Ch.5: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

When Dib finally managed to get away from his bandmates and the usual general post-concert craziness, he made his way straight to the cubby at the back of the stage, fully expecting the alien to be gone.

Glancing over his shoulder out of habit-there was no one even close to where he was; they were all busy getting hammered around a small bonfire near the park's pond-Dib hurried as quickly and silently as he could to the cubby. Once there, he dropped to his knees in front of it and shoved the ivy aside.

He wasn't.

Zim was still in the cubby. He had turned over and curled in on himself in his sleep, handcuffed hands pressed against his chest, but he was still there. Still Dib's prisoner.

Dib stared, dumbstruck, hardly daring to believe what his eyes were telling him. He didn't know how long he just kind of sat there staring-it could have been anywhere from five minutes to an hour, for all he knew-before one glorious word penetrated his stunned brain.

Victory.

He'd finally won! It had taken six years, but he had finally done it. The alien was his to expose at last-well his and Scattermoon's, but that was just a small detail. When he delivered Zim to SEN's leader, they would prove to the world that aliens existed, and he would finally get the recognition-

He shook his head hard to dislodge that dangerous train of thought, scythe lock whipping back and forth. No. All he would do was deliver the green freak to Scattermoon, and that was it. Whatever happened after that was completely her and SEN's business. After that he would wash his hands clean of the paranormal (again) and focus on the Spooky Dukes and his happy, normal life.

With that firmly in mind, Dib leaned forward, easily scooping up the smaller alien again. As he brought him out of the cubby, the flattened antennae shivered, and the sleeping alien whimpered again and turned in Dib's loose grip, hands uncurling to grip Dib's shirt, face pressing into the boy's black clad shoulder.

Said boy just sat there on his knees for a minute, confused. He hadn't been expecting compliance of any kind from the alien, even in sleep, and...not like this. It was so strange and out of character for the alien, it put a weird, squirmy feeling in Dib's stomach...He quickly shook it off and stood up, beginning the silent, careful trudge back to his car.

Several minutes later, and Dib's black Lexus pulled up into the driveway. He glanced at the clock on his dash as he turned the engine off. 12am. Gaz would be in bed, and Dib's dad, if he was here, would be in the lab, or in bed himself, if the man ever slept (which Dib still had doubts about). Either way, he was clear to bring the alien in.

"Heh. Listen to that. Even my thoughts have fallen back into old habits." he mumbled to himself. He snorted. "And so has my voice box, apparently."

Stashing the keys into his trench coat pocket, he got out, turning immediately to open the back seat, where Zim lay, still snoring obliviously away. Dib sighed, not wanting to touch the alien and be grabbed again, but seeing as he had no choice in the matter...

He ducked in, slipping his arms underneath the half curled green body. Said body was limp, and didn't move to grab Dib again, but when he straightened, he sighed, mumbling something in what Dib assumed was Irken. It...sounded like a name. Dib stared at the sleeping face, wondering who...He shook his head, nudging the car door shut with his hip.

"Doesn't matter, Dib," he mumbled to himself. "Focus."

Inside the darkened house, his father's floating screen rushed silently to meet Dib at the door, but it didn't show him his father's face. Instead it displayed a message in glowing green letters. Dib barely spared it a glance, knowing that all it was was a variation on an old theme-Dad had to stay over at the main lab. Same old shit, different excuse. Dib had stopped caring about it a long time ago.

He sidestepped the machine, somewhat more awkwardly than usual due to the alien burden in his arms, but he managed all the same, making his silent, careful way to and up the stairs. An angry, sleep-deprived Gaz was not a monster Dib wanted to face-ever.

In the far corner of Dib's room lay a small, makeshift nest of sorts, made up of a few pillows and old blankets. A thin cord made up of the same material as the handcuffs hung from a steel ring up high on the wall, well out of reach of devious alien fingers. Dib may be a lot of things, but he wasn't a monster. Zim's stay at Casa Membrane, though short and definitely not first class, would not be uncomfortable. It was much more than the murderous, genocidal alien deserved, but...oh well.

Dib sighed to himself, placing the alien on his back in the nest of blankets and pillows. Taking the slender metal cord in hand, he attached it carefully to the cuffs' linking chain, giving it several firm tugs to make sure it would be strong enough to restrain the weakened alien, should he become aware enough to attempt to escape.

When he was satisfied with it, he dropped the cord and cuffs, moving over to his computer...

The next morning, Dib was awakened, not by sunlight or a response from Scattermoon but a small, hard object hitting him in the back of head.

"Ow...?" Dib blinked, wondering groggily why he had a sideways view of his windows, and more importantly, of his undisturbed bed. Oh yeah. Capturing Zim. Going to the computer to contact Scattermoon...He sat up slowly, wincing at the crick in his neck, reaching up to feel the headset still on his head. He must have fallen asleep mid broadcast.

"'ey." Something thunked on the carpet right next to Dib's chair as he pulled off the headset. "Stinky Dib."

Dib looked up at the slurred voice. Zim had managed to not only sit up, but to lean against the wall for support as well. At some point the conacts had come out, and the alien looked at Dib through fuzzy ruby slits.

He wasn't throwing-or attempting to throw-a tantrum like Dib had expected him to. He wasn't even yelling. He was just kind of sitting there, like a limp green doll, one antenna slicked flat against his scalp, the other perked up weakly, like a limp flag, as if he were listening.

Dib meant to say something like "shut up" or "what", since the alien had called his name, but what came out was something completely different. "Why did you come back, Zim?"

Surprise at the question spread slowly on the foreign green face. Then it settled into a sleepy, lopsided smirk. "Makin' amends."

Except it sounded more like "mikin amids". Dib snorted. "The day you decide to make amends, Zim, is the day I dress up and go flamenco dancing."

Zim did his old face where one nonexistent brow would lift and the other would narrow, except the cuffs' lethargic effect made the expression drunken-looking and lopsided. It would have been hilarious, had Dib been in a laughing mood. "Whut's fla-mink-o?"

Dib opened his mouth to tell the clueless alien to forget it, when the computer in front of him chimed softly. It was the only warning he got before Scattermoon's shadowy face filled the screen.

"Yes, Agent Mothman?"

Dib shut his mouth quickly, turning to face his former leader. "Agent Scattermoon, I have Subject Zim."

Slender, feminine hands gripped each other in excitement. "Excellent! I knew you could do it! Brilliant, brilliant work. Come to the Regional Park on the edge of town with it this evening, before sundown."

"Understood. Mothman out." Scattermoon nodded as Dib shut off the program, then his computer. All the while he felt the weight of a ruby stare on the back of his head. Reluctantly, he turned to meet it, braced for the tantrum he was sure he would have to deal with now...

He was met with wide, confused crimson eyes. "Wha...?"

"It was exactly what it sounded like, Zim." Dib's voice was flat. "I'm going to give you to the leader of the Swollen Eyeball Network so I won't have to deal with your shit anymore. Whatever happens to you after that will be up to the Network."

Both of the smaller alien's antennae flattened again, eyes narrowing in anger even as the rest of him shrank back further against the wall. "Typical hyuuman," he slurred. "Tryin' makin' friends an' they throw it in Zim's face..."

Dib snorted. "You were never here to make friends with me, Zim. Not then and sure as hell not now. That's just another lame attempt to get around me so you can destroy the planet. Hate to say it, space boy, but things are not going to go your way this time."

What the hell was wrong with him? Those words should have been gloating, victorious, but all he could manage was bitterness and anger. Just like the day he found out Zim was leaving Earth for war out in space...

Zim opened his mouth to say something-probably some half-assed denial-but Dib cut him off. "Just shut up, Zim. Or better yet, go back to sleep." And with that he stood up, with enough focus to make his chair roll back, and buried himself in his own bed, yanking the blankets over his head and curling away from his captive.

...

Zim stared at the lump on the bed, stunned. The Dib really wasn't the Dib anymore. The thought should have made Zim cackle with glee. The Dib-monkey had finally succumbed to the dis-gusting, filthy ignorance the other dirt-monkeys called 'conformity.' If Zim managed to escape-and he would, because he was ZIM-the world would be his to destroy at his leisure.

But Zim was far from gleeful. He hissed in anger, gloved hands clenching weakly in his lap. This WAS NOT how Zim wanted it to be, how it was supposed to be. Destroying the Dib had been one of the main draws of coming back to this filthy acidic mudball. Without the Dib to get in his way...the victory would be pointless. As pointless as squishing a whole colony of bugs. And not even the stinging kind, either.

There had to be something here, something to explain the dramatic change in the Dib. Zim only had a limited time to find it-his PAK had given him a small injection while they had been talking, just enough of one to wake him up some and clear his head a bit. But with the cuffs still on, it wouldn't last.

"PAK!" he growled, twisting his head around to glare at what he could see of said machinery. Its internal mechanisms clicked, whirred...but no legs appeared. Instead, a message flashed across his eyes.

INTERNAL CONNECTION ERROR: PAK LEGS UNAVAILABLE

The alien growled out an Irken word that would have made the Almighty Tallest blush, kicking out in a weak, furious tantrum-a motion that brought his attention outward, where a glint of light on metal caught his eye.

It was the handle of a very large gray cabinent, near where Dib had chained him to the wall. A cabinent whose door was ajar.

PAK completely forgotten, the alien scooted toward it, shoving and kicking pillows and blankets out of his way...but the cord attached to the cuffs quickly brought him up short. He hissed in irritation, yanking as hard as he could on it, but it was no use. Refusing to be thwarted by the hyuuman and his inferior Earth technology, the small alien stretched out as flat as he could, straining out with a booted foot toward the open door...

Finally, the tip of his boot caught on the edge of the door, and he was able to push it completely open. As Zim squeed in victory, something light and papery fluttered out of the cabinent, landing on his foot. Curiously, and with the last dregs of his leap in energy, Zim sat up, pulling the thing to him with his foot.

It was an image device hyumans called a 'photograph'. When he turned it over, his own disguiseless face stared back. He was inside his base, sitting slumped on the couch, plotting, an equally disguiseless GIR curled at his feet, asleep with a metal thumb stuck in his mouth.

The photo was not recent; it was old and starting to yellow on the edges. It was worn, too, but not from age. Fingers had caused the worn patches, though repeated handling; he could feel the vague shape of them in the material. Human fingers...Zim's head lifted, eyes narrowing at the lump on the bed, gears turning in his mind...

A/N: This is why I always come here for my ego boosts. You guys write such nice things to me when you review :). Usual dislclaimer: Zim, Dib and Invader Zim in general belong to Jhonen Vasquez, not me.