[Still not owning Zim. . .

Stargaze Smiling

Dib was watching the stars on the night she moved in next door. Lying on the roof, watching, listening; every time a car drove by he would jump up, hoping to see our father's car pulling into the driveway. None of them stopped. The flow of cars decreased until it was only one car every hour and a half, but time after time he would jump up, staring hard down the street as if this time, a car would bull up into the driveway. No such luck. I even told him that as I sat out on the patio, game sitting safely in my lap as I snacked on leftover pizza. He didn't reply, and I went inside, the Dib-bot informing me that it was almost 11:30pm. An hour later, Dib was still up on the roof, so I joined him.

He was stunned when I joined him but I could tell he appreciated my somewhat kind gesture. He was quiet as we sat together, our comforting silence punctuated by the quiet beeps of my GameSlave. Finally, about ten minutes after I had joined him, I stowed my game in my pocket and stared up at the stars. I didn't have that passion for them like he did, but I tried to contemplate them like he always did. Our silence was interrupted by a loud, obnoxious vroom-ing sound, and a grey moving van appeared, coming to a screeching halt at the house next door. Shortly afterwards, a red compact car pulled up behind it, and four people got out. The two older, taller figures rushed to help the movers bring boxes into the house, while the other two figures stood next to the car, nervous.

I looked closer and noticed that the taller of the two was a female; she was about Dib's height and had raspberry-red hair that was tied up in a ponytail on the right side of her head. She was holding hands with the smaller figure, which I assumed was her younger brother. I frowned and looked over to Dib, opening my mouth to ask what he thought about the new neighbors.

Apparently I didn't need to ask, because there was a smile on his face and I could see the image of the girl reflected in his eyes. Corny as it seemed, it was true. I smirked and mouthed the phrase, "You like her?" which he quickly refused, turning his face towards the sky. I smiled to myself and leaned back on my elbows, my fingers tapping the shingles of the roof lightly to the beat of the Thunder Piggy theme song. I stole another glance at the girl to see why Dib had taken a liking to her. Unexpectedly, her eyes locked with mine –icy green and warm auburn- and she smiled. "Welcome to the neighborhood!" I shouted, before I could stop myself. She just gave me her honey-sweet smile before she allowed herself to be dragged off by her brother.

"Gaz?"

Dib had been watching me the whole time, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. "Did you just welcome someone to our neighborhood?" I was about to answer sincerely ("Yes, I did,") but I thought better of it and pulled my old Vampire Piggy Hunter game cartridge out of my pocket.

"I know you're going to go visit her tomorrow, so give this to her for me." I said, my voice plain and monotone as I avoided his question. He looked at me, suspicious, but I shoved the game into his hand and stood, stretching my arms. "And if you want to flatter her, say something about her smile." I added as I walked away, ready to go to bed. I could tell he was blushing because of the silence and knew that was exactly what he had been planning to do.

[Writing this was like, WTF?

I dunno. I'm not saying I don't like it; I'm saying that it was weird. Or something. Whatever.