Dib kicked open the front door- it had been particularly sticky the past month and he had gotten sick of trying to ram it with his shoulder. Gaz was settled on the living room couch, a headset over her ears, but by the time Dib had crossed to the stairs, she had tugged it down.
"Zim do anything funny today?"
Dib's hand hovered over the bottom of the banister, considering. "Ah, it was… boy, it was something."
"Some idiot just lost the game for us, so I'm all ears. Zim being an moron's more entertaining than playing with people who have the shooting abilities of a squashed ant anyways." She kept watching the screen, switching through her character skins. Dib waited until she picked Santa- a threatening display now, considering how Santa seemed to get bigger and more aggressive every year, thanks Zim- before answering.
"So, it turns out Zim can get pregnant."
Gaz actually turned her head at that, one eye opening fully.
"He can what?" Her voice was dry, but he'd known her for seventeen years- he could hear the 'I need an explanation now ' layered into the words.
Dib rubbed the back of his neck. "Eheh, yeah, would have been nice to know that before, huh-"
"If you're telling me you actually screwed Zim, I'd rather carve my ears out than hear about it, so I'm going to stop you right there."
"I didn't, that's the weird part!" Dib leaned against the banister. "It was from him biting me or something?"
"If Dad asks why you bring a kid around, you're the one explaining." Gaz turned back to her game. "Maybe if they're not a freak you won't have to homeskool them."
Dib stared at the back of her head for a moment. Homeskool. Skool. Skool started at about five. Five years of managing them until they went to skool, and then probably another thirteen at least after that. They'd need to figure out how to feed them, probably a nightmare considering Zim's freakishly long list of allergies, entertain them, educate them… just dealing with them before skool would be only a few years shorter than the amount of time since he'd first met Zim, and that felt like an eternity. And that wasn't even getting into if irkens aged differently from humans, which they probably did. He slumped against the banister.
"Holy shit, what are we getting ourselves into?"
"Something stupid, I'm sure." Gaz had pulled her headset back on, but a glance at the screen showed she wasn't playing again yet. "Look, you're a moron, but you're also probably the smartest person around here besides Dad and I. If anybody can handle this, it's you. Just don't bother me about it unless it turns out Zim has to lay eggs in your stomach or something. I don't want to get infected with alien cooties."
Dib sucked in a deep breath. "Thanks, Gaz."
"If you try to take my trophy room as a nursery, you're dead, got it?" She entered back into the game and Dib figured their conversation was over.
"Got it," he answered anyway, starting up the stairs. Soon enough he heard her yelling at the TV. He continued down the hall to his room and flopped down face-first on the bed. "You're in it deep now, Membrane." He mumbled into the mattress, nebula bedsheets not giving any response. He rolled over, tracing the glowing constellations on his ceiling. He still remembered when he'd painted them- Dad had even helped with a few, trying to push him towards astronomy instead of aliens.
Dad. Well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. With any luck, he might not even notice anything was up until the kid was a few months old and Dib had a better excuse. Trying out his own cloning, maybe, that would probably make him happy. He'd always had a weird soft spot for Zim anyways. Dib spent a lot of time with Zim already, a bit more wouldn't be suspicious.
He pulled out his phone, scrolling through the photos. It was filled with rather blurry paranormal creatures, selfies with said paranormal creatures, and then blurrier ones as they realized Dib was trying to take selfies and Dib had hit the camera button on accident when he was running from them.
Scattered throughout were pictures of Zim in his disguise, often after stealing Dib's phone and usually making dumb faces. There was one video of him sticking out his tongue before getting splattered with a gross brown and orangey mush. He yelled at Gir offscreen and ended the recording, and Dib smiled to himself. "Stupid alien." He stood up, crossing the room to his desk to upload the videos he'd made- getting footage of Zim without his disguise was still rare even now, and Zim hadn't bothered to delete the first video he'd made earlier.
It was surprisingly clear, and Zim's antennae twitching when he looked down at the camera was kind of adorable. Over the years, Dib had caught plenty of his little tells, and this one was confused for a moment and then angry in the seconds before the video ended. He took a screenshot to make his desktop background. Seeing both of them looking down at the screen gave the impression that they were staring out of his computer, and he chuckled before loading up the other video, the proper log.
He played it back, then took a screenshot of when Zim had pulled his shirt up, moving it a new folder and titling it 'progression' before leaning back in his chair.
"One day at a time, Dib. One day at a time."