Dib ended up making the doughnuts anyway. Zim had started whining and kicking at the newly-forming bruise, and besides, he kind of wanted doughnuts too now. He distracted Gir by tying a piece of string with a noodle on the end to his antenna, letting the robot chase himself in circles before passing out and starting to drool on the living room carpet.

"Alright, bon appetit." Dib set the tray down in front of Zim, licking the powdered sugar from his own lips. He'd already eaten his- after the bag of sugar incident, he didn't trust Zim around any sweets he wanted for himself, considering his apparent capacity nowadays.

Zim grabbed one. "I will forgive the picking up just this once."

"Right, I'm so honored." Dib said, settling down next to him. "Still feel hot?"

"Don't worry your big pretty head over it, I'm fine." Zim said, shoving the doughnut into his mouth.

"Pretty?" Dib laughed. "You are delirious."

"That's a phrase, no?" Zim asked. "I thought you'd appreciate the compliment."

"Oh, you're- you were being serious?" Dib blinked. "Thanks, then."

"Mmm, it's only because you made me foods." Zim said. "Not as good as your sister did, though."

"Yeah, she's weirdly good at cooking. She said it was something to do with chemical reactions, but it was a trip the first few months when she kept using way too much sugar in stuff and forgot to drain the fat out of the hamburger. Boy, did those end up gross."

Gir kicked at something in his sleep, one leg flying halfway across the room before zooming back to his body like a magnet. Dib stared at him for a moment before looking back up at Zim, now on his third doughnut. He pulled out his notebook, starting to take down a few notes. He preferred writing on paper sometimes- he'd had either Zim or Gir break his digital notepad one too many times.

Zim currently has a fever, and it made him stumble and he's sweating, but it doesn't seem to be affecting him much emotionally. Not yet, anyway. He's eating multiple doughnuts, which is helping confirm my theory that his body craves sweets. Zim's diet usually consists of foods high in sugar already, and the incident with Tak trying to fill the planet with snacks as well as the few transmissions I've seen to the Tallests make me think that it's a staple of irken diets. I wonder if Zim would be less hyper if he cut down on it, but I'm not going to risk it, especially while he's carrying a kid. I should look up what pregnant people usually crave, but so far it seems like he hasn't wanted any human food he didn't already tolerate or like, so it might be more irken than human. Besides, it wasn't made how babies usually are, so it probably had to use more of Zim's DNA to compensate for

"Wha're you doin'?" Zim mumbled, getting crumbs on the paper as he craned his head to look. Dib tilted the notebook away.

"Nothing."

"Show to Zim!"

"It's just writing down what you're doing right now. You know what you're doing." Dib said, gnawing on the end of his pen.

"I do," Zim said with a swallow. "But I don't know what you think I'm doing."

"I think you're sitting there eating your fifth doughnut." Dib raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, you do." Zim said, digging the tv remote out of the couch cushions and clicking it on. "Heh, I remember this episode. It's terrible."

"Riiiiiight." Dib started writing again.

not having even amounts. Unless it's been collecting my blood for a while? That's kind of creepy to think about. Zim seems a little calmer right now- the computer said he's usually whiny when he gets sick, but maybe the baby is taking all his energy? Considering how many sweets he's having, maybe it's going to go through some kind of growth spurt? I can kind of see it, but he's slumped over weird so it's not very clear. I wonder if it's uncomfortable, but he'd probably be complaining if it was. He complains a lot in general.

"Dib."

Really, I guess I would complain a lot too if I was on a planet where 75% of the food could kill me, and the atmosphere too if the way Gaz said he was during that incident where his pak got knocked off. Ugh, that still makes me shudder- I brush up against the marks in the shower a lot. I'm probably one of the only people on earth who has almost completely circular scars. At least Zim's blood didn't poison me or anything. I hope. I threw up afterwards but I'm pretty sure that was just getting alien machinery yanked out of my guts.

"Diiiiib."

I wonder if that's the reason I can understand some irken writing? I mean, yeah, it's a language like any other, but learning the alphabet came weirdly easy, almost like I already knew it. Maybe at some point we could do some controlled tests and see if he could transfer some information into my brain. That'd be so cool! He probably wouldn't object to me learning some irken history, it's not like I could use it against him.

"Dib, why are there two of you?"

Dib looked up at that. "Huh?"

"I said , why are there two of you? Are your earholes not working?" Zim's skin was slick with sweat now and he was trembling. Dib fumbled the notepad back into his pocket, pressing the back of his hand to Zim's forehead.

"Shit, you're hot!"

"I know I am." Zim gave a loopy grin, words sounding a tad slurred. "So?"

"Hot physically, not attractively, you moron." Dib gnawed on his bottom lip as Zim hugged himself, rubbing his arms up and down his biceps. "Computer, anything that can help?"

"It'll pass. Probably."

"Great, you're useless," Dib muttered. "I can't exactly give you an ice pack… and dropping the temperature in here will just give you the chills."

"Dib. Wormy squirmy dirt-being." Zim slumped against Dib's side, cheek squishing against his shirt. "Warm me."

"You don't need to be warmed, you need to be cooled down," Dib said before Zim nuzzled his sweaty face on the fabric.

"You feel tolerable. You will be my pillow for now."

Dib ran a hand down Zim's head. It was still hot, but Zim wasn't shivering anymore. "Huh. Maybe this is a mating thing? Needing to be close?" Gir had been right, he kind of did smell like a burger. Weird.

"The pillows stink of turkey. You smell like me. You're the better choice for now." Zim said. "Now pet me."

"Mm?"

Zim's antennae both flicked in annoyance. "I said, pet me! You made me all sicky, you do what I say!"

"Okay, okay, geez. I just thought you were delirious at first." Dib started rubbing Zim's left antenna, and Zim made a happy-sounding chirping noise. Dib figured it meant he was doing something right and kept at it.

Within a few minutes, Zim had pulled his knees up to his stomach and closed his eyes. Dib wasn't sure if he was asleep or not. He wiped the sweat off on his own pants, and Zim was relaxing on his lap.

At some point, Zim had kicked the remote and muted the tv. Dib didn't mind, preferring to study the heap of alien in his legs anyways. Zim was nuzzled into him in a way he'd probably hate if he was fully aware. It didn't stop Dib from maneuvering out his phone to take a picture, though.

(By the end of the day, the fever had receded, but Zim was still strangely cuddly. Dib found he didn't mind.)