"I still think this is a very bad idea," Zim said, using his PAK legs to climb along a sheer cliff wall. "At least let me carry you."
Dib scoffed. He would have waved him off if he wasn't using his arms to balance. He was currently inching his way along a thin platform of a canyon wall. Above and below him, there was just pure, vertical cliff…and in front of him, a rare jackalope, sitting on the tiny cliff and licking at the salt deposits in the rock.
"You'll just scare it off, like you did last time," Dib hissed at Zim.
"Oh, and you won't?"
"Shut up, I know what I'm doing," Dib told him…right when he stepped on a very unstable patch on the thin edge.
Dib's foot slipped, and he was sent tumbling down the cliff face. He let out an annoyed sigh, bracing himself just before he hit the ground and everything went black.
Dib woke up in his bed and sat up with a sigh. Zim was going to give him so much grief for this, he just knew it. He debated staying away from Zim just to avoid that, but he couldn't keep that up forever.
And so he quickly got dressed, headed downstairs, and opened the fridge. There were several cans of soda at the bottom, and he grabbed one before heading toward the front door. They belonged to Gaz, but there was a chance she wouldn't notice—
"Hey!" Gaz snapped, entering the kitchen and glaring at the can in his hand. "What do you think you're doing with that?"
"Giving it to Zim," Dib said bluntly.
"Well, that's not yours to give!" Gaz snapped.
"Punish me tomorrow, then," Dib shrugged. "I'm making out with Zim today."
"...what!?" she said, staring at him with wide eyes.
"I'm going to make out with Zim," he said. He paused briefly to enjoy the funny expression on her face, and then he was out the door.
It didn't take him long to make it to Zim's. Zim was waiting on the couch, knitting something, a tiny blue-and-yellow hat floating above his head. He gave Dib a Look when he stepped inside. "Told you it was a bad idea," he said.
"Yeah, okay, it wasn't my best idea," Dib said, shoving the soda into his hands and then kissing Zim on the cheek. Zim smiled, kissing him back.
"Feel like stopping GIR today?" Zim asked, taking a swig of soda and continuing to knit.
"Not really," Dib sighed, flopping next to him. "I mean, I don't have any new ideas. You?"
Zim shook his head. Dib had tried dozens of ideas to keep GIR from breaking the container of time-dookie Zim had somehow gotten, which would cause this day to loop over and over. He'd tried trapping GIR, fighting GIR, distracting GIR—but as Zim had said a few times, it was like a universal constant that GIR would somehow get in that tube and break it, even if they couldn't predict when or how.
Even when they'd teamed up, they couldn't find a viable solution. GIR slipped past them both when they tried to divert him. False errands eventually led to him coming back with it inexplicably completed, and then taking a dip in the tube as a reward to himself.
They'd even tried building a cannon and firing GIR out of it and far into space. Somehow, he had come rocketing back, smashing right into the Dookie tube and breaking it immediately. They put a time-immunity hat on the cannon but hadn't tried that plan again.
Dib then decided to turn on Zim, to see if maybe defeating him would finally break him out of the loop somehow. It didn't work, and for about...maybe a month, give or take, they'd had some really vicious, bloody fights. Dib actually won most of them, with Zim seeming disinterested in killing Dib off.
Zim had a point...after a while, killing your enemy just became boring. At this point, Dib had cataloged each part of Zim's insides, had held it all in his hands, and even got Zim to tell him exactly what each part did. Now, he could identify Irken organs through touch alone.
The fights slowly petered out when Dib stopped trying to instigate them, trying to find out what else he could do...with infinite time, and yet where nothing he did would matter at the end of the day.
At one point, Dib had snapped from it all, frantic and panicking at the idea of this being how he would spend eternity.
Zim had watched his breakdown for several minutes...And then, to Dib's surprise, had lifted Dib up and pulled him into a tight hug. He'd held Dib for the rest of that day, and when everything reset, even came to check on Dib (who had been huddling under his covers).
He'd managed to coax Dib into just...trying things. Maybe they were stuck, he reasoned, but that didn't mean they couldn't find ways to enjoy themselves!
There was nothing to lose, so Dib just…went for it. Reading books he'd always meant to get around to. Going around playing petty pranks on other people. Going on long hikes in the woods until he memorized every possible path, and had seen nearly everything that lived there.
Eventually, he ended up spending some of his looped days with Zim. After a few more loops like that, he…well…ended up kissing Zim. He wasn't sure how it happened, other than him thinking about how he'd like to kiss someone, and how Zim was the only person who could understand him now (or maybe ever), and then…
Zim was kissing him back.
Things settled into a different routine, then. Being with each other didn't break them out of the time loop or anything, so they were still stuck. But…sometimes, it made the day a little easier for Dib. Knowing that there was someone who knew exactly what he was going through, that knew him down to his very core.
And making out with each other was a nice way to spend time if they had no idea what else to do.
"You're spending a lot of time just thinking," Zim said, poking his side with his foot. "Time waster."
"Can't waste something you have an infinite amount of," Dib countered, leaning over to give him a playful shove back. Still, he asked the Computer for a random book, laying back and using Zim's lap as a pillow as he read. Zim knit with two hands, but another hand peeled away from his torso to stroke Dib's hair. His fourth hand he used to hold the ball of yarn, making the knitting easier for himself.
Eventually, though, Dib felt the urge to do…something. Probably because he hadn't really done much before dying in the last loop. He closed his book (good, but he was pretty sure he'd read it before) and sat up.
"Wanna see how far from Earth we can fling ourselves?" Dib said.
"Oh, why not?" Zim set his knitting aside, popping a tiny time-immunity hat on top of it. "Using the cannon, I presume?"
"It worked last time, didn't it?" Dib said.
Within minutes, they were in the Voot, which was then slotted into a giant cannon (with a tiny floating hat on top of it). On a whim, they'd brought GIR along with them, though they weren't expecting this to have much of a chance. They were both in the pilot's seat, Zim sitting on Dib's lap, while GIR had been buckled into a baby carrier and given a lollipop to keep him occupied.
"All systems set," Zim said, flicking a few switches. "Ready?"
"Ready," Dib said, wrapping his arms around Zim and burying his face in the crook of his neck.
Zim grabbed the controls and set the timer for the cannon. In the exact second it fired, he pushed the acceleration all the way forward, and they rocketed through several galaxies. Dib lifted his head to watch stars and planets go by in a blur. With little to slow them down, they just kept soaring forward.
It was only when Zim had to swerve around some planets that they slowed down and began to slowly drift. Zim pulled up a map to check their coordinates. "Five thousand light-years from Earth," he said. "Hmm. That doesn't beat our record, does it?"
"No, but I don't think we've been here before," Dib said, leaning to look out the windshield. They were in the middle of a red-and-purple nebula, and the planet Zim had dodged was a lovely emerald green with blotches of purple.
"Should we explore, or keep going further?" Zim asked.
"Explore!" Dib said, eagerly eyeing the planet. Zim smiled, navigating them down to it. According to the map, this wasn't an undiscovered planet, but there was little information about it, and it didn't even have a name.
They touched down at the edge of one of the purple blotches…which was a giant patch of purple grasslands. The soil underneath was soggy, though, and Zim moved the Voot so it wouldn't get sucked in.
Dib unbuckled GIR, who ran off into the grassland, ignoring both of their warnings. Zim and Dib both just shrugged, though…he'd be fine. They headed in the opposite direction, deep into a thick forest. The ground was mostly covered with thick roots, making it bumpy but stable.
They wandered over the planet's surface for hours, Dib (and even Zim) excited at the idea of having found a new place to learn about. As far as they could tell, the only life on the planet was vegetation…which didn't mean it was without dangers, as they fended off a few carnivorous plants, and had to carefully check fruits via PAK analysis to ensure they weren't poisonous. There was no reason to risk a pointless death when they just found something new!
Eventually, the sun began to set, and so they climbed to the top of a nearby tree to watch it. They ate yellow fruits with sweet, sticky liquid inside, sitting there until the teal sky turned into a purple one covered with thousands of red stars.
"Today was a good one, right?" Dib said.
"Yeah," Zim said, leaning against his side. "We should come back here again sometime."
"Not too soon, though," Dib pointed out. He'd learned it was best to savor new things they found and make them last as long as possible. Zim nodded in agreement.
Dib felt a chill go down his spine. He looked over his shoulder to spot a blue-white dot far in the distance, right where Earth was…and it was slowly getting bigger, rushing towards them to expand through the universe. "Looks like GIR got back there somehow." He turned back to look at Zim and their new sky. A good view to end with.
"Huh," Zim said, glancing at the time. "We lasted a few more minutes than usual."
"I'll see you in the next one, Zim," Dib said, wrapping his arms around the Irken.
"See you then," Zim said. "Love you."
"Love you, too," Dib whispered. What else could you feel for someone you had spent years with, knowing their mind and body as well as your own, knowing that you would probably spend an eternity together?
They pressed their lips together in one last, passionate kiss, Dib clinging tightly to Zim, all four of Zim's hands holding onto Dib like a lifeline. They stayed like that until the reset caught up with them, pulling them apart and back to the beginning of the day.
An eternity, but at least not a lonely one.