Steven peeked into the room after a few hours and Dib looked up from his phone.
"Hey, I'm making spaghetti, you in?"
Dib rose slowly, stretching his legs and pocketing his phone as he yawned. "Yeah. I don't think he's waking up anytime soon."
He followed Steve and leaned on the wall breaking the living room up from the kitchen, watching as he stirred a pot of sauce.
"Smells good. Just like mom used to make?"
"Mom would be turning in her grave if she knew I was making sauce from a can," Steve chuckled, tossing the jar in the trash under the sink. "What about you, you cook?"
"Nah, Liss did all that. I'm on a ramen and takeout diet these days."
"See, that's what you get for not being an independent man and relying on a woman to take care of you."
Dib grinned. Steve had a good sense of humor, he could crack a joke at a baby's funeral and somehow make it classy.
"Mr. Independent poster boy here," Dib chuckled, crossing his arms. "Too proud to find a woman."
"Or maybe I'm gay," Steve glanced over his shoulder and covered his mouth with a hand, eyes big.
"So that's why you have me for coffee so much. You could have just said."
"Your scruffy ass, no thanks," Steve scoffed, looking back to the stove as he turned down the heat. "I have better taste than that."
"I'm offended."
"Well you're in the right year for it. Besides, middle-aged divorced dad with a savior complex isn't exactly alluring."
"Gee, thanks. Guess I'll cancel that date I have later on." Dib smiled at being called a dad. It meant a lot to be acknowledged in that small way, even though his daughter wasn't with him.
"Oh go on, you shitter. Date, puh!"
Dib shook his head and pushed off the wall to help with setting the table when something touched the back of his neck, sending an involuntary chill down his spine. He reached for his weapon automatically but a well-placed kick landed in the back of his knee, driving him to the floor. Steven turned from the stove and drew his gun from his side instantly as claws wrapped around Dib's throat, pricking his skin. Dib held his hands out at his sides, carefully adjusting his kneel so he wouldn't loose his balance.
"Let him go," Steve said, both hands on his weapon as he aimed at the Irken. "Just let him go and get out of here."
"Why were you following me?" Zim growled, his voice startling Dib. He'd almost forgotten the alien could talk.
"We got a report that you'd attacked someone and killed some dogs."
"Fucking dogs," Zim spat, grip tightening. Dib felt a trickle of blood slide slowly down his throat to his collarbone.
"I didn't attack any humans," Zim continued. "Dogs attacked me."
"Okay," Steven replied. "You can go, we aren't holding you here."
"Why are you following me?" Zim demanded again. Dib could feel the cold, sharp point return to the back of his neck at the base of his skull. A blade, likely. Maybe a letter opener, if you're thinking creatively.
"You killed those people," Dib said quietly, staring at Steven's shoes. "I had to stop you."
"Why?"
"Because it's my job to help people." Savior complex ran through his mind and he almost smiled, a nervous reaction.
"Disgraceful job," he hissed. "You got in my way. They deserved to die."
"Maybe," Dib replied, "But killing them wouldn't change anything for you. You were done with them."
Zim was quiet for a moment before digging his claws in deeper. Dib squeezed his eyes shut a moment, teeth grinding.
"Come on, alien, he saved your fucking life!" Steve yelled, shifting his weight. He couldn't get a safe shot at his angle.
"You humans are all the same!" Zim snapped back. "There's no use in you. Filthy, worthless creatures."
"Alright," Steven replied, "Alright but that fucking human right there saved your life twice now and I don't doubt he'd do it again. Are you really going to ignore that to make some broad statement?"
Zim was silent for a long while. Dib could feel his alien stare boring into him. He could almost feel him thinking, debating. Steve lowered his gun after awhile and straightened.
"Why are you here?" he asked quietly.
"To kill you all," Zim replied and released Dib, stepping back from him slowly. Dib put a hand to his throat and got to his feet, turning to look at the alien.
"Then why aren't you?" Dib asked. The alien shook his head, backing away. He sat down on the couch and looked down at the alien blade in his hand. Dib glanced at Steve and went to sit in a chair across from the alien. Steve slid his gun back into its place and went back to stirring the sauce, attempting to save the burnt bottom layer.
"I was disconnected," Zim said, turning the blade over in his hands, eyes fixed on the gleaming anodized-appearing blade.
"What does that mean?" Dib asked, leaning forward to look at him. Zim slid the blade into a place in his boot and turned his bandaged arm over, pulling the wrapping away from his wrist. He held it up to show Dib an ugly scar across his wrist.
"We are programmed for duties," Zim said, looking at Dib darkly. "We are droids of the empire, nothing more, nothing less. If we become obsolete or compromised, we are disconnected and destroyed." He lowered his arm and touched the scar, gaze distant. "Remotely. This planet is too far from mine for retrieval so I was set for termination."
"What happened?" Dib asked, lowering his hand and glancing at the blood on it.
"I cut out the destruct devise."
"What do you mean, disconnected?"
"Communications with my home planet have been blocked," Zim turned his arm, looking over the odd human bandaging. "I cannot contact them nor they I. I am dead."
"I'm sorry," Dib said quietly.
Zim looked up at him, gaze hard and unreadable. "Why? You should be glad for my failures. If not for that you'd and your kind would be dead."
"I'm sorry you can't go home."
The alien looked into the distance and rubbed a thumb over his wrist absently.
"I have no purpose here. I have no mission, no duties. I am without meaning, without a reason to exist. I do not know what to do outside of my own petty urges and doings. This isn't what I am programmed for."
"You exacted revenge on those who hurt you," Dib replied. "That was a purpose, something to make you-"
"Feel useful, if only to myself." Zim fixed him in his gaze again. "Your attempts to understand me are futile, human. You cannot comprehend my species nor our psychology, our wiring."
Dib nodded. "Fair enough. What will you do now?"
"My empire has no use for me and I have no purpose outside of their will. I am obsolete, and it is their will I perish."
"But you rebelled," Dib said. "You didn't let them destroy you."
"A foolish notion of self-worth constructed from too much time among your kind," Zim replied.
"How long have you been here?" Dib asked curiously. "I was a child when I first saw you."
"Indeed. I remember your scent. I saw you. I have been here forty of your Earth-years."
"Forty? How old are you?"
"I am what you might call 'middle-aged'."
"Middle-aged ends at fifty, you can't have come here when you were a child?"
"Yet again you confine me to your human thought processes, your narrow concepts of time. Think outside of your own knowing."
"You don't age the same as we do."
Zim looked at Steven as he stepped into the room.
"Food is done," he said. "Do you.. It's spaghetti."
"I do not consume your human foods." He hesitated, "But thank you."
"What do you eat?" Dib asked.
"I can tolerate your sugary substances, which is found in most of your plant life."
"Fruit?"
"Yes."
"I have oranges," Steve offered. Zim nodded and rose from the couch. The three moved to the kitchen and Dib began plating spaghetti as Steve retrieved an few orange from the fridge. Zim sat at the table slowly and reached to take the fruit when Steven set it before him.
"My food supply ran up long ago," Zim said as he sliced around the orange with a claw. Dib set Steven's plate down and then sat with his own, glancing at his friend. Steve glanced back and sat down to eat.
"This was to only be a twenty-year mission," Zim continued after a moment of calculating human years.
"Things went wrong?" Dib prompted.
"Things didn't go as planned. Then things went wrong."
"Why Earth?"
Zim smirked, eyes fixed on his orange as he carefully peeled it apart. "You're a species of lesser potential. You wouldn't make good servants, nor are your industrial capabilities high enough to be worth preserving this dying planet. You are killing yourselves and your planet anyways so we decided to move the process along and rebuild here for ourselves."
"You decided to destroy an entire planet for your own selfish purposes?" Dib set his fork down.
Zim looked up at him. "Don't, human. You will not sit there and tell me you are appalled by our actions when your own kind destroys each other based upon the color of your skin, or your personal beliefs, or your placement on differing land masses."
"Humanity isn't perfect-"
"Far from it. You slaughter other creatures on your planet by the masses, for consumption, for creating objects for you to wear, for the sheer sport of it. You have no respect for any other beings but yourselves. No loyalty to your own kind, no care for your own planet. You are rapidly destroying yourselves. We are doing you a favor."
"Are?" Dib straightened. "You failed your.. mission? You said your leaders were going to destroy you."
"Foolish human," Zim replied as he finally reached the meat of the orange and began crushing the liquid from it. "You think it ends with me? They will send another. They will send an army."
Dib stood and placed his hands on the table. "You have to stop them."
"Why do you think I would do such a thing?" the alien paused to glare up at him.
Dib had no answer. He sat back down slowly and stared at his plate. Steven kept eating quietly.
An army. He'd seen what just one Irken was capable of, but an army..