Author's Note: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE EVERYONE I AM SO EXCITED AND HAPPY OMGGGGG ! ! ^_^ And thanks so very much for sticking with my story for so long ! ! This chapter is a bit heavy lol XD It is written from Zim's perspective and dives into his own traumas so it does get dark O_o Very very VERY briefly, something starts to stir in Zim's mind that alludes to future events. This chapter is named after a line from the song Born Without a Heart by Faouzia. This song lyric SO perfectly represents Zim especially the way he's depicted in my story because it starts to explain why he behaves the way he does and why he's built up so many walls. But in this chapter, he officially starts to see those walls crumble for a certain parascientist. I hope you enjoy this update as much as I enjoyed writing it and exploring the more vulnerable and emotional aspect of the relationship between these two. Thanks again for reading and as always any comments will be incredibly appreciated ! ! ^_^
I'd Rather Be Heartless Than Have My Heart in PiecesI've been awake for a couple of hours at this point but I haven't moved. The Dib is still asleep which is to be expected since he took his medication on his own. He must have been experiencing some form of discomfort. I should have probably forced him to take it earlier but aside from mentioning it, Zim was exhausted. As much as I hate to admit it, the sleep was much needed. Unconsciousness is also very much welcome right now because there's so much on my mind and yet it's been eerily silent.
My back is unfortunately starting to hurt again though and laying down is not helping so I shift a little until I'm sitting up. Dib goes from laying on my chest to laying on my lap and he turns his head towards my stomach before settling in again and continuing to sleep.
He looks so much better. It's the perfect image of him to replace the one from the ship, burned into my brain. Even as he sleeps, he looks content. He may still be a bit pale but he's gained back the majority of the weight he lost after the incident and he doesn't have any more open wounds…
It's almost four in the morning and I actually find the stillness of the house enjoyable as I watch him sleep.
He was right. Everyone was. Skoodge, the Tallests- all of them. I didn't come to earth to suddenly fall in love with anyone from such an awful, annoying, self destructive species. However, as sudden as the realization may have been, the falling was anything but. And I let the Tallests take him away from me.
I've gotten to a point where I am willing to accept what I am. Zim doesn't have to be happy about it, and I'm not, but looking down and letting my fingers sift through all the excessive, soft, black fur on top of his head… It doesn't feel like there's any way to fix me. I'm not saying I'm comfortable in being defective but… I've been hurt more from denying it than I have been accepting it. The Tallests want nothing to do with me, okay. I won't have to hear from them how messed up and annoying I am. I won't have to be constantly reminded of all my failures or shortcomings.
Accepting it is accepting that I love Dib. It's accepting that it feels so good that he loves me too. And I want him to keep loving me because it's not that he loves me for anything I originally assumed I had to do in order to make people love me. Zim didn't have to kill anyone or start any genocide. I didn't have to prove that I'm worthy of his feelings. He just has them for me and I have no idea why but I can't let him go. No one's ever just cared about me for me. They all hate me for the things I've done and while he should too, he loves me in spite of it all.
But what now? What is there for Zim to be doing? There's clearly no more Irk for me, aside from communications with Skoodge. Do I stay on earth? Tallest, I know I said I wouldn't mind seeing more of it but I didn't want to have to stay here permanently. Surely there must be somewhere else I can go… Somewhere we can go… But he's got a life here… And I just don't see that for myself. I understand what the average human wants but if that's what he wants then… What will I do? I don't want a life full of domesticity and mundanity. I want nothing else to do with earth school and I don't want to work any boring earth jobs.
He's still so interested in traveling around space, it shouldn't be that difficult to convince him to leave earth. We could explore, I could take better care of him, we could find dozens of planets to spend time on just like we did on Suittie! And we could stay on each planet for as long as he desires!
Well… I mustn't get too excited. Zim is a wanted criminal and the Irken empire is extensive. It would be nearly impossible not to come across plenty of inhabitants that are aware of who I am and therefore, Dib will always be in danger if he's with me.
He starts to stir a bit and seconds later his eyes are blinking open.
"How long have you been awake?" He yawns.
"A while." I say back, feeling a little weird that he caught me in the middle of touching his hair but he doesn't bring it up.
"Well what have you been doing? Sitting in the dark?" He asks, sitting up and reaching for his glasses. Once they're on he grabs the half full glass of water from the table as well.
"Thinking." I shrug.
"Thinking…?" He prompts.
"A lot of things."
"Okay…" he says back, finishing off the water. "This feels like a fucking hangover." He groans.
"Because you should still be asleep."
"Well I'm awake." He says back, sitting the glass down. "So um… You aren't like… upset or anything, are you?"
"Upset?" Is it that obvious?
"I mean, do you regret…" Oh that's what he's thinking.
"Oh, that. No." I say back and he looks visibly relieved, moving back over to lay in my lap. "Do humans always smother their mates?"
"Is it bothering you?"
"No."
"Then who cares what humans do? This is what we're doing." He says back and I nod. "So are you going to tell me what you're thinking about, SpaceBug?"
Should I? What am I thinking? I'm thinking that I want us to be able to do things without constantly being worried about someone from the empire posing a threat. I want to be able to just… exist with him. I want to work to understand our relationship even if it means finding out exactly why ones such as this one or forbidden- unheard of really- on Irk. Although, now that I am considering what I want, I think I understand why Irkens are not supposed to mate. It's a threat to the Tallests and to the empire because…
"I'll kill them." I say, and even though I'm looking at him, I'm lost in my thoughts.
"Whoa, wait, huh?" He sputters and I feel his shoulders tense up a bit but the more I consider the thought, the better it sounds to me.
"I'll kill them for what they did." I repeat, already beginning to sort through all the different ideas that pop up in my head until I feel his hand on my chest.
"Zim, revenge is never a good idea."
"I strongly disagree."
"I know but-"
"But?! But what, Dib?! And I want you to think really hard before you respond because you can't justify-"
"Hey, I'm not justifying anything. You have every right to feel that way-"
"But no right to do anything about it?!" I interject and he looks down, not responding. I sigh, grabbing the hand on my chest and staring at him for a moment before speaking again. "There's so much you don't know, I couldn't possibly expect you to understand that decision."
"Then tell me." He says back softly but I hesitate. "I don't know if you've noticed but there really isn't anything you could say or do that could scare me away." He continues and I'm still silent. "Does it have more to do with what you were telling me about your leaders?"
"They are not my leaders." I say back and he nods.
"Okay." He replies. He's opened up to Zim so much. It feels like there's nothing I don't know about him. By now, I could recite what he had for breakfast everyday back in third grade. (It was 'divorced eggs' as he called it. He was a picky eater and his grandmother would make it for him). I want that, too. Definitely not the eggs but I want someone to know me that way. I want that for us. I want him to know me. Nobody really does but someone finally wants to.
"When I… When I hatched… I had something called PPFA. It stands for premature PAK function and access which means I could use my PAK more than I was supposed to be able to for my age. That includes weapons. And I just remember… feeling so much when I hatched. I was just… happy. And excited."
"That's cute." He says.
"It wasn't. Especially when, I guess my emotions got the better of me and I caused my PAK to go haywire. I just started firing lasers and shooting all over the place. The machine that hatched me wasn't programmed to handle a situation like that but after I destroyed a bunch of unhatched smeets, all these extremely loud alarms started going off. It scared me and I just freaked out even more. Next thing I knew, the entire smeetery I was in was plunged into darkness- even the alarms stopped- but I could still see all the… everyone on the floor all around me and the… the robot that hatched me was broken too. I just knew it was all wrong. Even being just five minutes old, I knew none of that was supposed to happen and I didn't know what to do. My weapons weren't firing anymore but I didn't know how to retract them and I just sat in the middle of the floor for what felt like forever until I heard the entry door slide open. As a smeet, I thought I was looking at the most beautiful, perfect Irken in the whole world. I didn't even know who it was but… She was so nice… At least she seemed that way…" I say, getting a little caught up in the memory of her. I even expect her to be standing near the bedroom door, but when I look over, she isn't. "Miyuki. She spoke to me so kindly and she just sounded so reassuring. I remember thinking she had the most beautiful voice. Now that I think of it, she treated me the way I've observed humans treat their offspring. She sounded so nurturing and she calmed me down, I didn't even realize my weapons had retracted and she picked me up and took me out of the Smeetery."
"So… She was nice?" he asks and I shrug.
"At the time, I thought she was. I think she could have been. And maybe she used to be. But by the time I hatched, she was calculating, manipulative, and deceptive. She made me think she was going to help me."
"What did she do?" He asks.
"Well, apparently she assumed Zim had done what I did purposely by destroying those Smeets. That's when I learned that I hadn't just caused a blackout in that specific Smeetery, it was that entire section of the planet. Every Smeetery on Irk lost power and very few smeets survived the outage. I put my planet in a crisis. I heard Miyuki's advisors telling her the best thing to do would be to have me destroyed but she disagreed. I thought it was because she cared about me but…" I pause to clear my throat and take another breath. These are things I've never actually talked about. I don't even know if they make any sense to him but he's listening intently anyway. "She just wanted to prevent the destruction of any more Irkens because the population had drastically decreased in a matter of minutes. She felt it would be better to fix me and keep me."
"What do you mean 'fix' you?"
"She couldn't convince anyone on Irk to interact with me at all so she decided herself to use behavioral engineering. She said I was ruthless and that I had the makings of an amazing Invader if I could learn to control myself. She trained me to believe that what I did could be a good thing and that it was good that I didn't feel remorse about it."
"But you did though…"
"Initially… But she didn't need to know that." I say back and he nods. "Eventually, once she felt that her behavioral engineering technique molded my mind into what she believed it could and should be, she wanted me to go to an academy for Invader training but something happened and she said she couldn't… I guess the only Irkens comfortable enough to be around me were the scientists so she packed me up and delivered me to them."
"How old were you? Irken years?" He asks.
"Two."
"…Okay." He says back, shaking his head.
"They studied me a lot but I was also permitted to work alongside them. So I did, for a long time. But I wanted to do something to get me noticed, something to put me over the rest of the scientists to show Miyuki that I was doing great so she would be proud of me. That's when I had this idea to help with planet conquests. Irk was still… struggling with the aftermath of what I did when I hatched but I thought of a way that we could invade planets much easier, without needing to send in any invaders. I started my secret project and I worked on it any time other scientists weren't around. When it was done, it was better than I had even hoped. It had the ability to overpower anyone of any species and on any planet!"
"How?"
"It was an infinite energy absorbing blob."
"I- a what!?"
"Exactly what I said. And he could eat an entire population without fail. We could take ownership of any planet of our desire with little to no effort!"
"Did you… Did you bring it here with you?"
"If I had, would you be here?" I ask, tracing a finger over one of his eyebrows.
"Then where is it?"
"Well… I put it into a jar, a specially made one for the purpose of containing such a powerful creature, snuck out of the lab and went to see Miyuki. I wanted her to have it so she could use it but when I got onto the Massive, I don't know, maybe it was cracked during my sneaking on but when I finally got to Miyuki, the jar was empty… I told her about it and explained what it was so we both started looking for it. We couldn't locate it and before we could, I think the second in command called to have me taken back into custody because they took me away. I never saw Miyuki again… No one would speak to Zim about it, though. It was a long time before anyone finally told me that she'd been devoured by the energy absorbing blob, as had many officers and security detail…" I explain, pausing and remembering when the realization of what I'd done hit me.
"Can I ask a question?"
"You've been asking them this whole time." I shrug.
"You said that Irkens can't have Smeets anymore."
"Correct."
"Not for hundreds of years."
"Right."
"Was it Miyuki who established that?" He asks.
"Yes, actually. Why?" I ask and he bites down on his bottom lip for a moment before responding.
"So then… She's the one who stopped allowing Irkens to be… like us?" He asks and it feels almost natural to defend her decisions from when she was Tallest. I feel all the excuses that are about to spill out and have to keep silent for a few seconds to prevent that. Zim cannot keep defending their name.
"Yes." I sigh. "She is."
"Do you agree with that?" He asks and I resume combing my fingers through his hair stuff. Does Zim agree with that? It feels like I should, I think my immediate response would be yes but if I stop letting the automatic responses come, it feels truer to me that I don't necessarily agree with her decision. I'm not outright against it but I can finally realize that… it was flawed…
"Zim sees how this can be distracting… She was doing what she thought was best." I say back but he just watches me thoughtfully and doesn't respond. "Anyway. That was when I was reencoded and sent to the academy for Invader Training. I'm not sure why they didn't just kill me right then and there. I'm not sure whose call it was, I think it was Spork. Miyuki's focus was on strengthening the population during her rule. Spork placed his attention on creating what he called super soldiers and he wanted anyone over a certain age to be in training so that we could start Operation Impending Doom. As you may imagine, I was still imprisoned but when confronted with the issue, he ordered me to go for training."
"Did you miss being a scientist?"
"Yes actually."
"No wonder you and my dad get along so well." He replies. "I noticed you like to make things. Really great things. It's cool."
"Well, for a human, Zim thinks your inventions are pretty neat, too." I say back at which he smiles. "So with invader training, I was the best in my class. I handled all of the war simulators better than anyone, I aced all of the written exams, even during combative classes my final year, I bested all of my peers. I finished training at the same time as some Irken you've met like Skoodge, Tak and Tenn."
"Were they good in school, too?"
"I have no idea. I didn't care about anybody else… Zim only noticed the three of them because they left me alone but I had a lot going on. A Lot of Irkens didn't take very kindly to my presence in the academy."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean people loved Miyuki. So for my entire decade of schooling, it was almost like I was always in combat classes. Including when there were no authoritative figures around.."
"You… You got bullied…" he says quietly.
"Don't pity me. I had to pay for the mistakes I had made." …Didn't I?
"Mistakes you made as a child?"
"Absolutely. And maybe if this planet held children accountable for their actions, they'd grow into better adults." I say back and he averts his eyes.
"If you say so…"
"So during my time at the academy, unfortunately my creation was still at large. It hadn't been found until… well until it was too late. And just like that, Spork was gone, too. But they finally had the blob in custody and didn't really pursue me as I hadn't been around when it attacked him. Now, when I graduated, there was no way to overlook my achievements in school. By that time, Red and Purple had been crowned the new Tallests. They were well aware of my history but I suppose they didn't care since they would never have become Tallest if Miyuki and Spork were still around. They focused on my accomplishments and immediately gave me the position of commanding officer in Operation Impending Doom One."
"Okay so Miyuki was focused on making sure Irkens didn't go extinct, Spork was focused on creating his idea of super soldiers, and then Red and Purple were focused on…?"
"Expanding the Empire." I say back and he nods thoughtfully. "Zim went through the briefings and everything for that easily as well and on assignment day, when I received my group of supporting officers and weaponry, there were of course plenty of other commanders around. And a lot of them I had attended academy with. They, as you could imagine, didn't have very positive things to say about me. I overheard a lot of it, I mean it wasn't like they were trying to keep it from me and it just…"
"Got to you?" He asks and I swallow, trying not to focus on that weird feeling I had at the time.
"It… Clouded my judgment… And Zim… It just… I don't know… I freaked out. I started remembering the academy and everything that happened all those years. And I knew I deserved all of it but for some reason it just made me so angry, thinking about all the things I tried to forget…"
"It's called trauma…" He says when I don't continue.
"Trauma…" I repeat, tasting the word like it's a new flavor and he nods.
"What happened to you in school- even before that- it was traumatic. And you suppressed it but then on assignment day, something triggered a trauma response. It brought back all those memories and it was overwhelming." He starts to sound muffled and far away as I start to really remember how all those Irken treated me in the academy. I'm not even sure what's happening but it just gets harder to breathe for a moment and I try to adjust how I'm sitting to take a breath but I'm immediately overcome with frustration as my vision starts to blur and I turn away from Dib.
"Hey…" He says, sitting up but I just shake my head, I don't even really know why. I don't know why any of this is happening. Stupid feelings, stupid PAK filter, stupid Irken who treated me like garbage. The academy punching bag. Everyone's stress ball. And I have no right to still be upset about it! I never had that right, it was my fault from the beginning but I can't stop myself… "It's okay." He says, but I still won't look at him. I can't. Even as he thumbs away a tear that managed to escape and start trailing down my face. Another tear falls and I'm failing miserably at stopping them when he wraps his arms around me. For a moment I'm about to shove him away, it's like that's the automatic response but it's actually comforting and I don't want to so after I freeze up for a few seconds, I finally relax into the hug, turning my head into the curve of his neck. It's just a hug. A weird form of physical contact that humans ( and Skoodge for some reason ) do with no real purpose. But right now, it feels like it's breaking me down completely. I can't remember a time I've ever let myself cry so hard. My antennas are ringing, I can't see, I can barely breathe and he's just letting me fall apart while also holding me together.
"The things they did…" I struggle to say.
"You don't have to talk about that. You don't have to go into detail if you're not ready." He says softly. As much as Zim wants him to know, I can't say any of it. How can I verbalize the fact that I've had to regrow both my antennas multiple times? That I've had to be given a brand new set of ocular implants? That there isn't a single bone in my body that hasn't been broken during academy? That my PAK clock has been tested down to the very last second more times than I could count?
I try to focus on the moment I'm in right now, pushing all of those memories as far away as possible and focusing on the sound and feeling of Dib's heartbeat. His gentle but reassuring hold on me. The feeling of his hair stuff drifting over the top of my head and the way I actually feel… secure. It all helps to finally make the… tears subside for the most part and I can finally breathe again. He adjusts the way we're sitting so he's leaning on the headboard but his arms are still around me and my head is resting on his chest.
"Being… the smallest in the academy at the time… It had many disadvantages… I was good in combat but there would just be so many of them sometimes…" I finally say and I feel him nod. "So I… As I said, my emotions got the better of me on assignment day… I only had one thing on my mind and it was to get rid of them. All of them. Every single Irken who made the mistake of putting their hands on me- of taking whatever frustrations they had out on Zim- they didn't deserve to be a part of Operation Impending Doom! And I was better than all of them anyway. The new machinery I had been given was very powerful and was capable of completely obliterating anyone in a second, right where they stood, leaving no remains whatsoever except for their PAK. But I knew no Tallest would waste time repairing damaged PAKs and reassigning them. Taking them down- it was… Euphoric… And nobody could stop me. No one could get close enough. My supporting officers tried but I was their commander so they had no say in the matter, all they could do was follow my orders. And I didn't stop until they were all taken care of, and then some just because they chose to get in my way."
"You killed everyone who… Did those things to you in the academy?" He asks and I take a moment.
"I know that you think Zim is a monster." I say back, that familiar turning in my stomach starting up briefly until he speaks again.
"No I don't."
"Dib. Zim has been killing people, be it accidental or in cold blood, from the minute I hatched. Smeets, Tallests, Civilians, humans-"
"I don't think you're a monster." He repeats. "You're desensitized, you've been in survival mode from the minute you hatched and… You have some… violent impulses and tendencies but you're not a monster. We just have to work on finding ways for you to keep them in check." I tilt my head up a bit and trace a finger over some of the dried blood on his neck.
"Yeah…" I say back. He pulls my hand away though.
"That's not… That's not what we're talking about. That's… fine."
"Is it really or are you just… you?"
"I- both I guess. That's a conversation for another time." He says quickly.
"You're right." I sigh. "So of course, after that whole situation, Red and Purple didn't have nearly enough soldiers to begin Operation Impending Doom One and between all the… people from the academy and the civilians I terminated… Well, I was arrested for what I did. That's when I was sent away to Foodcourtia as my punishment. I worked there as a fry cook for years while Red and Purple worked to train as many Irken as they could to begin OID 2. I guess I had also damaged a lot of Irken terrain so that was being worked on as well. When they were finally ready, I escaped from foodcourtia, went to the Great Assigning Ceremony, and basically demanded they give me a planet to invade. I guess you know the rest… Fake missions and all."
"Hey, I'm pretty grateful for that fake mission these days. Not so much in the beginning obviously…"
"Either way, they never intended for me to find this planet. They sent me off in the hopes that I'd perish somewhere, lost in space." I say back and then we're both quietly processing the conversation. Why does it feel so nice to just tell someone things? For someone to be willing to listen to Zim?
"You know something?" He says, breaking the silence. "You're pretty damn amazing."
"What!?" I snort and I feel him shrug in response.
"Everything you've been through, all the things that have happened to you- you never let anything or anyone stop you." He continues and I feel my face start to burn. "I mean of course there are things I wish you hadn't done but… it's like there's no challenge you can't navigate."
"Stop it."
"No. And you can just get used to it." He says matter of factly. I roll my eyes and shake my head but don't refute beyond that. He's still quiet and there has been something else bothering me so I finally decide to say it.
"The Tallests… Ro and Hex…" I start, feeling the slight wince when he hears their names. "They took something else away from me."
"What was it? Is it something you need?" He asks, starting to sound panicked.
"I… Zim has never done anything even remotely similar to this um… romancey thing we've got going on and… They told you how I feel about you…"
"They… did?" He asks.
"Yes. And maybe you can't remember because of everything that happened but they took away my chance to tell you first. I should have been the one to tell you how I feel, not them but they took that away- they are always taking things away from me- all of them!" I say back, feeling my blood start to boil. He tsks softly before responding.
"Well… I don't remember them telling me… And if it makes it better, you did tell me first." He says.
"What are you talking about? No I didn't." I say back, realizing he must be recalling the events differently, possibly as a result of the injury to his head. "You told me in the Bunker and I wanted to say it back, but I-"
"You did."
"Dib-Thing-"
"When you spent hours- days even- working on all these inventions to keep me safe before we left for Irk." He continues. "When you recreated my bedroom in the Bunker to make me feel better. When you came back to the hospital for me. There are so many ways that you have been telling me. I'm sorry that you didn't get to say it to me first like you wanted to but you have been showing me long before they said whatever they said and that's what matters."
His words set in and they give me this weird feeling. It isn't necessarily new but it's… different. Zim doesn't know how to describe it but the difference is that this time, it isn't accompanied by waves of nausea, there is no feeling like I don't deserve to hear what he's saying. I don't feel like an imposter and I can finally take his words and let them make me feel… nice. Almost nice enough to completely dissolve the burning anger I feel towards Ro and Hex.
"Oh… I… Okay…" I manage to say back, unsure what to say otherwise and he laughs a bit. I'm still so lost in all of these thoughts about him and I and where to go from here that what he says next takes me by surprise.
"I… I didn't know you were still hurt…"
"What? No I-"
"I saw." He interjects. Of course he did. I honestly had completely forgotten until I woke up and was experiencing discomfort.
"It isn't as bad as it appears. And Skoodge has sent me everything I need to fix myself up."
"But why haven't you been letting me help you?"
"You can barely help yourself right now, Dib-Think."
"…Wait, everything you need? What do you need besides the serum for your back?"
"ETS. It's a solution that's inserted directly into the PAK, daily, very sparingly. No more than one to two drops at a time."
"Why do you need that? You told me that they didn't hurt you."
"They didn't but the last time they put me under, it drained my PAK. A lot." I say back. I still haven't told him about the transmitter I used to help him make it back to earth and Zim doesn't plan to either. "When we got back here, Zim's life source was abysmal. But before you get Dib-ranting, Zim is out of the gray zone."
"Gray zone?"
"When a PAK's life source percentage is below 10 percent, it's a gray area where it can either shutdown or continue trying to heal the Irken it's attached to. But there's never any way to tell what it'll decide to do." I explain further and he pulls away, sitting up and looking at me.
"Are you telling me that you were dying?"
"You're so dramatic-"
"Are you saying that I could have woken up at the hospital and found out that you were dead? And never got any answers as to why?"
"I guess. But that's not what happened so it's pointless to even consider." I shrug and he takes a breath.
"Let me see."
"See what?"
"Where is your percentage at now?"
"Oh that." I say back, extending the small screen from my PAK. It glows in the darkness of the bedroom as he takes it in. 17% life source and 30 percent energy bank capacity. Our reactions are drastically different upon seeing this, though. Zim is relatively pleased, I mean the life source is up two percent from yesterday. As long as it continues to go up, I'll be satisfied. Dib-Thing though. He looks like he's going to faint.
"I- I… I'm so sorry. I'm sorry-"
"What-"
"I'm sorry, I had no idea, I couldn't tell- I would have been helping you more I could have-"
"Seriously, Dib you can't even walk at the moment."
"That doesn't matter, you should have told me. We could have figured something out- I… I wouldn't have…"
"Been such a… what did you call it? A 'dick'?" I ask which relieves a little of the tension and guilt in his features because he laughs a little.
"Don't say that!"
"You said it first." I shrug.
"Okay but seriously, Zim. I am literally begging you to be honest with me. Especially about this sort of thing. I could have been there for you way better than I have been."
"You needed-"
"So did you." He says quickly. "I… I could stay longer, I could call my dad and-"
"No, that's really unnecessary. Also, he seems to be looking forward to you seeing the changes he's made to your house." I say back. "And he won't have to continue to call me every three hours to ask about you, just to then call you and ask himself."
"I still feel like I should do something." He says and I roll my eyes.
"You don't always have to be so good all the time."
"You think I'm good?" He asks, exposing a sharper canine in a smirk.
"I think you're annoying." I shrug in response.
"I'll take it." He replies.
"Of course. Well, you should really go back to sleep." I tell him but before I'm even finished speaking he's shaking his head.
"And leave you with your thoughts? I know better." He says, pulling away from me and finding his shirt on the bed.
"Where- what are you doing?" I ask as he's dressing himself. He finds my own clothes as well and holds them out to me.
"I'm going to shower, and-"
"I'll help you-"
"No. You won't. I can handle a shower. Anyway, you're going to take one after. And then you're going to meet me in the lab."
"The lab? What for?"
"For you to focus on something other than homicide."
"I'm not following…"
"We're going to fix GIR." He says resolutely, sliding off of the bed and into his wheelchair.
"But GIR does not require an easy fix, it will be time consuming." I point out but he shrugs, straightening his glasses.
"Then I guess we should get going, right?" He asks. I watch him for a moment in the darkness of the room as he waits for my response before finally huffing out a breath and sliding my uniform back on, reaching around to pull the zippers as far as I can without touching my back.
"You'll have to use the hover pad under the couch to accommodate the wheelchair." I explain, walking over as he pulls the bedroom door open and then mock-salutes me.
"Yes sir."