First, I'd like to say I'm sorry to anyone who read my reviews and saw the nasty little argument that me and another user in there had. I lost my temper a little and now feel REALLY bad about it.
Another thing I feel bad about though is that this user used reviews, even though I'm SURE they didn 't read the chapters they were reviewing for to tell me a 'fact' I MAY have gotten wrong in a FAN fiction. Please people, that's not what reviews are for. They are for praise and constructive criticism. NOT ONLY (for you Lard-Nar fans) has Lard-Nar not had more than maybe a minute of lines (including in the script) and is there for a VERY flexible character to work with but him being evil-ish instead of incompetant is also part of my plot.
ANOTHER thing I'm feeling bad about are you homophobic ("I swear I'm not!") people who think all ZaDR or ANY male/male pairings are all about sex up the ass! As FUN as that is to write for you will not be seeing any in this story. Sorry to dissapoint any of you who were expecting it. (I'll have an AFF account soon ;) )
Now then, i have told you what I don't like to see in reviews, now I'll tell you what I do. I love praise! I am a praise whore, I write for praise! I love to read what people felt while reading my stories I also like constructive critisism. That is not an open widow for flamers. I also like to see people guessing what will happen next, it let's me know that my story is making people think. I also like the hear suggestions for later chapters and I may even take some of your advice because this story doesn't have an ending yet.
To those of you who have been reviewing with something contructive, thoughtsul, suggestive, and loving-ness I'd like to say thank you! MUCH LOVE!
Beta: May have been Tesgura but I can't really remember is she did this chapter or not.
The first thing Dib wanted to do was get used to walking.
So the first thing he tried to do was walk.
He now has a cut on his chin that won't seem to stop bleeding.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Zim asked, holding a wet cloth to Dib's chin, thick rubber gloves on his hands keeping him from getting burned by the water.
"I thought I'd take a walk." Dib joked, putting his hands on the cloth so Zim could let go. Which the irken did, very quickly.
"Well try it again with out assistance and I'll have Gir tie you down." Zim threatened, taking the gloves off.
Dib simply made a small noise of acknowledgement and checked the cloth every once and a while to see if he'd stopped bleeding yet.
Zim just sighed and shook his head, checking his watch and waiting for Gir to get back from his party. It was one in the morning already and the robot still hadn't- BAM!
"I GOTS UNDEHS!"
Oh, there he is.
"Gir what took you so long!?" The irken yelled, his stern gaze instantly going confused when the robot skipped over the now broken door with a pair of silky looking black boxers on his head.
"I gots cloths for Master's friend, here you go!" Gir yelled out happily, handing Dib about five bags of cloths, one of which was filled completely with socks and underwear.
"Th-thank you." Dib stammered, also noticing the boxers on Gir's head.
"YOU'RE WELCOME!" Gir said before bouncing off into the kitchen, removing his dog-suit and the boxers on his way.
"You should go try those on, make sure they fit." Zim said, trying to shake off the frustration he currently felt towards his defective side-kick.
"Yeah, good idea." Dib said, taking the bags and, with Zim's help, moving down into the lower levels of the base where Zim had set-up a bed room for Dib.
"Thanks." Dib said again, going into the bedroom and shutting the door.
There it was again. That warm feeling that being appreciated brought. And he was just doing simple things for the human. Nothing that required him to exert himself, or anything humiliating. Ok, the sandwich he had been pretty embarrassed about, but the human hadn't really pointed out any of the flaws, though he knew there were a lot of them.
He felt… needed, almost.
Dib leaned against the door and sighed, dropping the bags as he did so.
This was all so confusing, he didn't want to seem ungrateful by asking but, why was Zim doing all of this? There didn't seem to be anything in it for him.
If this were a trap Zim could easily have killed him by now, lord knew he was too weak to defend himself. And if Zim wanted something wouldn't he have made his demands by now? And the way the irken seemed to… hover, just hover over him like he was worried, was really starting to creep him out. But in a nice, kind of flattering in a way.
He hated to admit it, but he felt safe here. Yeah there were something's that Zim did that scared him a little, like when he'd start staring off into space and get this really dirty look on his face. Or when he'd get mad at Dib for doing something he considered stupid, like trying to walk on his own.
He felt his chin. Ok, that was pretty stupid of him.
Dib shook his thoughts off. Even if he wanted to leave it's not like he could, and having Gir by him cloths meant the irken wanted him around for a while, so logically, he had very little to fear.
He walked out of the room moments later in semi baggy black pants and a dark blue shirt, smiling at how comfortable the outfit was, though it hung off of him around the hips and neck.
It made Zim smile, it was almost like he had the old Dib back.
Almost.
A light bulb seemed to go off in Zim's head. "I know!" He almost shouted and dashed for the elevator, taking it down to the lab leaving Dib staring after him for ten minutes until he came back with something behind his back and a wide grin on his face.
"I got you something…." Zim said cryptically the grin seeming to grow though Dib couldn't see how that was possible.
"What?" Dib asked, trying to peek behind Zim to see. "What did you get me?"
"Well, technically I had the computer make it for you, but I made it cool." Zim said and with that he held out a very plain looking trench coat a lot like the one Dib used to always wear as a kid only this one had belts attached to the cuff and collar.
Dib was ecstatic. He snatched the coat and just stared at it for a while. It was BLACK. The wonderful color BLACK that symbolized the mysteries he always chased and horrors he'd had to face. Not the scientific WHITE. But BLACK!
"Wait," Dib asked, holding it out in front of him. "How did you make it cool?"
Zim, still grinning and obviously happy with Dib's reaction, moved over to stand beside Dib and flicked the zipper in the front where a small irken insignia dangled.
"Oh," Dib said, just kind of staring at the zipper wondering whether that was supposed to be symbolic or if that was just Zim expanding his ego. Then he decided he really didn't care and put the coat on. A prefect fit. Well, except the sleeves were a little long but THAT'S what buckles are for!
"PERFECT!" Zim shouted before grabbing Dib's arm and leading him towards the elevator.
"Where are we going?" Dib asked, leaning on Zim a little to take more weight off of his legs.
"To the medical bay." Zim stated simply. "You are not well and I must find a solution."
"Like, what kind of solution?" Dib asked, looking at Zim curiously as the got on the lift and went down. "The natural kind like a proper diet and exercise or the chemical kind like medicines?"
Zim seemed to think for a moment before shrugging and stating, "Which ever will work the best."
Dib nodded, hoping to which ever deity was looking down on him that it wouldn't be the chemical kind.
It had been a week since Dib had been brought to Zim's house and he almost felt at home now.
Zim decided that in the long run it would be better for Dib's body to get used to not have ANY outside chemicals being forced on his body so he programmed a diet into Gir's head and since the robot had taken to watching the cooking channel he could easily make anything the human would need.
And Gir was MORE than happy to.
Zim and Dib, surprisingly, got along well. Dib hadn't made any move to expose Zim and with Zim taking a break in his plans to care for Dib there was nothing to keep them from actually getting to know each other.
Of course Dib knew more about Zim than he cared to from when Zim's pak decided to attach itself to his chest. During that time his mind had been bombarded with memories and everything the invader had ever known in the form of streams about streams of data.
But enough about that.
Right now Dib was lounging on the couch eating a snack Gir had prepared for him. Some chocolate cake thing and milk. It was good, and it felt nice to be pampered by the SIR unit, but he was wondering where Zim was. He said he'd be in the lab but that was over three hours ago and he was getting tired of watching the Angry Monkey. He wanted to talk some more to the invader.
Their conversations in the past week had been stimulating and Dib had enjoyed them immensely. FINALLY, Dib felt like he could talk to someone who knew what he was talking about and didn't think he was crazy.
They even talked about SCIENCE! Sure he could talk to his dad about this subject but it seemed so much more enjoyable to talk to Zim about it.
So he decided to go find the alien. Maybe help out with whatever he was doing.
He got up, leaving his snack for Gir to clean up and walked over to the elevator, having gotten the full use of his legs back as well as permission to use them three days ago. Dib was given limited control over the computer as well so he commanded to computer to take him down to Zim.
To his surprise he found himself being dropped off in the medical lab.
"Zim?" He called out, stepping out of the lift and looking around for the invader.
For a moment he thought the computer had made a mistake until he heard a pained choked grunt.
Stepping further into the med lab he called out for the invader again, "Zim? Zim are you ok?"
"Go away." Zim called, his voice sounding weak with thinly veiled pain. "Now is NOT a good time."
"What's wrong, maybe I can't help?" Dib suggested, walking further in and spotting Zim in a far corner.
Zim was hunched over a table, what looked like blood was pooling in front of him, only greenish.
"What happened to you?" Dib asked, quickly walking over to stand beside Zim, only to see that the irken was carving into his own arm. "What are you doing!?"
"Shut up and stand back, Dib-beast. I need my space." Zim said calmly, putting the scalpel down and picking up a small computer chip, to which Dib took a step back and watched with wide eyes.
When Zim spread the skin Dib saw a larger device wrapped around the bone of Zim's arm. The chip was then inserted into the device and the skin quickly pinched together.
"Computer, sealant!" Zim ordered and a tube was handed to him from across the room by a robotic arm from the ceiling. Zim squirted the gel over the cut and rubbed it all over the wound. The gel acted like a sort of super glue and sealed the cut up and also numbed it at the same time.
Zim sighed and stood up, holding his arm close to him like a wounded dog and went over to a drawer to get some bandages and Dib followed.
"What was that?" The human asked, a little shaken.
"Had to replace it, my fail safe." Zim answered, wrapping the bandages round his arm to keep the cut protected.
"What are you talking about?" Dib asked.
"My fail safe, in case I'm captured by some human for dissection." At this Zim stared pointedly at Dib before going on. "Can't leave anything for them can I, only I've perfected the technology. Instead of merely creating an explosion the would blow me and the area around me to pieces this will send a message to my pak to shut down as well as drain the rest of the energy from my body, effectively causing it to disintegrate and THEN blow the area around me to pieces."
Dib cringed at the mental image the explanation hard created as well as the insinuation he still wanted to dissect Zim.
"So, why did you have to replace it?" He asked.
"The stupid Resisty cut mine out so I couldn't self-destruct before they got what they wanted." Zim said, glaring at a wall as if it were Lard-Nar, just standing there, looking smug and stupid.
"Oh," Did said, looking away. He just kept stumbling into awkward situations like this.
"So did you want something?" Zim asked, once more turning into the pleasant host.
"Just wondered what was taking you so long." Dib said, shrugging.
"Oh, ok, well I'm done here, let's go back up to the house level." Zim said, motioning with his head to the elevator that would take them back up.
Once there Zim and Dib both sat down on the couch, staring at the news that had turned on when Gir fell asleep on the remote. There, on the TV screen, was a picture of Dib, taken just before he was put on the medication with his description as well as a description of the cloths he was wearing and various other info one would need to locate some one as well as a few warnings of his 'fragile mental state'.
America was now on the look out for Dib.
Like always, five reviews, and I update.