz an evil eye as she sauntered past them into the kitchen. She had a smug smirk on her face.

"I'm getting food," she announced. Her tone was enough to tell Dib she expected him to follow suit. He had a bad habit of forgetting to eat and it seemed she hadn't gotten past her concerns from the previous night.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Dib says. He pauses at the couch's armrest. "C'mon, we can at least get you coffee with an ice cream scoop or something."

Zim grumbled something under his breath before abandoning his pillow to follow Dib inside the kitchen. Gaz was already taking the ice cream from the freezer. She held it up.

"In COFFEE?" she asks. Zim snatched it, shooting a glare to stop any teasing about how dark his face was. "Seriously, in coffee? Doesn't that just melt into a weirdly warm slushy?"

"NO, and it's the only way to drink that vile concoction." Zim shoots back. Gaz hummed, staring at the ice cream and flitting her gaze between it and the coffee maker. She grabbed two cups.

Zim tossed the base's holder in the air, catching it like a ball. Dib watched the motion with glances, thumbing through his sketchbook with a scrutiny Zim hadn't seen since he had tried designing leeway stations. Zim caught on to Dib's glances being in time with each toss up into the air and stopped. He could see Gaz eyeing it out of the corner of her eye as well. Zim handed it over and Gaz took it, turning it over in her hands. Dib's shoulders visibly relaxed, his attention returning entirely back to his sketchbook.

"You're perplexed by it?" Zim asks, turning his attention to Gaz.

"Maybe."

Zim would call her out on the lie but he didn't want to risk any wrath. He tapped the top of Dib's sketchbook. Dib looked up at him, pausing in his sketching.

"Are you done yet?" Zim asks.

Dib smiled, laying the notebook out on the table. Zim had to give him credit—he was a great artist. It figured drawing your favorite paranormal creatures and miscellaneous magical objects helped in that skillset. The sketches littering the pages were a disguised Zim in various combinations of the clothing Dib had helped him buy (for realism, Dib had said—and he was bored drawing a plane shirt and pants). Dib had made the interesting suggestion to update Zim's disguise days prior. In the midst of packing for college and tiptoeing around town until they'd determined they weren't going to be gunned down, Dib had drawn dozens of ideas before they'd finally narrowed down a design.

Zim hummed, his PAK producing the device he'd spent days in the garage crafting. It had been difficult without his own lab to work in. Dib's father had a very advanced lab in his own home, but it was nothing compared to the labs Zim had set up and waiting inside his base. Gaz shoved the base back to him, looking at the new device eagerly. Zim handed it over.

"What's this?" she asks. Her Game Slave was left forgotten on the table for once in favor of the new 'toy' in her hands. It was a rare sight to see, and one Dib would have to list as a rare achievement on Zim's part.

"It is going to be my new disguise," Zim says proudly. "Dib and I modeled it after Tak's own technology. It is a form of hologram. More solid in places it needs to be, so long as no one tests the physicality of it."

"It makes his skin look, you know… normal. And he'll actually have a nose and some ears," Dib says smugly. Zim kicked him under the table.

Zim took the device back, opening the interface with a twist of one end. It slid out, a small screen dropping down. The screen wasn't glass, as far as Dib could tell, as it rolled out of the line of metal that Zim had pulled out like a projector's screen. It booted up a display regardless and Zim flipped through the screens until he found the modifiers. He flipped it around so Gaz could more easily see it. True to Dib's word, the figure on the screen was undoubtably Zim, just with a realistic rendition of a nose and ears, and skin tone to match. It was darker than either Membrane sibling—not a difficult feat with how pale both were. Gaze noticed the eye colors remained the same.

"Why not just go with brown eyes?" she asks.

"Why bother? You both have amber eyes," Zim points out. Gaz tuts at him, shoving the device back. Zim looked at her smugly, knowing she had no defense for that. Gaz hummed and got up from the table. "Leaving because I'm right?"

"No, but I do have something for you," Gaz says, moving upstairs. Zim watched her a moment before turning to Dib and whispering frantically.

"Should I leave? Am I about to face one of those infernal security devices?"

"She hasn't used those in a long time," Dib says. He glanced up the stairs. "But, you never know."

Zim prickled, scooting his chair closer to Dib. Dib scoffed.

"You think that'll stop her?" he asks.

"As you said you never know!" Zim says.

He heard Gaz shut her bedroom door and stiffened a little. He would chastise himself if he didn't know how she could be when angry. He was sure he hadn't angered her, though. She popped back into the kitchen carrying a box. Zim's mind when wild with all the possibilities as she set it on the table and retook her seat. She eyed them with a smirk. Zim was eyeing her like she was planning to splash him with a bucket of water despite not having a bucket in sight. She popped off the top of the box.

"You should make your PAK look like a backpack. It'd hide it better," Gaz says. She pulled out a mop of hair, messing with it and holding it up to compare to Zim's head. She scrutinized it and Zim eyed it confusedly. Dib was doing the same.

"Is that… is that one of the wigs you used to wear in middle school?" Dib asks. Gaz moves to stand behind Zim, taking his own wig of to replace it with hers. She grabbed some scissors and a comb from the box. Zim tried to push the wig off, earning him a smack to the back of the head.

"Stop it, you idiot, I'm trying to do something nice for you," Gaz says. Zim whirled around, gaping at her. Gaz hit him again. "I COULD WHOOP YOUR ASS IF YOU'D LIKE THAT INSTEAD!"

"NO!"

"Then stop moving," Gaz orders, forcing Zim's head back into place. "That wig you use is old as dirt and you clearly have no idea how to care for it. You don't have hair, so that's probably why, but if you're updating your disguise anyway… you might as well take it. I'm not using it."

"This is strange," Zim mumbles. Gaz started cutting the wig to shape.

"Don't get used to it," she says. Dib watched and smirked. He tapped on the screen in Zim's hands.

"You should try it out when she's done," he says. Zim set it up to start and set it on the table. Dib flipped through his sketch book further to the back. He laid it out on the table. "So, I've been thinking about your base and how to make it more moveable. If you can do that shrinking thing with a lot of the stuff in the base, and set it to last for long trips, it could be similar to moving for us."

Zim held the sketchbook up, looking at the drawings. Dib had drawn schematics for how best to organize everything in the base. He had even drawn up how Zim could use multiple pods to hold different sections of the base. Zim had to reluctantly admit, he hadn't thought at the time of making the lab extensions he'd built on into something he could minimize like the primary sections of the base. He regretted that when he had to go back and dig it all back out without notifying the neighbors or local authorities. It had been a long time of shrinking every ink of the base and refilling the sinkholes before anyone had noticed the following mornings. Zim had hated the work, but he was going to be damned if he left anything Irken waiting underground.

Gaz set the scissors down, turning Zim's head side to side. Dib gave a comical whistle of approval and Zim glowered at him. Dib raised his hand.

"No, that was genuine, though! It looks great." Dib assures him.

Zim's PAK handed him a mirror. Zim admitted, while the hairstyle was similar, it was an improvement. It better covered the sides of his head and whatever odd coloring there was from the parts that Gaz had cut short enough to resemble slightly shaved sides would be handled by the hologram.

"Huh."

"Like it or not?" Gaz asks. She almost sounded nervous. Dib saw her shoulders relax as Zim nodded. "Good, because I'm not risking ruining another one if you didn't."

Zim tapped the screen on the table. The PAK produced four very small versions of the legs with tiny projectors on each end. Dib had to avert his eyes with the light that came with the hologram activating. He blinked the dots from his eyes and looked back to see Zim sitting there, looking entirely human, and scrutinizing it in the mirror. Gaz did the same, leaning to the side to see.

"Skin looks a bit too doll-like, but other than that, it's pretty good," she says. Dib readjusted his glasses with an 'ooh' and 'aah'. Zim swatted at his teasing.

"It really does look believable," Dib adds, swatting Zim's hand away just as easily. "You'll have to fend off girls now."

Gaz snorted. "If they see how you two act together they won't bother."

"I am much less energetic than I was as a kid, and I'm not as loud!" Dib protests. Gaz just took her seat, taking her Game Slave back up again with a snort and a shake of her head. Zim let the PAK take the mirror and screen device back.

"I should modify it to have better skin and a backpack," Zim admits. He started to sketch one in Dib's sketchbook. He left out the Irken insignia, leaving it as a keychain instead. "Red?"

"Make it closer to purple," Dib says, leaning back in his chair. He gave Zim another once over. "I still like your alien form better."

Zim's face flushed immediately. He couldn't, for the life of him, recall anyone saying they preferred him in any capacity. He hadn't gotten much praise, if any at all, from the Tallest. He'd never been wanted by any of his peers—and he was dumbfounded how he hadn't ever realized sooner. Dib snorted, covering his mouth, and pointed to Zim's face.

"You're blushing." He says.

Zim shoved Dib's face away, his own face burning. He slammed his face on the table in an attempt to hide it. Gaz was laughing beside him, only serving to make the blush spread. Dib took Zim's hand off his face with an equally devilish snicker. Zim couldn't believe he was actually being teased by both at once.

"Aw, c'mon. It's cu—augh!"

Zim drew his leg back as Dib fell to the floor with his chair. He smiled down at him. Dib kicked out, getting Zim in the leg as he blocked his foot from knocking out his chair, too. Gaz set her legs up on the table, confident neither would try and do the same to her. She listened to them bicker and picked her Game Slave back up.