A/N: Warning for gore mentions in this one. Not too far off show-typical but figured better safe than sorry.

"Give me the pizza, you're hogging it," Zim held out a hand as Dib had the box on his side of the couch. He had grease dripping down the side of his mouth. Zim really should be used to little gross habits by now, but it still made his spooch turn.

"Get your own." Dib huffed. "This one has pepperonis, I didn't think you liked meat."

"Well, I want it now." Zim planted his hands on his hips, and Dib lifted the box, licking a dribble of cheese from the side. He turned, eyes wide and brown and irken-full, the light glittering as they reflected back on Zim the battlefield around them.

Zim turned, tumbling off the couch before Skoodge grabbed his arm and pulled him up. It was dusty, and he rubbed his eyes, but that just got dust in them and that hurt, so he stopped.

"Come on, she's right behind us!"

"Who?"

"The Louse woman!" Skoodge exclaimed, wrenching Zim's arm out of its socket for a moment before it suctioned back to his body as he ran. His body was heavy and slow because the world around him was moving too fast. When he glanced back, it wasn't the Countess but Tak, large and looming with the antenna of a SIR unit. Zim kicked sand up at her face and grinned as she screeched, but he tripped and rolled into a lab table.

Dib grinned at him, glasses glinting and teeth shiny with malice. "Let's see just how long that smeet can survive outside of you, shall we?"

"No!" Zim arched his back but he was strapped down tight, his stomach so large he couldn't see until Dib started cutting. His skin opened like hot butter, the smeet wailing. They were Zim's size and fit into Dib's hands and arms the same way Zim did, green skin and antennae as long and kinked as Dib's hair-lock but with large human eyes. They reached for Zim, crying out as Dib twirled the scalpel once before driving it directly into their stomach and twisting, bright pink organs spilling like so much stuffing out of a teddy bear.

"Get away!" Zim strained to get up again but his skin was pinned down to the table like a dissection specimen. He didn't even realize his spooch was gone until Dib wrapped it around his neck like a scarf. The smeet kept wailing, and Gir joined in, eyes locked duty-red.

Dib turned and spoke with Miyuki's voice. "Show me what this one has to offer." He held up Gir this time, but his stinking human hands were bathed in pink, dripping like wax down a candle.

"I'll rip your throat out!" Zim roared, and Dib laughed.

"Is that any way to speak to your Tallest?"

Zim lunged, the restraints tearing like tissue paper as he pinned Dib down, dripping blood and bits of viscera as his claws dug into the mud. He faintly remembered this place from training. How had Dib gotten to Devastis?

"Don't touch them! They're mine!"

"Zim!" Dib bucked under Zim's hips, cheeks red but still splattered with bubblegum blood.

"Mine, you hear? Mine!"

"Zim!" A worm burst from the ground, biting into Zim's cheek and trying to drag him down, but he wasn't having that- he clutched Dib desperately, trying to push him into the worm's grip instead. The worm released him before biting again, this time crying out his name as it did. "Zim, let go!"

"You're the one biting me!"

"No, I'm-" The worm let go again, before it grew hands to massage at his stomach. His stomach was transparent now, and stuffed full of skulls. Zim scrambled up, curling around it before the world began to shake.

"Wake up!" Dib's voice sounded more frantic and less sadistic, and also decidedly less Miyuki-like. Zim's head whipped around before he fell back and the world went bright.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. Dib was straddled over him, sweaty and with a hand on both of Zim's shoulders.

"Gah!" Zim tried to scramble back, but only hit headboard. "Get away from us!"

Dib was breathing hard. "I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes- your Pak was glowing, you must have been having a nightmare!"

Zim snarled- so Dib thought he could trick him with more lies? He'd cleaned the blood off quickly, but he was good at doing things to fool Zim, to trick him the way he'd been doing for years. Zim twisted hard, then kicked out, nailing Dib in his gutmeats. Dib doubled over.

"Gah! Geez, what's your deal? "

"You can't have either of us, you rotten smelly cutty bloody-"

The color drained from Dib's face as he straightened back up. "Oh- oh boy. It involved me, didn't it?"

"You should know, you were just- just-" Zim's eyes darted around, antennae pressed flat against the top of his head. Things weren't shifting this time. "Count to fifteen."

"What?"

"Now!" Zim snapped, and Dib stiffened.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight-"

"Fine, that's fine." Zim wrapped his arms around himself. He was... he was in Dib's old shirt again, and could feel the material of his gloves on the bare skin of his arms. "This one is better, but you can't…"

"This isn't a dream." Dib reached over to the side table for his glasses. "Can you pinch yourself or something?"

Zim shook his head. "I can feel things in dreams. It's muted but there."

Dib winced. "Yikes. I've had a few nightmares that would be total hell like that. The demon tuna especially, although a few involve you too, I guess some things take a while to really penetrate your subconscious-"

"Tell me." Zim leaned forward, just as Dib leaned back, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I don't think you're really in the best frame of-"

"I want to know. Perhaps your human brain's imaginings are ridiculous enough that I'll be sure I'd never have thought of it."

Dib swished saliva around in his mouth for a few moments in thought. "Okay, here's one. I haven't had it in a while, but I dreamed about you dissecting me a good few times. But you had my dad's goggles instead of the ones you usually use. I can never hear what you're saying but you're pretty enthusiastic." A nervous grin stretched his face, all teeth. "Honestly, the older I get, the more I stopped worrying about that, you'd be pretty damn bored without me."

"No, no, I could think of that." Zim brushed away at the air. "What else?"

"Um, I had one where you were my brother once. That was weird mostly because nothing really happened, you just… were wearing my coat and we went to skool together. I think that was right before we started dating and were both still kind of confused about where this thing was going." He shrugged. "I also had a few where you were some other kind of paranormal creature, like a ghost or a mermaid or a demon. Boy, is there a story with that one."

As Dib spoke, Zim could feel his tensed muscles begin to unwind. Nothing had changed, and as he scanned the walls, the details were perfect. Of course, dreams were rare, so he couldn't rely on any single cue, but Dib sounded right, and the edges weren't all fuzzy like memory blended with dreams tended to be. "Hmm."

"Convinced this is real?" Dib asked, and Zim opened his mouth to reply before the smeet gave a particularly hard kick. His hand shifted down from his side to where they had moved.

"Mmm… yes." Zim decided aloud. "They're helping, though."

"That's good. Still nice and active?"

"For a half-human, they don't sleep much."

"Heh, yeah, no one in my family really gets the amount we're supposed to. Just never thought there were enough hours in the day." Dib scooted closer.

"There are when you don't have to sleep for half of it."

"Eight isn't half, and I usually get five anyways. Besides, you took a three-hour nap earlier and who knows how long you were asleep before your flailing around woke me up?"

Zim shoved at him. "Shut your noise-hole, I'm only doing this to keep our smeet happy, they're draining all of my-" Dib's grin widened, and Zim stared. "What?"

"You said our."

"I did?"

"Yeah, you did." Dib pulled Zim into a hug, and Zim immediately started squirming.

"Let go of me!"

"Nope, it's hug time."

"It is not!" Zim tried to snarl, but he could feel his traitorous body already relaxing in Dib's grip. Cursed hormones! Dib let him go a few seconds later, eyes bright.

"I get why your brain was being all loopy and weird, hormones probably do that, but we can make a log later. For now, what do you say I try and make some waffles before Gir wakes up?"

Zim glanced over at the clock- the soft pulse read 8:42.

"That sounds just fine."