InsaneJournal

Chapter Eight - In which Dib's nerves are frazzled

“Eww - no. …Eww again – no again. Double eww – that’s definitely not the Dib.” Zim stepped over yet another bloody corpse, one hand pressed against his lower ‘spooch in a thoroughly sad attempt to keep from being sick as he hastily searched amongst the massacre. So far, there’d been no such luck; all he’d managed to find so far was- “AGH! That’s simply revolting!”

Edging around the revolting whatever-it-was (which will be left up to the reader’s imagination), the Irken gave a horrified shudder before glancing around helplessly. This was no good, no good at all. The fire was spreading far too quickly now – even his initial entrance had been engulfed by the flames and rendered useless, and he hadn’t even covered much ground yet.

After a moment of thought, Zim sighed harshly and began a brisk jog towards the back of the store, the only portion that had yet to fall victim to the blaze. At the rate things were going, though, it wouldn’t be that way for long, and he didn’t want to lose the opportunity to escape while he still could. Considering the state of the place, even if Dib had been here, he wouldn’t have made it out alive. A disappointing thought, certainly, but one that could only fuel his wrath – oh, how these wannabe invaders would cower when they realized just what they’d brought upon themselves…

A very tiny and somewhat twisted giggle escaped him as he ran, cut short at a flash of familiarity – the Irken screeched to a halt immediately, eyes wide and antennae perked up in shock.

The Dib-sister.

Zim bit at his lower lip, fighting back queasiness and uncertainty. He was quick to back away, tearing his eyes from the sight. It had told him everything it could, everything he needed to know – the Dib had to be here. Whether he had shared the same fate as his sister, however, had yet to be seen. He glanced back to the demon-girl’s body only once, flattening antennae slightly in a grudgingly respectful salute.

Granted, he’d always been displeased with the disrespect she’d shown the Dib – her own brother, and more importantly, his enemy – but the fact remained that, while the Gaz-creature had never been quite as much fun as her sibling, she had been a worthy opponent in her own right. Such an end was…unacceptable.

For the remains of such a strong creature to be burned to ash and left to the winds, however, was more than most Irken soldiers could hope for – it was fitting for someone like Gaz, Zim decided. She didn’t seem the type who would want to be buried and cried over – not that there was anyone left to bury the dead, or to cry over them.

Would the Dib cry, if he knew his sister was gone?

It was a strange thought. Zim shook his head a bit, scoffing – in all the years he’d known Dib, not once had the boy let slip even one ounce of weakness. No tears, no begging, nothing. It had been frustrating, really, but the frustration was easily matched by respect, and quite nearly admiration – the only person Zim had ever known to match the Dib in his dedication and strength of willpower was…well…himself. (He reminded himself at this point that he was just entirely amazing.)

He also reminded himself at this point that he should probably hurry – he was now quite certain that Dib was here (though not so much as to the current state of his health), and all he had to do was find him. Easier said than done, really, seeing as how over half the store was on fire. Nothing he couldn’t handle, though. He was amazing, remember?

And so, Zim did the first thing that came to mind, and as usual, he did it without really thinking it through. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he started yelling for his enemy, using every single rude pet-name he’d come up with for the Dib since the very first moment they’d met (Dib-stink, Dib-monkey, Dib-slug, you name it, he yelled it).

It worked, to some degree, in that it actually managed to garner someone’s attention.

A flat and entirely ghastly noise wavered through the ruined building as the lone Krakemeth droid barreled towards the source of the sounds, and once again, Zim did the first thing that came to his mind. He ducked through a small aisle and dove out of sight under a half-toppled shelving unit-

-and collided headfirst with something quite warm and undeniably alive. Whatever it was, it was breathing, however much it was straining to do so. “I am really getting tired of running into stuff,” Zim grumbled very quietly to himself, giving a startled jump when the something he’d collided with coughed weakly.

He might have glared, or even whacked the something for making noise – he wasn’t exactly in the mood to deal with yet another droid – but the sight that he was met with had him doing a double-take. That done, he glanced back to where the droid was meandering before returning his gaze to the miraculously alive human, who gave another light wheeze.

There was a moment of silence. Then, Zim gave a very small ‘oh’ of understanding and reached back to dig through his PAK, keeping his eye on the droid as it moved farther away from their hiding place, still searching for the source of the noises. “You have no idea the trouble I went through to find your sorry hide, Dib,” the Irken muttered irritably, pulling a rather simple-looking device from his PAK and affixing it to the teen’s face.

Or, at least he would have if Dib hadn’t swatted his hand away. Zim blinked, unsure as to whether he should be surprised or annoyed – he settled on the latter. “What do you think you’re doing? I’m trying to save your worthless life!” he spat, attempting to pin the human down to shove the device over his mouth.

“Don’t touch me! Get off!” Dib managed before he broke off into a coughing fit that, unfortunately for Zim, completely failed to keep him from struggling.

“Dib! Calm down, or it’ll hear us!” the Irken hissed in reply, almost jabbing the other boy in the throat with the device as he wrestled with him. The warning had Dib stilling somewhat, hazy understanding managing to push past the many layers of panic, and Zim took this opportunity to less-than-gently shove the device into place.

Clean air rushed into Dib’s lungs; he gave a shocked sound, then sat silently for a moment before needlessly adjusting the atmospheric mask and glancing about blearily, gaze locking with Zim’s.

The Irken watched him expectantly, already imagining (in his typical egocentric fashion) how the Dib would be ever-so-grateful and praise him endlessly for his hard work in saving him, despite how completely unworthy he was to be saved by someone as entirely amazing as the great ZIM. What he didn’t anticipate was getting a fistful of hand towels to the face – hand towels slightly stained with certain red human bodily fluids, no less. It was all he could do to keep from screeching bloody murder and giving the boy a good wallop to the head.

“This is all your fault!” Dib hissed at him, eyes narrowed angrily – it took the would-be invader a moment to realize that the boy was mostly just squinting; his glasses seemed to have fallen off somewhere. He looked even dumber without them, Zim noted silently with a small lopsided grin, and thus he pointedly avoided mentioning that they were laying not a foot from where they were seated.

As though he could just sense what the other was thinking, Dib began shuffling his hands about the floor irritably, searching blindly before latching onto the spectacles and putting them on as hastily as possible. The boy’s eyes narrowed again, and this time it was clear that he wasn’t in the best of moods – having one’s planet razed tended to wear on one’s mentality. The little grin on the alien’s face only fueled his ire. “You think I’m joking? Stupid little lizard – this is your fault! I HATE you!”

Zim blinked, unsure of how to respond to this for the shortest moment before he reverted to his most favorite of ways to hide uncertainty – haughty indignation. “Zim’s fault? Please, as though a superior soldier such as myself would employ such a pitiful race – though one not so pitiful as your own - to wipe you all out,” he drawled, waving a dismissive hand before adding icily, “This was none of Zim’s doing, smelly hyuu­-man.”

“You could have stopped them!” the teen growled violently in response, shoving him hard enough to have him sprawling back onto his butt with a surprised squeak.

The surprise faded quickly, and the Irken shoved Dib back, glaring for all he was worth. “And that makes it ZIM’S fault? PAH! Why didn’t you stop them?!”

“I-!” Dib started frantically, but stumbled over his next words, and all that came out was a useless string of nonsense, consonants that ran every which way and vowels all over the place before the boy went mostly silent, still mumbling lightly and looking impeccably guilty. “I…I couldn’t.” He looked up sharply, meeting Zim’s gaze uncertainly, and continued babbling helplessly – typical Dib, Zim thought, but everything coming out was so, so wrong.

“I wanted to help them! Really, I did, but it all happened so fast, I didn’t know what to do and I – I almost got caught once or…twice, I think.” The rambling slowed for a moment, the teen looking unsure as he waved his hands about uselessly, as though to emphasize – a curious trait many humans seemed to share, from what Zim had seen (he ignored the fact that Irkens tended to do the same, content to think the two races had next to nothing in common). “I don’t know, but – I did want to help, I just – I couldn’t move, and… Oh, man, it’s…it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

For once, Dib looked truly and honestly crushed, and Zim was tempted to agree with his bizarre conclusion for the sake of rubbing it in and making the boy feel even worse. It would do wonders for his own ego, he knew, but for that very reason – and his PAK was strangely of the same opinion – the Irken thought he should avoid it if at all possible. They were now in a similar metaphorical spaceship (or boat, if you prefer), and while they weren’t entirely in the same spaceship (or boat), there was no reason to journey deeper into the black hole (or ‘churn the waters further’).

His PAK decided that this metaphor didn’t quite make much sense, which subsequently caused Zim to decide that his PAK’s decisions were utter rubbish and that it should really just shut up sometimes. He also decided that it would be really nice if Dib would just shut up for a change, too. So, rather than being a complete and utter jerk and agreeing with Dib to make himself feel better, Zim was a complete and utter jerk and instead told him to shut up.

Dib stared at his companion quizzically, and somewhat hurtfully, for a moment, not entirely certain what had prompted it. Sure, Zim yelled at people to shut up all the time, but it was usually just other people, and not so much him. The teen always figured the Irken liked to listen to his ranting, if only so he could make up a great big counter-rant (which always ended up stating at least five or six of the three-thousand-and-eighty-two ways – all of which Zim himself concocted – Dib and the rest of his race were mentally unsound).

Zim frowned at him in return before reiterating slowly and clearly. “SHUT. UP.” When the teen’s expression didn’t change, the alien gave a grating sigh and added blandly, “You’re a moron, and your voice is dumb. So if you wouldn’t mind, stop faulting everyone who hasn’t got a thing to do with a random alien invasion. You know who’s at fault for that? The random aliens. Cuz, you know…they’re kind of the ones who did the invading. Kind of annoying, seeing as ZIM was supposed to do that, but…eh…moving on! It’s certainly not Zim’s fault they invaded, and it’s not your stinky self’s fault either, so stop whining! It’s really annoying!”

There was a short amount of silence once Zim was done, and that quizzical expression that seemed to make the teen look twice as retarded as the Irken usually found him failed to fade. Then, Dib shook his head, one eyebrow raised. “I’m not sure whether to punch you or thank you for saying that,” he stated incredulously, mild disbelief taking the place of the quizzicality (Zim immediately decided he much preferred the latter, as he now thought that Dib just looked outright stupid).

“You may praise Zim now, if you like,” the Irken replied good-naturedly, looking rather proud of himself. He didn’t know exactly why Dib had used that particular response – he guessed that the boy had found something in his rant (initially aimed to make him stop talking) that had made him feel better – but all that really mattered was that Dib had mentioned thanking him, and in Zim’s mind, that meant praise. And praise was good.

A deadpan look crossed the teen’s face then, and he stared at the alien levelly. He then replied, very flatly, “Actually, I think I’d just like to punch you now.”

Antennae perked up before flattening back into Zim’s usual ‘I’m indignant so FEAR ME’ posture. “I saved your useless life!” he protested irately, all glares and hands fisted once again.

It was another statement met with silence. Dib looked rather torn, brow furrowed lightly and teeth chewing at his bottom lip, and in the end he didn’t say anything at all; the teen merely sighed and nodded.

Understanding the action, the Irken tilted his head up in a somewhat haughty manner. “You are welcome,” he stated bluntly, his usual smirk making its way across his face – it was surprisingly quick to fade as he remembered the fire with a slight jolt; the fresh air he was being supplied with, and his reunion with the Dib, had brought him to completely forget about it. A previous idea that had been festering in his mind, however, brought the smirk right back. “So. What say we get out of here before we’re burnt to a crispy crisp, and get revenge on these tentacled nasties?”

"...Sounds good," Dib replied wearily. "It's not like I have much of a choice, anyway."