ZADR Orange Chapter 90

Warnings: Extreme OOCness

Rating: M for later chapters

Disclaimer: We do not own Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from it. We do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Zim: Notgonnadie

Dib: Me

Enjoy. =3

Blushing at Rose's question, Zim glanced at her before answering. "One hundred sixty-three earth years..." he sighed and clung to Dib tighter. "The oldest living Irken was only two-hundred and seventy...But we are a war-like race, after all..." he said, not really sure how long an Irken could hope to live without the interference of war.

Rose blinked her eyes open in some shock at that answer. "Oh, wow. You're already much older than most humans are. If they're lucky, a human can live up to 100 years of age, maybe a little older. But 80 is the average. Though I suppose the mentality must be different then. At what age are you considered to be an adult?" she asked.

"Ten Irken years...100 in earth years...Before then, we're stuck in training under the planet's surface..."

"So then your bodies age slower than human bodies too. Humans aren't really considered adults until 21 years of age. That might be helpful though in determining how Dib is aging now. Give him a few more years. If he looks to be about the same age as he is now when he turns 21, then he's probably aging slower and more like you. But if he looks like he's aging fairly quickly and there's a dramatic difference in how he looks at age 21, then he might be aging more like a human. Though, I'm not sure how his mentality has been affected in all this. Right now, he seems like a typical 16 year old boy. So in the meantime, I would recommend you just enjoy your time with him until you're able to determine his growth patterns from this point on. What's most important is that you two are happy together. And it's a bit hard to be happy if you're worrying about something that's still so far off."

Nodding his head, Zim sighed. "I know..." he said before taking a seat on the floor, finding Dib starting to make his arms weary. "He's so much heavier...How much more do you think he will grow?...I don't want him to hurt..." he said.

"Do you mean individually? Or how much more he will grow in terms of the pregnancy? Because I'm fairly certain those smeets still have quite a bit more growing to do before they're born. Humans carry for around 9 months."

Tugging at his antennas, Zim whined and nearly slapped himself as he pulled his wig out of his PAK and placed it on his head. "There are too many for him..." he said.

"Zim, you have to try and stay strong for Dib. I know that it seems impossible, but trust me, it has been done before. Humans are perfectly capable of giving birth to 2, 3, and sometimes more babies in one pregnancy. And Dib is a strong individual. He'll pull through this."

Stroking Dib's hair, Zim nodded and pet back his antennas. "I hope so..." he said.

"Zim, you can't just hope so. You need to have confidence that he can do this. Otherwise, he won't have confidence in himself that he can do it and there will be more chances of complications arising. You just need to keep reminding yourself of how strong he is. Keep telling yourself that he can do this. I'm not saying it will be easy, but it is possible. And I can't think of anyone else who could probably pull this off better than Dib."

Zim looked up at her sadly. "B-But if something happens...If anything goes wrong...I might lose him...And it would be all my fault." he said

Rose sighed. "I know you're scared about losing him, Zim. Scared that something might go wrong...But what more can you do at this point? You can't take it back, so the best thing for both of you to do would be to stay positive and prepare as much as physically possible for the birth. The more you do, the less likely anything will go wrong. And you know Jack and I will help you as much as you need." she said.

Zim nodded. "I know..." he said before remembering the book they brought with them and pulling it out. "Will this help?" he asked.

Blinking down at the book, Rose reached down to take it before giving it a good look over. "Well, it's a good start." she said, flipping through a few of the pages.

"Dib wanted us to be prepared...We don't really know what comes with multiple smeets..."

"Well, this should help you get an idea of what's in store for you two. But I think it would be best that Jack and I signed you up for a class that deals with actually putting the concepts in this book to action. It's no good to just read about it. You need to physically and mentally prepare yourselves. And we'll probably sign you up for a class that will deal with the actual delivery process once Dib gets closer to his due date."

Petting Dib, Zim nodded. "Okay. Anything to help..." he said.

Handing back the book to Zim, Rose smiled. "You know, there are plenty of other ways you guys can prepare. I assume you have a computer, so I would recommend going online and reading up on it there too. Sometimes it's more helpful when you can look at other people's pregnancy stories. And you may even pick up a few home remedies for dealing with Dib's pregnancy symptoms." she said.

"Okay...Thank y-"

"Got it!" Jack ran back to the three, carrying a VERY sweetened ice coffee. "I hope he likes it cold." he said.

Taking the cup from Jack, Rose smiled at him. "Cold should be fine just so long as it has caffeine in it." she said before turning back to Zim. "Alright, Zim. Can you sit him up and try to wake him up enough to take this?" she asked, kneeling down near them.

Propping Dib up, Zim nodded and began shaking him a bit to make him wake back up. "Come on, Dib-love~" he said.

Letting out a small whine when Zim gave him a shake, Dib turned over in his sleep and pressed himself up against the Irken's chest. "Mmm..." he sounded out, not ready to wake up yet.

"Come on, Dib. You need to wake up. You can sleep more when we get home, okay?"

Antennae twitching, Dib yawned before blinking his eyes slowly open, his eyelids still drooping from how tired he was. "...But I'm so tired..." he murmured against the other's shirt, reluctant to be moved.

"Come on, Dib. This will wake you up. " Rose said, reaching out to sit him up enough to take the cup from her. "Just drink this and you should start to feel better, okay?" she said, helping him lift the cup of coffee up to his lips to drink.

Watching intently as Dib took the cup and took a few sips from it, Zim twitched his antennae forward curiously, waiting for some kind of drastic reaction from the other.

"I know you like sweet, so I had them add a lot of sugar and caramel flavoring."

Placing the cup back down on the floor after he had gotten through about half of it, Dib shuddered, his antennae drooping as he leaned back in to press against Zim. "I'm still tired..." he said.

"Well, it may take a few minutes to kick in."

"Yeah...I also had them add an extra shot of espresso..."

Just continuing to shiver from head to toe in Zim's arms for a few minutes longer, Dib finally seemed to perk just a bit after several long minutes of waiting, his antennae lifting. "O-Okay...I-I can't sit here any l-longer..." he said in a jittery voice, tired but feeling as though he couldn't sit in one spot for any longer as the caffeine started to take its effects on him.

Watching as Dib proceeded to hop out of his lap, very jittery, Zim's eyes widened. "Is this normal?" he asked.

"Weeeell...It's normal for somebody who doesn't take caffeine in on a regular basis." Rose said, looking over at Dib who was by now pacing back and forth, arms hugged about himself. "It's a highly addictive substance. But he should be fine in a little while. This is why I asked Jack to only get him a SMALL cup of coffee." she said.

Jack blushed. "Well, it WAS a small cup..." he said.

Rolling her eyes, Rose sighed. "Let's just get started shopping already before it wears off and Dib feels like falling off to sleep again." she said, handing Jack the still half-full cup of coffee so she could take Dib by the arm and lead him back into the store with her. "Don't throw that coffee out, Jack. I want to have it with us just in case Dib falls asleep again in the middle of our shopping trip. Come on, Dib. Let's get you those new clothes I promised you." she said.

Glancing at the leaving Rose and Dib, Zim then glanced back at Jack. "Maybe they can do this better then we can..." he said.

"Well, Rose can at least. But women are always better at shopping than men are. It's like they're born to shop. And they're always so much pickier about what they buy then men are. In general, we just prefer to buy things that are comfortable and do their job regardless of how they look. But women tend to buy things that only look good and are cheap, regardless of whether their comfortable or even functional for that matter." Jack sighed out a bit, knowing Rose was by now probably putting Dib through hell on earth.

Zim laughed loudly. "That is just how females are back on Irk. They would prefer to look good and have the next best thing rather than wear anything comfortable or with a proper function. Of course, most of the females I've met haven't had a choice to wear what they want what with there being a standard uniform for invaders. But they still complain about it." he said.

Jack smirked a bit. "Heh...Guess it doesn't matter where you are in the universe. Females will be females. And I suppose males will be males. I just hope Rose isn't rotting Dib's brain in there." he said, letting out another amused noise. "Though, I suppose Rose isn't as bad as some other females can be. I just smile and nod whenever she decides to take me out shopping anywhere with her. And she DOES do a pretty good job of picking out things that will at least be useful." he said.

Zim grinned wide. "Too bad it's only me and Dib then...Looks like we don't have a female to shop for us. Unless you wouldn't mind lending Rose to us every once in a while." he said.

Jack laughed out loud a bit. "Feel free to take her whenever you need to. She loves shopping for other people when given the chance. In fact, if I know her, she's probably dragging Dib around that store like a dress up doll right now and having him try on every single outfit in there that he can fit into." he said.

Leaning on Jack for support, Zim laughed louder. "Oh poor Dib!" he exclaimed.

Jack snickered into his hands a bit. "If I weren't so afraid Rose were going to make us dress up in different outfits too, I'd suggest we go in there just to watch. I just hope she's actually letting him get dressed on his own though and not just dragging him into a dressing room with her to try new clothes on. Though, knowing her, she probably is." he said.

Zim snickered a little. "Poor Dib. He wouldn't like that. He is very shy, after all." he said.

"Well, I think Rose loses sight of that once she starts shopping. Besides, since she loves children so much and we've had such a hard time having any of our own, I think from the time she met Dib, she almost saw him as though he were the child she never had. I can see it in her. It's almost like her more motherly nature comes out whenever she's around him."

Zim nodded. "Yeah...I can tell she treats him much differently then she does you and me." he said.

"It's because he's still just a kid. She worries about him, thinks he's insecure. But I keep on telling her that that's just how teenagers are and that he'll more than likely grow out of it eventually. It's almost like she's forgotten about how we were as teens."

Shaking his head, Zim sighed. "But Dib IS different...He's not fully human anymore...And his parental unit was always very mentally and emotionally abusive...He kicked both Dib AND his evil, physically abusive sister out of the house...And now he's pregnant..."

"I know...Dib told us all this when we first met him. He's been through a lot, and we can't blame him for being so insecure about everything. But so long as he has us to support him, we're hoping he'll slowly start to grow out of those insecurities as he gets older. Even if is DOES take him a while to recover, he WILL recover in time. We just can't push him too hard. It will happen naturally, and we're certain he'll go on to live a perfectly normal life."

Zim smiled a little. "Or as normal as he can with me around..."

"Or as normal as he can with you around..." Jack repeated before looking back towards the door to the store. "I just hope this shopping trip doesn't add any more stress onto his already mentally abused mind." he joked a bit.

Meanwhile, inside the store, Rose approached Dib with yet another shirt she had found. "Oh, this is cute! What do you think, Dib?" she asked, holding up a nice dress shirt to him.

A/N: And there you have it for Chapter 90. =3 Until next time~