Chapter Text
In a clearing surrounded by thick, gnarled trees and dotted with colorful wildflowers, a five-year-old boy pulls a red wagon. In the wagon is a wide-eyed little girl, even younger than the boy, and her brown eyes widen in wonder at the colossal trees that curve overhead like the legs of mute giants.
The boy is speaking to his sister, words long forgotten in the sands of time, but his words cut off the moment the young girl points ahead at the base of a towering fir. He turns his head to follow her finger and freezes at the sight of another child, standing in a perfect ring of mushrooms.
Even at five years old, the boy knows intimately that something about the little girl is out of place. Where would she have come from? Where are her shoes? Why is she wearing such an odd costume?
But children are shortsighted, and the boy waves a greeting. In response, the girl’s solid green eyes widen and she smiles sweetly. Without hesitation, the enigmatic little girl skips across the clearing and stops several feet away from the pair of toddlers.
As she bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, she says, “You have such pretty eyes.”
“Thank you! Your eyes are pretty too!” the boy replies without any pause beforehand.
The girl giggles sweetly, pressing a spidery hand to her lips before stepping forward and taking the boy’s hands in hers. She meets his brown eyes with her own unnerving jade-green ones and asks in the most innocent tone,
“May I have your name?”
“Alright, brats, who can tell me which constellation this is? Guess wrong and I promise you’ll suffer a fate worse than death.” Miss Bitters hisses from her place at the front of the classroom.
Despite knowing the answer, Dib doesn’t bother raising his hand or looking up and instead keeps doodling in the margins of his notebook. He breathes carefully, deliberately, just as he’s done in the past to try alleviating the headache that throbs behind his eyes.
Normally, he never has a problem with his ESP in a crowd, but ever since Zim showed up on Earth, Dib’s been stuck with a headache nearly all the time. He narrows his eyes at the mothman doodle he’s just finished. It’s a good thing that he raised his pencil too, since Zim’s aura flares with excited arrogance and Dib flinches noticeably.
“Zim knows what constellation that is!!” comes the shout from Dib’s right, “Your filthy species calls it ‘Orion’!”
“Yes, that’s correct. Get off your desk, Zim.” Miss Bitters mutters, followed by the sound of Zim climbing off his desk and sitting back in his seat.
As if the alien wasn’t already enough of a pain in the ass, he leans forward to bare his zipper-like teeth at Dib in a cocky grin. “Take that, filthy Dib-worm! I have bested you yet again!!”
Dib feels his anger rise, but lets out a slow breath and ignores the feeling of his entire highschool class staring at him like some sort of strange and unpredictable creature. And perhaps that’s not entirely wrong. Regardless, class carries on as normal and Dib takes the opportunity to exact petty vengeance on Zim.
Brown eyes flicker gold as they focus on Torque’s open water bottle several desks away. As the drowsy student nods off a little, Dib narrows his eyes and, without moving a muscle, activates his telekinesis to lift the water bottle a couple inches off of its surface.
With a near-imperceptible twitch of his fingers under the desk, the water bottle goes flying across the room to smack against the back of Zim’s seat, spraying the alien with icy drops of water. Zim immediately lets out a screech and claws at the back of his neck, which hisses with greenish steam. Dib puts on his best ‘startled’ face and looks around the classroom just as every other student is doing.
Of course, Zim immediately slams a gloved hand down on his desk and points the other at Dib. “YOU!!”
Dib cocks an eyebrow in mock confusion. “How the hell would I manage to throw that at you? It’s not even mine!”
“ENOUGH!!” Miss Bitters snarls, “I don’t care who threw the bottle, but I do care about disruptive students! Zim, to the office with you!”
Zim’s jaw drops and he gawks at the ancient teacher for a few seconds, then at Dib, who can’t stop the shit-eating grin that curves across his face. The alien doesn’t comment on it, instead glaring daggers at Dib before stomping across the room to storm out the door. Moments later, the dismissal bell rings. With a thrill of anxiety, Dib silently prays to whatever deity is listening that for once Zim won’t inevitably weasel his way out of detention.
Well, the Gods must be upset with Dib for something because of course, Zim is standing ominously on the sidewalk in front of the entrance Dib emerges from. A few curious students cast nosy glances at the pair, probably hoping to see a fight break out. No fight does though, at least not yet, and Dib tenses with narrowed eyes as Zim stalks closer.
“I know you threw that water bottle at me, Dib-shit,” Zim says in a low, dangerous tone, “I don’t know how you did it, but you’re the only fool on this entire planet who’d dare attack me.”
Dib feels Zim’s aura pressing in on him as the Invader draws nearer and he has to fight to stay where he is. His fingers tremble slightly, and Zim must pick up on it because he grins with savage cockiness, “Your fear is duly noted, pitiful human, and you are right to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” Dib snaps, and he’s not lying; he hasn’t been afraid of Zim since the alien first landed on Earth several weeks earlier. The boy knows intimately that he could knock Zim flat on his ass right now without moving a muscle, but he also knows that this is a terrible idea, given that there are witnesses. And humans often don’t accept what they don’t understand.
“Really? Because I see your hands shaking, stinky worm-baby.”
“I have a nasty headache, like I always do. Can I go now?”
“ Absolutely not-”
Zim reaches a black-gloved hand out, probably to grab Dib by the wrist, and Dib’s mind immediately supplies him with memories of similarly clawed hands doing the same thing, of the probing stares of mystical beings with ivory-white antlers atop their heads, and the whispers in a language Dib doesn’t know the name of but fully understands:
You have such lovely eyes.
What happens next is purely instinct; Dib subconsciously activates his telekinesis and it crackles invisibly along his skin to deliver a nasty shock the moment Zim touches him. The alien hisses and hops back a few steps with an eyebrow cocked. For a time, neither of them says anything. The whole exchange lasts mere seconds but that handful of seconds is enough for a fair number of students to witness the whole thing.
Mind racing, Dib straightens up, hopes he doesn’t look too shaken, and loudly says, “ Wow, Gaz wasn’t kidding when she said wool socks are crazy!”
That seems to be enough to convince the onlookers that nothing interesting is happening, and they placidly continue on their way out of school grounds. Dib gives Zim a wide berth and breaks into a dead sprint as soon as he passes the school’s front gate. His feet scarcely touch the ground as he runs, and Dib has to forcibly rein in his ESP so that he runs at a more human speed. Either way, he ends up reaching his house’s front door in record time and slams the door shut behind him.
Once it’s securely locked, he leans heavily against it and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. His heart still rabbits against his ribcage like a trapped animal, his fingers shake even more than normal, and cold sweat beads on his face and neck.
“You look like shit.”
Dib lets out a wheezing huff of laughter. “Do I?”
“Mm-hm,” Gaz hums, eyes flicking up from the screen of her GameSlave, “Did Zim finally kill someone?”
“N- no, no, he didn’t, he just…” Dib trails off and watches Gaz’s face carefully to see whether or not she’ll judge him for whining about something she doesn’t remember, “ ...he tried to grab my wrist and it brought back some memories I don’t wanna think about. It’s fine.”
“Doesn’t sound fine. You should talk to Dad.”
“I dunno, I’m kinda wiped out--”
Gaz narrows her eyes at him from her place on the couch, “You say that every time this happens.”
“Yeah, but I mean it this time. I just ran all the way here from Hi-Skool.”
With one last scowl, Gaz grunts bad-naturedly and returns her attention to her game. Dib waits against the door a minute or two longer, then once his heart rate has slowed enough, he readjusts the backpack slung over his shoulder and kicks off his shoes. Gaz doesn’t object as he makes his way across the room to the stairs.
She’s probably given up on the idea that Dib will someday open up properly to their dad.
Pushing these thoughts from his head, Dib makes his way down the hall towards his room, eyes flickering to the walls every few steps. One might mistake this for paranoia-- which Dib certainly has an unhealthy dose of-- but upon further inspection, they’d notice the numerous Fae wards tucked behind picture frames, carefully hung from wall sconces, and placed deliberately over each doorframe: a single rowan branch over Gaz’s door, an iron horseshoe over Professor Membrane’s door, and a wall planter overflowing with St John’s Wort over Dib’s own door.
Dib pauses a moment in front of his bedroom door, inspecting the yellow flowers, before opening the door and flicking on the light.
Among the dozens and dozens of paranormal investigator gadgets and diagrams are delicately-painted little flowerpots filled with St John’s Wort, primroses, daisies, and clumps of clover. Dib closes the door behind him, feeling immediately comforted by the overwhelming smell of so many flowers.
This is the only place in the world he truly feels safe; like he won’t be stolen by the Fair Folk again.
While Zim’s original goal was to invade Earth, his attention has been fully captured by the enigma that is Dib Membrane.
He’s been finding it harder to focus on his mission while reporting in to the Tallest, instead giving his thoughts on his greatest rival. Of course, he’s also described the ‘Fair Folk’ to the Tallest whenever he gains new knowledge on them, but Zim has heard enough about these creatures from his classmates to know it’s completely stupid to go looking for them.
As for the Dib, well, that’s a whole other story.
The boy gives off an odd air that Zim can’t quite pinpoint, and he’s been deliberately trying to get uncomfortably close to Dib in an attempt to study the dramatic difference in air pressure around him. The first time Zim noticed this, it certainly threw him for a loop; how can a human change the very pressure of the air, let alone significantly enough for Zim’s antennae to crackle uncomfortably (in the way human ears popping is unpleasant). Then there’s the shock he received when coming into physical contact with Dib earlier today.
He narrows his red eyes and logs the day’s findings in his e-journal. He must be getting close to unraveling the mystery surrounding the Dib.
He must be.