Invader Sideos just keeps on inventing new ways to intro these things: Yup, so...stuffs a gonna happen here. Yep. Cool. Chillin'. Hip-hop-happanin'. I need sugar...now. Blegh.

Righto, I'm gonna check if I got English homework, and then do this. I never said I would do the homework...bah, screw grades. Ok, this chapter gonna be about shiz...N Keef! That's right kids; Keef is back, with a boyfriend! Sorta…

Anyway, here I go.

Oh, and sorry for the long update wait. I went on holiday, then my editor went on holiday and etc, etc, you know how it is.

Written to Iggy and the Stoodges - Lust For Life and Search And Destroy. Also NOFX - Drugs Are Good (And when you do 'em, people think that you're cool!)

I don't own Zim bla, bla, bla.

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Zim's eyes snapped open, before closing again quickly in reaction to the bright winter sun. Slowly he reopened them, giving them a chance to adjust to the morning. He had been out for some time, as was the usual with the drug. However, the Irken body needs no sleep, so the moment the trip ended he would be active again. The sunlight streamed thought the windows, giving some natural light to the dank, filthy drug den.

Outside the world had woke up hours ago, a quick glance to the clock on the kitchen wall told Zim it was at least nine in the morning. The street outside was still quiet, but in the distance Zim could hear the sound of humans going about their daily business, also he could hear the faint sounds of the jingly-jingling of Christmas carols. Or at least the automated shop and advertising ones.

He lifted himself up onto one elbow and looked around at the others. Shawn was lying on a mattress in the far corner of the room, still asleep and snoring quietly. Iggy was slumped on the haggard leather chair, his arms hanging over the sides and a now empty syringe still held loosely in his hand.

However, he couldn't see Lilith or Vega. He sat straight up and his squeedlyspooch rumbled. He rubbed a hand across his belly and, with a wry smile, wondered when he had last eaten something.

He sighed and backed up slightly so he could lean back against the wall. He looked up and rubbed his face slowly with his hands, moving from his cheeks to across his antenna and to the back of his head.

It took a moment of staring into space before he realised that his antenna were uncovered.

He jumped to his feet and stared wildly back at the place were he had been lying. After a moment of searching with his eyes he jumped onto the mattress, throwing off the blanket and almost tearing the thing apart in his panicking quest to get his wig back.

A sudden squeak brought his attention to the kitchen. He slowly crept round the counter corner on his hands and knees, being very careful to avoid the junk and needles, to come face to face with a rat. A rat with a black wig in its yellow teeth.

Zim and the rat stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Zim narrowed his eyes, which thankfully still had their contacts on, and the rat replied likewise.

The room stood still, even the sound from the world outside seem to die away slightly. If the room had tumbleweed now would have been its opportune moment to blow across the dirty battleground that the Irken and rat had created between them.

Then the rat's tail twitched and Zim lunged forward. Had he been on his feet he may have actually caught the small filthy animal, but, as he was not, his claw closed just were the rat used to be. He watched in shock as the mammal darted to the other side of the kitchen and into a large black crack in the wall. Zim was after it in a second, ramming his arm into the crack and trying to grab at anything he could get his claw around.

However, he couldn't get anything, the rat had stolen his hair. Zim's face twisted in rage, he was already on his feet and kicking the wall with such force that it actually created a small crater.

"CURSE YOU, RAT-THING! CUUURRRSE YOOOU!" He howled in pure anger. He even grabbed his antenna and pulled them down, making him scream even more.

A moan from behind him made him quickly drop his fury as Shawn turned over in his ragged bed and drowsily said "Shut up, Zim..." before he resumed his quiet snoring.

Zim decided that now would be a good time to leave, at least before everyone woke up and spotted the wig-less alien in the kitchen.

He was out the door and down into the main lobby in under three minutes, he would have to keep to the back streets and alleyways to avoid detection if he was to get back to his home in time. So caught up in his thoughts was Zim that as he ran though the main hall he didn't notice the thin human carrying several Bloaties Pizza Hog boxes until he ran right into them.

"Agh!"

"Ow!"

They both fell onto the floor with a heavy thump and the pizza boxes fell about around them. Zim immediately jumped back up onto his feet. He quickly rubbed his forehead where they had collided and glared at the human who was still sitting on the floor also rubbing its head.

"What do you think you're doing walking into Zim?" However, he fell silent as he saw who it was.

Lilith rapidly massaged her forehead and glared back at him. "I was getting breakfast, if you must know."

Zim suddenly found that he couldn't speak again. He wanted to reply in a witty, yet hopefully insulting way, but his mouth refused to make any words, only a static sounding "Errr..."

She stood up, still rubbing the sore spot on her head and looked at the bags around her. She gave the now rather uncomfortable looking Zim another glare and sighed. "Give me a hand, will you? Surly you're not in that much of a hurry to get out of this dump as to not have something to eat?"

Zim finally managed to say something; "Ok."

Lilith raised an eyebrow at him. "Ok what?"

Zim's antenna rose up as the weird feeling he had felt when he had first seen her started to stir. His mind was racing, just what the hell was going on? Why was he acting so strange around this human female? He needed time to properly analyse the situation.

"I-I gotta go," he stuttered out and with that he darted past her, out the open door and down the street.

Lilith sighed angrily as she watched the sickly green boy run past the closed sex shops. "Men."

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The street was alive with people, all wrapped up warm for the winter holidays. Children with parents walked the busy streets, pointing out toys they wanted in the shop windows and breaking down into tears and tantrums when they were dragged away from them. The snow, once white and fresh from the sky, had again become as dirty and trodden as the night before. Cars were backed up in pre-Christmas traffic jams, as the humans were all eager to get presents and Christmas decorations for the impending holiday.

Zim walked down the street slowly, being careful to avoid the human worm-babies that massed around him. On his right were the filthy humans and the road, which was filled with pollution spewing cars. On his left were an endless supply of shops, all decorated for the holiday season.

He had tried to keep to the alleys, but as he had come out onto the street he had noticed that no one else seemed to notice that he had antenna.

Zim had decided to take the chance to find somewhere which supplied waffles and coffee and, before any withdrawal nausea kicked in, feed himself enough to last the day.

He walked, hands in the pockets of his long flowing coat with his head hung low. He was deep in thought, his mind racing about the encounter he had just had with Lilith. Each time he re-played the scene it came out differently, one with them having a civil conversation and him walking off, one with him even apologising and walking off, one with him getting rather angry and walking off. Yet why had it turned out the way it had done?

He narrowed his eyes more at this, trying to scrape an answer from his head. It wasn't lust, this new and admittedly exciting addition to the bunny girl that had emerged last night. A small smile came to his mouth at the memory of last night's trip. He knew it was wrong, very wrong, but as long as he didn't act on those experiences in reality then the Irken police could do nothing to stop him. As long as he didn't admit to them he couldn't be found out, to admit to a thoughcrime required a great sense of self discipline and bravery, two things Zim never really had much of.

Suddenly a sound to his left brought him round; he stopped and turned to look. It was a shop selling TV's, and they were all turned onto the earth news. Usually Zim would have paid no attention, but what the Japanese looking female newscaster was saying had quickly caught his interest. "It seems that a dark cloud has appeared over this season's holiday, a cloud named aswermitus."

Zim's antenna perked in interest and he turned to fully face the window, his eyes locked on the largest screen. The female continued. "The drug, arriving here illegally from South America, was at first predicted to fail because of the high street price. However, the experts did not count on the growing number of disenchanted youth, especially the white middle class who could easily afford the drug. The numbers of users has shot up, nationally and globally. It has already taken over heroin as the most addictive substance and it is claimed by experts that just one hit of aswermitus can create a permanent daily addiction. This has already caused the drug to be classed a schedule one drug, and has been equally classed throughout the world."

Zim had to chuckle; humans and their silly governmental systems.

"The government, along with governments from across the world, including the UK, the European Union, the USSR, India and China have already taken co-operated steps to strike down on the makers and dealers of this life destroying drug."

Zim chuckled again and began to walk away; things like this would never happen in the Irken Empire. When he got accepted back he would be sure to tell his Tallest about the weakness the humans have for recreational substances.

As he grinned evilly on this thought he spotted a small, quiet looking diner with a sign outside advertising a breakfast menu, complete with coffee and waffles. Zim quietly hissed a quick, "Yes," and began to make his way towards it.

A minute later he was sitting in the shop window seat, a steaming coffee and a plate of wonderful looking waffles in-front of him. Zim had learned a small trick when it came to the way his diet now worked. He had quickly realised that the best time to get something to eat when taking aswermitus was directly after you woke up from a trip. There was always a good hour or so where there was no, or very little, withdrawal.

That meant that he could eat and drink without wanting to throw up immediately after. This trick was the single reason why he hadn't wasted totally away.

As Zim slowly chewed on the second of his five waffles he once again thought about the girl that had knocked him over this morning. What was it about her that kept her in his mind? He knew it had something to do with the bunny girl. Maybe it was because they looked so alike. That must be it, he slowly concluded, because of their similar looks he was confusing her with his own personal desire object.

He almost dropped his fork in wonderment at this new revelation. "All I need to do," he obliviously said to himself, "Is remind myself that she is not the bunny girl! Easy!"

He smiled, impressed at his own brilliance. "I am so amazing sometimes I even scare myself," and he ended with a short laugh before taking another sip of his coffee.

"Now," he mused as he put down his coffee, "all I need to do is figure out why I act so weird around her and not around the bunny girl..."

He sat like that for a while, quickly finishing his food before leaning into the booth chair and gazing out the window. He watched casually as the humans went about preparing for this annual event they so horribly named Christmas. He chuckled as he remembered the time when he almost took over the earth on that day. The memory brought back the image of Mini-moose and for a second he almost felt sad. Mini-moose had been an impossibly loyal assistant, but a few years back he had caught virus in his CPU and eventually had shut down beyond repair. Zim scowled, never again would he use non-Imperial computer boards to build a robot minion. It had also been around that time Skoodge had left. He had never agreed with Zim's self-height-engineering and he had quickly refused Zim's offer to make him taller. He had also found a job at Devastis training the new recruits. Many ex-invaders took this rout after conquering a planet. Zim paused for a second; he was one of the few invaders still to conquer his planet. His eyes narrowed in thought. In fact he was sure he was the only invader left to conquer his planet…

A shout brought Zim back into reality, "Hey, Hey Zim is that you?"

Zim turned quickly, hoping that it wasn't who he though it was, but it was indeed. "Keef," he groaned and rolled his eyes.

Keef, like Dib and the other humans in his class, had aged. He had become a slim teenager, not tall like Dib, but still taller then Zim. He still had those bright green eyes and the head of curly red hair. He was wearing green tinted jeans and baseball shoes with his trademark sky blue shirt with the rainbow logo. However, because of the winter, he was also wearing an earth brown coat and a rainbow striped scarf with black gloves. In his hands he was holding a few shopping bags, obviously filled with Christmas shopping.

Keef had sort of stuck with Zim and Dib throughout Skool and into Hi-Skool. He was never a permanent companion, but he would talk to them whenever he could. Zim and Dib had both at first detested his constant state of happiness and never ending attempts to get them to stop arguing, but eventually they had gotten used to it. It wasn't like he was ever going to win anyway.

Keef hopped up to the booth Zim was in and sat down opposite him, greeting the Irken with a huge grin. Zim couldn't help but roll his eyes again as Keef placed his shopping bags under the table.

The teenager looked back to Zim and cheerily said "Hey buddy, what'ch been up to? I haven't seen you in a while."

Zim decided to ignore the question. "What are you doing here?"

Keef continued without a flicker of hurt, that was the great thing about insulting Keef, no matter what you said to the boy it always went right over his head. "Oh I'm doing some shopping for Christmas, you know? Getting presents for my brother, my mum, dad, boyfriend."

Zim didn't disguise the disgust on his face at the mention of Keef's boyfriend. Last year Keef had finally admitted what everyone already knew, that he was gay. The news hadn't shocked anyone except Zim, who didn't think such a thing was possible.

"So," Keef leaned forward onto the table. "Are you getting presents as well?"

"No," Zim answered rather blankly.

There was a moment of silence where Keef waited to see if Zim was going to say any more. When it became apparent he was not Keef decided to try a new line of conversation. "Hey Zim, you don't look well."

Zim lifted his cup of coffee to his mouth and gave a short, nasty laugh. "You don't say."

"No, I do say," Keef replied, as again the insult whooshed over his head. "It's just that, there was a rumour going round Hi-Skool the last few days."

Zim drank a bit more of his coffee and put it casually down again, he knew what was coming. "Saying what?"

Keef laughed nervously and lent back again, "Well I know its silly but they were saying that you where...ermm..."

"Taking drugs?" Zim helpfully offered while linking his hands and casting his most malicious smile.

Keef, who had suddenly found the table very interesting, now looked back to Zim, a relived smile on his face. "Yea, stupid, huh?"

Zim smiled even more, making Keef momentarily lose his constant happiness. "Yes, stupid."

Suddenly Zim began to get up from where he was sitting. "Well Keef, it's been horrible and all, but I've gotta go now."

"Oh," Keef sadly replied, but he instantly cheered up again. "Well ok, Zim. Cya later and happy Christmas."

"Yea," Zim said as he walked off. "Merry jingly, stink-beast."

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Woop! I LOVE this chapter! Its reeks of style, good writing and coolness! Really, I think this could be classed as one of my best chapters ever...

R.I.P Mini Moose, you would have been here if I had taken the time to properly put you in E.A. Same to you Skooge. Actually Skooge was meant to appear in this near the end. But as I'm writing the end now and he doesn't seem to be there, he's not gonna make an appearance.

I think I got Zim in PERFECT character here...well maybe not the beginning but the street onwards is great Zim-ness. And of course Keef, I had the idea a few days ago and I almost dismissed it totally but it sorta grew on me and in the end I just though "Why not?" Teenage Keef, I hope you guys like it.

Oh, the whole 'USSR' thing comes from The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy. In their world the USSR still exists, which is why it's also here (I figure Gaz and Mandy are friends since reading Bleedman's fan comic, thus they exist in the same world) I'm actually going to feature politics and news a bit more later on somewhere. It's something that I seem to feature a lot in my fics, people watching the news...

R&R please…or throw muffins of flaming anger at me, I'm quite hungry.

P.S. Anyone notice that Zim left Keef with the bill?