Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a strange kind of quiet, the kind that wrapped around the brain like a too-wet towel—heavy, clinging, muffled.
Dib blinked once. He was staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize. Metal. Pale green light thrummed from somewhere behind his left ear.

His head pulsed, sharp and dull all at once, like a heartbeat wrapped in broken wire.

He groaned.

The sound startled him—it scraped out of his throat like gravel, as if his body wasn’t sure it was allowed to speak yet. His mouth was dry, tongue thick, jaw sore. He tried to move, but his arms didn’t respond. Then his legs. Same. Everything was sluggish.

He was aware of pressure—bands at his wrists, his chest, his thighs. Not tight. Not painful. But containing.

Restraints?

Panic bloomed somewhere in his chest, but it was distant. Muffled. Like shouting through cotton.

Memory crawled in, backward and slow.

“SURPRISE!”

A toaster. GIR. Glowing mechanical eyes. The metallic crack against his temple. His own knees giving way. Cold floor.

...

Then nothing.

“...Oh god,” he slurred. His voice didn’t sound like his. He blinked against the dim green light. Something beeped.

A whir was heard in the distance, footsteps echoing in the fucking alien base he was trapped in.

“Ah! The subject is vocalizing. Zim's medical assistance was quite efficient.”

The voice echoed from above. Dib twisted his head toward the sound and immediately regretted it—nausea spun through his stomach like loose marbles.

Zim stood on a catwalk (where did that come from?) overhead, peering down with wide, eerie magenta eyes. He was holding something—a tablet, maybe. Or a scanning unit. His grin was unnervingly proud.

“You’re awake, Dib-filth,” Zim said, stepping onto a platform that hovered and whirred as it descended. “That took longer than expected. Your flesh is horrifically inadequate.”

Dib tried to snarl something, but it came out as a breathless grunt. He squinted. “What—where—” His tongue felt rubbery.

“You were gifted to me by GIR,” Zim continued, circling him. “I returned from orbital extraction to find you collapsed on my diagnostics slab. Zim assumed you were dead at first, but then—you twitched. A delightful discovery.”

Dib’s hands balled into fists. It took tremendous effort. “Let...me go…”

Zim leaned over him, expression unreadable. “You attempted to fight. That’s normal. The brain resists healing at first. You screamed the second day. Said something about... prescription glasses?”

Dib’s eyes widened. “You’ve had me... how long—?”

“Seven Earth days,” Zim replied, far too calmly. “Your Earth physiology is fragile, I had to reinforce it. I patched the damage, BE GREATFUL, HUMAN.”

“You kidnapped me—”

Zim waved a hand. “You were unconscious. That’s not kidnapping. That’s sanctuary. I monitored you.”

Dib tried to thrash—his shoulder lifted an inch before something buzzed and pushed him gently back down. Not painful, Just final. He sucked in a shaky breath.

“You can’t just—take me—”

“Zim tended to your injuries,” Zim said, voice dipping into something weirdly soft. “I stabilized your brainwaves. Fed your disgusting human body-nutrients. I even neutralized your fever.”

“You don’t... know what you’re doing…” Dib whispered. “You don’t know anything about—”

“I watched twenty-two episodes of Earth Romance Weekly while you slept.” Zim beamed, zipper teeth glowing ominously. “I know plenty.”

Dib blinked, then scoffed. “That’s a TV show.”

“It taught me your kind’s rituals. Sleeping in the presence of another signifies trust. Touch signifies bonding. Refusing escape? Submission. You did all these things.”

“Because I’m injured!”

Zim crouched next to him now, his voice almost gentle. “And still you stayed. I did not restrain you until Day Four. You merely... remained. You accepted care. I don’t think you realize what that means.”

Dib’s heart stumbled in his chest.

“No,” he rasped. “No, you’re reading this wrong. I didn’t want this.”

Zim tilted his head, almost pitying. “You didn’t fight. That’s what matters. You let me help.”

“I was concussed, you fucking moron—!”

Zim leaned closer, placing two fingers lightly at the side of Dib’s throat.

“You’re warm,” he noted. “You’re healing. That means it worked.”

Dib’s breath caught.

The first few days weren’t blackness, they were flickers.

A light burning behind his eyes, a shape sometimes moving past. The sound of water dripping, or metal sliding open. Cold soup on his tongue. A screen blinking with bright symbols. Zim’s voice narrating some strange theory about human limb density or dietary minerals.

He remembered crying once. Not loudly. Not for long.

He remembered someone—Zim, maybe—adjusting the band across his chest and muttering, “There. Calibrated for respiration. Do not expire, Dib-pet.”

He remembered resisting. Pulling weakly against the glowing mesh that held him in place. He remembered Zim’s fingers brushing his forehead, maybe testing for fever. Maybe just... curious.

“You’re trembling,” Zim had said, fascinated. “Is that a defense reflex? Or an emotional leak?”

He remembered whispering, “Don’t touch me…”

Zim had paused. Then, softly:
“But I already did.”

When Zim finally let him go, it wasn't with ceremony. He didn’t explain. He simply unplugged a few cables, deactivated the field, and said, “Return to your dwelling, Dib.” He didn't like how simple that sounded, but Dib didn't have it in him to find out what Zim was planning, not anymore.

Dib stumbled out into the sunlight.

The world felt... too bright. Too fast. Everything moved like it was trying to mock how slow he was.

His keys took three tries to fit into the lock. The door groaned open. The hallway smelled faintly of burnt food and forgotten laundry.

“...Hello?” he rasped.

No answer.

He dropped his bag—he hadn’t realized Zim gave it back. It landed with a dull thud and tipped over, a few crumpled papers, a broken pen, his phone, and his textbooks fell out. His phone was still dead.

On the fridge was another insufferable note left for them to read.

Gone to Switzerland. Take care of your brain. –Dad

In the living room: Gaz.

She was on the couch, eyes glued to her Game Slave. The screen reflected blue across her face.

She didn’t look up. “Back already?”

“I was gone for a week.”

“You’re always gone.”

She resumed playing.

Dib stood there for a moment longer. Then he climbed the stairs to his room, shut the door behind him, and sat on the edge of his bed.

The quiet was worse than Zim’s lab.

There was dust on his desk lamp. He stared at it.

A thin halo of it. Undisturbed. Untouched. Like everything else in the room. Like him.

The floor creaked when he shifted. His bed didn’t. It just sagged—familiar, tired, passive.

He thought about saying something. Out loud. Maybe just a hello. Or a help. But there was no one to hear it.

No one ever was.

It started with a thought.
A simple, dull one:

No one asked where I was.

Not Gaz. Not his dad. Not the neighbors, or school, or the police, or anyone. No text, no voicemail, not even a “where have you been?”

No one noticed I was gone.

His hand twitched. It rested against his thigh like it was trying to become part of the blanket. His eyes didn’t blink for a while.

They didn’t care.

And then it came.

Quietly. Slowly. Like a leak in the wall. A long, creeping horror that spread across his ribs and down his spine, dripping cold through the soft meat of his lungs.

They never did.

The world began to ring. Not loud. Just steady. A high, brittle frequency—like a hospital monitor dying. Or maybe a tea kettle someone forgot on the stove.

He was sixteen when he stopped trying to prove Zim was an alien.

He was seventeen when he realized the real question was whether anyone would have believed him even if he’d succeeded.

They all moved on.

They all stopped listening.

He'd screamed himself hoarse at assemblies. Chased monsters down alleys. Collected blurry photos and broken devices, begging anyone to just look. Just once.

They laughed.

They stopped asking.

He stopped talking.

His hands curled into fists. Not tightly. More like reflexively.
Muscle memory of trying to hold onto something. But there was nothing.

His vision blurred. Not with tears—yet. Just from staring too long. From blinking too little.

Would anything change if I disappeared?

He didn’t mean death. Not quite.

He meant gone. Removed. Extracted. Erased.

No evidence. No trace. Just… gone.

Would Gaz even clean out his room? Would his dad remember what day he vanished?

Would anyone care?

A sound crawled out of his chest.

Not a sob.

Not a word.

Just a shudder.

He folded over himself, breath catching—but it never escaped. It stayed caged in his lungs, stuttering against his ribs like it was afraid to make a scene.

His hands clutched at the blanket beneath him.

Knuckles went white.

Then pink again.

Then white.

Over and over.

There were tears. Not the kind that fell. Just welled. Clung to the edges of his lashes until the room went glassy.

Everything was too quiet.

Too still.

The ceiling fan spun above him, creaking faintly like it had been installed wrong.

This is it.

This is all I get.

This stupid room and a week of silence and no one who even noticed I was missing.

He didn’t cry. Not properly.

But something broke.

It was subtle. A snap of thread somewhere behind the eyes. A breath he forgot to take, and then forgot he forgot.

He stopped moving.

Not frozen—just emptied. Like something had been scooped out of him with one of those long, silver surgical spoons Zim used to use when dissecting frogs in Bio class.

His jaw slackened.

Eyes stayed open.

Breath shallow.

Blanket bunched in his fists.

Still.

He stayed like that until the sun set. Until the room turned blue, then navy, then black.

His door creaked at some point. A sliver of hallway light cut across the floor.

Gaz stood in the doorway, silhouette sharp.

She stared at him. He didn’t turn. Didn’t blink.

“Hey,” she muttered. “Dinner’s in the microwave. I think.”

No response.

She lingered for another second.

“…Don’t do anything dumb.”

She closed the door.

He stared at the fan again.

Hours passed.

Time didn’t exist in this state. It folded in on itself like paper soaked in oil—soft and dark and useless.

At 3:08 a.m., the window opened.

He didn’t flinch.

The sound was faint. Metal on glass. A hinge groaning with effort. Then feet—light, precise—touched the floor.

Zim didn’t speak immediately.

He crossed the room, silent.

Stood beside the bed.

Looked down at him.

Dib didn’t move.

Didn’t even pretend to be asleep. Just stared at the wall.

Zim crouched.

“You didn’t scream,” he said softly. “That confirms further compatibility.”

Still nothing.

Zim reached out. His hand hovered above Dib’s shoulder. Then rested there, palm flat, fingers spread slightly.

“You’ve accepted my presence,” he said, a strange calm in his voice. “Irken pairing rituals confirm this is mutual reinforcement.”

Dib’s eye twitched. His throat worked like he wanted to say something. He didn’t.

“You were alone here,” Zim murmured, almost whispering now. “They did not seek you. I did.”

His hand moved—brushed gently down Dib’s arm, stopping at the wrist. His fingers settled there, thumb over the pulse point.

“You didn’t fight me in the base,” he said. “You let me keep you. That matters.”

Dib finally spoke. Barely. A croak.

“…You didn’t give me a choice.”

Zim leaned closer. His voice dipped to a hush.

“You didn’t ask for one, either.”

That got a blink.

Dib’s jaw flexed—an aborted protest. Then it faded again. His chest rose. Fell.

Zim didn’t move away.

“You’re Zim's,” he said. Not with cruelty. Not with fire. Just… certainty.

Dib didn’t answer.

Not yes.

Not no.

Only silence.

It started as a twitch.

A shift beneath the blanket. The kind of movement you make in half-sleep, trying to get away from a wrinkle or a stray thread pressing too hard against your skin.

Dib groaned, rolling onto his back.

Then the twitch became heat.

A weird kind of ache bloomed on his side—low and to the left, right over the jut of his hip bone. Not a sharp pain. Not at first. Just a building pressure, like he’d been leaning on a sunlamp too long.

He reached down to rub at it, fingers brushing his waistband—and that’s when his breath caught.

It hurt.

Like burned.

He sat up too fast. The room spun once, twice. His ribs ached. Head pounded. But none of that mattered.

He yanked his shirt up. Shoved his sweatpants down a few inches.

And saw it.

There, etched into his skin—precise, glowing faintly, lines too clean to be natural—was a mark.

Not a bruise. Not a wound.

A symbol.

Geometric. Intricate. Irken.

Zim’s.

Dib stared.

“No,” he breathed. “No, what the—what is this—” His voice cracked.

He scrambled to the mirror, flipping the light on. Pale skin, dark circles, sweat-slick hair—and the mark. The brand. Burned into the sensitive skin, just above the jut of his hipbone, left side, where the skin dipped slightly beneath the hollow of his waist, something was burned into him, pulsing faintly with each heartbeat, as if it belonged there.

A mark. A shining, puckered pink mark.

Geometric. Precise. Maybe an inch across. 

The Irken Invader symbol.

Long ago, Zim had proudly explained what the symbol across his entire base meant. And Dib had remembered.

He pressed a shaking hand near it, careful not to touch it directly. The skin around it was warm. Tender. Still healing.

Still healing—which meant it had been there for days.

Which meant Zim had done this when he was out. When he couldn’t move. When he couldn’t say no.

“It’s part of the Irken ritual of marking what's theirs.”

“Consent confirmed.”

“You didn’t fight Zim.”

The words echoed in his skull like sirens, rising and overlapping until they became noise.

Dib staggered back, mouth dry, breath shaky.

It was real.

He was branded.

Like a pet. Like property. Like a science experiment tagged for future study.

He thought of Zim’s hand on his throat. The way he’d said with such finality, “You’re Zim's.”

And Dib hadn’t answered.

He hadn’t said no.

He hadn’t said anything.

Something split.

It didn’t crack. It didn’t explode. It peeled—quietly, gently, like flesh coming off a sunburn. And underneath was something raw. Wet. Numb.

He dropped to his knees, fingers curled against the cold tile floor.

This is what I am now. A body that no one missed. A thing no one protected. Even Zim only wanted me because I didn’t scream.

He didn’t sob.

He didn’t cry.

He just shook.

The kind of shaking that started in your gut and spread out, infecting every limb until your whole body was humming like a tuning fork. Violent but silent. Desperate but contained.

No sound.

Just motion.

He pressed his forehead to the floor. It was cold. It felt real. His fingers dug into the grout between tiles as if trying to hold onto something—anything.

His heart raced. His throat hurt. The mark on his hip throbbed.

And it all felt like proof.

Proof that he was forgettable.

Replaceable.

And now, owned.

The silence in the room grew heavy. He could feel it watching him. Wrapping around him.

Not Gaz. Not his dad.

Not even Zim, right now.

Just the silence. And the mark. And the weight of knowing he hadn’t screamed soon enough.

The bathroom mirror was fogged.

Dib stared at the outline of himself through the steam, a blurry silhouette with hollows under his eyes and a mess of wet hair clinging to his forehead. His skin was pale, pink where the water had scalded him too long. There was a single bead of condensation crawling down his collarbone, catching faint light from the cheap fixture overhead.

He hadn’t meant to look.

But he turned.

Just a little.

Just enough to see it again.

The brand.

Low on his hip, angry and red now from the heat of the shower, glowing faintly like it had a heartbeat of its own. The mark pulsed in time with his blood.

He pressed his palm against the wall beside the mirror and exhaled.

He didn’t touch it.

Not directly.

But he looked. Really looked.

And then, stupidly—unforgivably—his mind wandered.

To the way Zim had touched him.

Not cruelly. Not even forcefully.

Just calmly.

The hand on his wrist. The thumb over his pulse. The voice, low and certain: "You're Zim's."

Something in Dib’s stomach twisted—tightened—and for half a second, half a second, heat pooled low and sharp behind his navel.

His breath hitched.

“No,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, no, no—no, don't.”

He gripped the sink. Hard. Cold porcelain grounding him.

The feeling passed.

He didn’t want to think about what it meant.

He let the towel slip down just low enough when he walked past Gaz’s room.

Not dramatically. Not obviously.

Just enough.

He didn’t knock. Just walked slow. Let the hallway light catch the corner of the mark. He heard her chair creak behind him. Knew she saw it.

He paused.

Half-hoped she’d say something.

Anything.

What the hell is that?

Who did this to you?

Are you okay?

Nothing.

Just the sound of her soda can cracking open. The fizz.

He kept walking.

Ten minutes later, she came to his door.

Not waiting for any permission, She opened it, leaned against the frame, her arms crossed, and Dib didn’t look up from his desk.

“So,” she said flatly. “You letting aliens draw tramp stamps on you now?”

Dib flinched.

But didn’t answer.

Gaz sighed.

“Zim?”

Still no answer.

“Was it when you were out?”

Dib nodded. Once.

Silence.

He turned slightly in his chair, just enough to meet her eyes. There was something desperate under the surface. Barely there, but visible in the tightness around his mouth.

He didn’t say it, but the plea was obvious:

Please care.

Gaz just shrugged.

“Well, you let him. So.”

Dib’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“You didn’t fight him,” she said. Not accusing, just stating. “You let it happen, or you wouldn't have this.”

“That’s not—” His voice cracked. “Gaz, I didn’t want—”

“Then maybe don’t act like a kicked puppy when he treats you like a chew toy.”

That one stung.

It was the closest thing she’d said to cruel in months.

He looked away.

Her voice softened. Barely.

“…If you wanted someone to yell, you picked the wrong person.”

Then she left.

The door didn’t slam.

But it may as well have.

He sat there for a while. The weight of her words settled on his chest like a lead apron. That mark burned under his waistband like it had ears. Like it heard everything she’d said.

He stayed frozen, staring at nothing, until the clock hit 12:01.

Then he stood up, pulled on his boots, grabbed his jacket, and took Gaz's baseball bat from the umbrella stand.

The night air was damp and cold, wind biting gently at his skin as he walked down the block. He didn’t know where he was going at first. He just walked, fast, like his body needed to move before it calcified from everything inside him.

He found the old tennis courts by the park. No lights. Just the glow from a few broken streetlamps and the glint of chain-link fencing under the moon.

He didn’t hesitate.

He took the bat in both hands and swung—hard—at the back of a trash can. It clattered against the fence and fell over. He kicked it once, then turned to the wooden bench nearby and started smashing the slats.

Wood cracked under his swings. Splinters flew. His hands started to sting.

He kept going.

Didn’t stop until his arms hurt and the bat had a chip in it and one of the slats had split in half, dangling like a loose tooth.

Then he collapsed onto the concrete.

He didn’t cry loudly.

No sobs.

Just tears—silent, fast, raw. Face buried in his knees, back shaking. A breath caught in his throat that refused to come out.

The next day, a knock could be heard from the front door. A weird, wet sort of knock—like someone was hitting the wood with a plush toy or a sack of rice.

Dib hesitated.

He crossed the living room slowly, shirt now pulled low and sleeves shoved up. The brand still throbbed under his waistband, slightly raw. Like it wanted to be noticed.

Another knock.

Thump.

Thump.

He opened the door.

And barely dodged the brick.

It whizzed past his head and slammed into the floor lamp—his lamp. The one his Dad made to look like him because he's the biggest fucking narcissist on this disgusting planet-

It shattered.

Good.

Dib didn’t flinch.

He looked down at the brick.

It was wrapped in a pink polka-dotted scarf.

Taped to it: a note. And under the note that was clearly written by Zim, was GIR's blocky, uneven handwriting.

Inside, Zim had written—clearly under duress:

To: MY MARY

From: THE ALMIGHTY ZIM

“Zim does not understand your Earth sadness rituals. However, per GIR's insistence, I am acknowledging your… emotional state. Your body continues to function. Your vitals are stable. This suggests that you are not beyond repair. I have chosen not to retrieve you tonight. This is a courtesy. One you will not find again. Do not misplace this offering.
It means something.”

Below that, scribbled in red pen—smaller, messier, like it had been added under protest:

(Master seys he dosnt care but he dos an he said nottu throw it but I did anyway cuz I LOVEded BRiCKs)

Dib blinked.

Then heard a giggle. He looked outside to see the source of the noise.

GIR stood on the lawn, spinning in circles, arms out.

“HIIIIIIIIIIII MARYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” he screamed.

Then took off down the street, singing a song about waffles and frogs.

Dib closed the door slowly, sat on the floor, pulled the note from the scarf and read it again.

He didn’t laugh.

But he smiled.

Just a little.

The first real one in days. 

He folded the note neatly, and after going up to his room, placed it in his desk drawer.

Chapter Text

It had been a week since the brick.

A week since the note wrapped in pink polka dots, a scarf still sitting on Dib’s desk like a forgotten joke. He hadn’t touched it. Hadn’t thrown it out either. It just stayed there. Waiting. Like everything else.

Zim hadn’t come. Not to the window. Not to the sidewalk. Not even through the TV signal or a hacked radio wave like he used to do just to be annoying.

Dib waited. Then stopped waiting. Then started again.

It didn’t make sense. Zim didn’t ignore him. Zim didn’t let things go. By day three, Dib assumed he was being studied from afar.

By day four, he wondered if Zim had gotten bored.

By day five, the silence started to itch.

By day six, he had rehearsed entire monologues in his head. Yelled into his pillow once. Sat in the shower for 47 minutes.

It was Friday night when the silence broke.

“Dib,” came Gaz’s voice, muffled and impassive through the door. “Dad’s home.” That set every alarm in his body off.

Home? Professor Membrane never came home unless someone died or they ran out of plutonium for the reactor. The man barely acknowledged holidays.

Dib sat up slowly in bed, heart clenching. “Why?” he croaked. Gaz didn’t answer.

The living room lights were far too bright when he trudged out. His hoodie was put on hastily, his hair a rumpled mess. Professor Membrane stood by the dining table with his usual lab coat spotless, his gloves still on, arms crossed. “Well!” the Professor said with rehearsed cheer. “You’re ambulatory. That’s a good sign. I was told you had a—hmm—incident involving thermal burns?”

Dib blinked. “What.”

Gaz lounged on the couch, her eyes glued to a handheld console. “I told him you burned yourself.”

“You what?”

“It got him to show up, didn’t it?”

Membrane chuckled awkwardly, missing the tension entirely. “And on family night out, no less! My schedule is very tight, son, but we’ve made this tradition work for eleven consecutive years. Tonight, your sister gets to pick the location—”

“I don’t give a shit about family night,” Dib snapped.

There was a beat of quiet. Membrane’s tone leveled out, more clinical. “Son, I understand adolescence is fraught with—”

“No. You don’t understand. You never have. You’re a fucking lab coat with a voice modulator. You don’t even see us. You don’t see me!”

“Now that’s not true, son. I see you’re experiencing extreme emotional dysregulation, and I think we should calmly—”

Dib exploded. “You think?! What the hell do you ever THINK about me besides damage control? I could’ve actually died and you’d just record it as a lab note! You only care about how it reflects on you! I was gone for a FUCKING week and if I'd fucking died you wouldn't've even noticed—”

Gaz let out a low “oh boy,” as Membrane finally uncrossed his arms. “I think you need to remove yourself until you can engage respectfully—”

“Fuck you!” Dib screamed. “Both of you! You’re a goddamn robot and she’s your favorite parasite!”

Gaz stood up slowly, eyes locked on him. “What did you say?”

“You heard me, Gaz. Why don’t you suck up to him some more? Pretend you’re not just pissed he won’t really replace me like you want.”

Gaz punched him in the jaw.

He reeled, but didn’t fall. He spit blood in her face and gave her a manic scowl.

“Do it again.”

She did.

Dib tackled her.

They collided with the kitchen table and went through it, legs splintering, silverware clattering across the floor. Gaz bit his arm. Dib screamed and punched her in the stomach.

She grabbed the knife block, Dib saw it and kicked it from her hand. It flew across the kitchen. A knife landed in the cabinet door with a thunk. He scrambled to get up, grabbing a broken table leg and held it high above his head, slamming it down, aiming for her head. Gaz quickly rolled out of the way, pushing herself up immediately, she kicked at his hand, making him drop the splintered wood with a cry.

Gaz grabbed a plate and slammed it against Dib’s shoulder, and he winced, but didn't stop. Spun. Shoved her hard against the fridge. She elbowed him in the nose. Blood gushed like rivers, making him taste metal.

Dib snarled, grabbed a chair. "I fucking HATE YOU!"

"I NEVER STOPPED WISHING YOU WERE DEAD, YOU FREAK!"

Membrane finally stepped in, voice still maddeningly calm.

“Children. This is no longer within the range of productive familial discourse.”

He reached for them. Dib swung the chair at his dad, snarling as a prosthetic gloved hand tried to reach him.

Membrane dodged.

Gaz spun to throw a spice jar, and Membrane ducked again.

A pot hit the wall behind him.

“I recommend we regulate breathing. Perhaps cold compresses—”

"Stop BUTTING IN, DAD! Dib's getting BURIED TONIGHT!"

Gaz tackled Dib from behind, knocking him into the sink. The faucet burst open, spraying both of them. She grabbed his hair. Slammed his face into the counter. Dib saw stars, but twisted, slamming his head into her mouth instead. Blood dripped from her gums and bottom lip, from where her teeth cut into the flesh.

They both hit the floor, breathing hard, bleeding, soaked.

The kitchen looked like a battlefield.

They lunged at each other again, hands tangled, elbows flying. Gaz socked him in the gut — Dib doubled forward, gasping — then swung her knee up to meet his ribs.

Dib bared his bloodied teeth and shoved her into the counter. The toaster went flying. Something cracked, and Dib found that he didn't care if her head split open right then and there.

He swung again. His fist caught her jaw with a sickening thud.

Gaz recoiled, stumbling into the fridge. Blood was flowing from every inch of her face, similar to his.

“Still think I’m weak?” Dib spat.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and smiled, feral.

“You’re dead.”

She tackled him, just like he did to her.

They went down hard, and Dib felt something dig into his back, Gaz being cushioned by his body.

She grabbed a shard of broken ceramic.

Dib caught her wrist before she could drive it into his side. She shrieked when he wrenched it out of her grip, both of their hands cut and bleeding.

“ENOUGH!” Their dad finally snarled, pulling both him and Gaz off of the floor by their arms— one gloved hand on each — and yanked them apart like separating rabid animals.

“This is a family environment,” he said with forced composure. “There will be no dismemberment at the dinner table.”

Dib struggled in his grip, face slick with blood.

“Let. Me. GO!”

Membrane’s arm tensed — servo motors humming.

Dib looked down. Saw the seam in the joint. Gripped the ceramic shard he'd taken from his sister—

And jammed the shard in.

Electric sparks burst from the arm. Membrane gasped and released both of them, his prosthetic spasming violently.

“Motor override compromised,” he muttered.

Gaz lunged again, but Dib dodged her and pushed her away from him.

He was panting, knuckles raw, both eyes swelling shut, blood caking every inch of him.

“Go fuck yourself, Gaz.” He spat her name like it was a curse, then turned to his dad, who was stretching his malfunctioning prosthetic, "and fuck you, you sad, pathetic excuse of a father. Enjoy your fucking night out. You’re not my fucking family, you’re just two parasites feeding off the illusion that everything's okay—so keep ignoring me, keep smiling through your rotting teeth while you drown in each other’s filth. I hope the house burns down with you in it.”

And then he was gone.

The streets were empty and washed in sickly yellow streetlight. Dib didn’t bother wiping the blood off his face. It trailed down from his nose, his split lip, a long gash on his temple, from everywhere. His eyes were swelling shut, so was his jaw. One knuckle jutted out at a crooked angle, the cut from the ceramic shard burning. His ribs screamed with every breath.

But it still wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t close to enough.

He ran until the lights disappeared. Until there were no sidewalks. Just dirt and cracked pavement and the screech of some distant, feral animal.

He ended up at the edge of the same old park.

Busted fence. Useless broken bench. Ghosts of a hundred failed memories.

He didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed the metal trash bin he had abused before and hurled it into the chainlink fence. The metal screamed. He kicked it, then slammed his fists into the wall behind the bench—once, twice, again, and again, until the skin split wider again and blood splattered the concrete.

Then he screamed. Long and ragged, like something was being torn out of him.

Still not enough.

So he started clawing at his own arms. Tearing into scabs. Peeling the bruises raw. Anything to feel something different—anything to stop the way the world had drowned him in its silence and left him nothing.

And then—

“Done yet?”

Dib froze mid-breath.

That voice.

Zim’s voice.

He looked up, eyes wide, chest heaving.

Zim was in the tree above him—legs propped up, arms behind his head, bleeding from everywhere. His face was blank, save for how his non-existent brows were furrowed over his fake contacts. 

And yet somehow, after seeing Dib literally break his hand against a wall, he still smirked.

“I was wondering how long it would take you to snap.”

Dib’s vision blurred with fury.

“You—you’re the reason—” he roared, then lunged.

Zim dropped down effortlessly, but Dib tackled him mid-air. They hit the ground hard. Zim tried to grab his wrists—tried to pin him to keep him from doing more damage to himself—but Dib screamed and thrashed like a wounded animal.

Zim hissed. “Stop it, you maniac—”

Dib slashed at his face.

Nails dug deep into Zim’s right eye. Something gave—there was a wet, horrible pop and Zim howled as pink blood sprayed between them, the contact he wore on the eye falling to the ground, a slimy sound was heard as it made impact with Dib's chest.

Dib blinked, hand dripping, face getting splattered with pink.

Zim recoiled, clutching his eye. “You—YOU—”

And then he hit back.

Not a playful slap. Not a dodge or a block.

A full-force alien blow that launched Dib off the ground and sent him skidding across the grass and into a tree, limbs flailing.

Dib spat blood, already trying to scramble back to his feet.

What was wrong with him? Why was he burning every bridge— no matter how terribly built— to the ground? He didn't want to be alone, but he just couldn't stop—

They collided again. A flurry of fists, elbows, knees. Zim fought like a creature built for war. Dib fought like he wanted to die. Each hit made his vision blur. His arm hung useless. One leg kept buckling.

Still, he didn’t stop.

Until his body did.

Suddenly, mid-swing, Dib’s legs gave out. He dropped like a marionette with cut strings. No drama, no flair—just pure collapse.

His breath rattled.

Zim stood over him, panting. His bleeding face twitched. His right eye socket leaked pink down his chin, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled. For a second, he looked like he might kill Dib then and there.

But instead…

He dropped down beside him.

Flat on his back. Arms spread.

The silence stretched between them like a pulse.

Then—

“You’re an idiot,” Zim muttered.

Dib laughed without humor, broken and quiet. “Takes one.”

Zim closed his good eye. “You ripped out my eye, Dib.”

“You punched me into a tree.”

“I let you claw at me, foolish human. Zim was trying to keep you from gutting yourself.”

“Why?”

Zim turned his head. The blood from his socket had begun to dry, he sounded pained. “Because I need you.”

Dib’s expression soured. “To torture?”

“To exist,” Zim snapped, voice suddenly hoarse. “You—you stupid, broken thing—" he cut himself off, opting to stare at the dark night sky above them.

After a while, Zim sat up slowly, wiping the blood from his face. From his eye and down to his cheek, the green skin was torn open, pink blood drying like oil across his jaw, staining his purple hoodie. The right side of his face was a pulpy mess where Dib had clawed him. He didn’t even seem to notice.

“Was it worth it?” Zim asked, voice quieter now. “Beating your fists into a wall until they stopped obeying you? Clawing Zim's eye out?”

Dib turned his head just enough to glare at him. “You don’t get to talk to me like you know all about the shit that went down.”

Zim snorted. “Zim knows enough. I watched the Primitive Flesh Duel between you genetically identical meat-bags. Disgusting... but entertaining. The screaming. The violence. Your dear family. You think Zim didn’t hear every word?” He tilted his head, looking far too pleased despite the blood caking his face. “The last thing Zim heard you say, Dib-filth? Even the Tallest would’ve given that line a standing ovation before vaporizing the entire family unit.”

Dib sat up, wincing. His shirt was torn, sticky with sweat and blood. “Why are you here, Zim?”

Zim blinked slowly, genuinely confused by the question. “To collect you.”

“You think I’m just gonna go with you? After—this?”

“I assumed you'd resist. But I didn’t expect this much theater.” Zim looked him over. “I thought you might cry instead of attacking. That would have been more annoying.”

“I still could,” Dib said, voice hoarse, bitter. “But I’d rather claw out the other eye first.”

Zim smiled—not a smug grin this time, but something more subtle, almost approving. “There's my human.”

They sat in silence again. The wind stirred the trees. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed and died.

Then Dib’s voice cut through it all, low and shaky.

“They don’t care about me.” He didn’t look at Zim. “I could drop dead and it’d just be a minor inconvenience. Something they’d patch over like a bad wire. Gaz would spit on my grave. He’d make a documentary about it.”

Zim’s antennae twitched.

“...You’re not wrong.”

Dib gave a humorless laugh. “Don’t agree with me. You’re the reason I’m losing my mind.”

“Zim is the reason you’re still in it.”

That shut Dib up.

The alien stood slowly. He looked like a creature forged from shattered metal—jagged, blood-slick, and unkillable. Every inch of him screamed violence, but he stood there. Still Zim. Still a threat. (Still his alien.)

“You can stay here. Rot in your own mess.” Zim’s tone was suddenly hard. “Or you can get up and come with me.”

Dib hesitated.

Then: “Why?”

Zim stepped closer, his silhouette blotting out the stars. His voice lowered, strangely sincere. “Because you're not done yet. You think this is your breaking point? This isn’t even close. You have no idea what you are.”

Dib stared up at him, bloodied lips parted.

Zim reached out—not grabbing, not yanking. Just holding his hand out like it was nothing. Like it meant nothing.

But it did.

And Dib knew it. They both knew it.

“Go to your filthy, broken Earth-dwelling,” Zim said. “Or come with me. Whichever makes you feel less like a failure.”

For one breathless moment, Dib didn’t move.

Then his bloodied hand slowly rose.

And took Zim’s.

Chapter Text

Dib didn’t know how long he’d been out, only that his body hurt in places he didn’t know could hurt. His eyelids peeled open slowly, vision unfocused, and the first thing he registered was the faint scent of antiseptic... and burnt toast?

A voice cut through the haze.

"Oh, good. You're alive. Would’ve been a waste of perfectly good bio-glue if your disgusting human carcass had decided to rot on my med-table."

Zim. Right. He'd passed out when Zim decided that he was 'a failure of a human' with no 'self-restriction' and 'continuously injuring himself like a fool' and carried him to his base.

Dib groaned, trying to lift his head. His limbs felt heavy. Wrapped. Restrained. Not tied down, just... immobile from exhaustion. Bandages covered his arms, his ribs were strapped, and there was dried pink smudged on his fingernails, his face felt like it was held together with whatever Zim was slathering over its entirety. 

"You patched me up?" he rasped, voice barely a whisper.

Zim turned, his smirk visible from the glow of some cracked monitor. "Zim salvaged you. Like you salvage rotting garbage off the side of the road. Except less pleasant."

Dib let his head drop back against the pillow. He didn’t even have the energy to argue.

"Your spine was partially dislocated. Your fingers broken, knuckles split, multiple cuts and fractures. You had a cracked orbital socket and were losing blood at an alarming rate. Not to mention the self-inflicted damage. I’m surprised you didn’t just implode from sheer patheticness."

"Thanks," Dib muttered. "You’re a real humanitarian."

"I’m not human, you wretched crust-slug."

Before Dib could retort, a shadow loomed over him.

A pillow slammed down on his face.

“MURDER NAP!” GIR cheered, riding the pillow like a deranged cowboy.

“GET OFF HIM, YOU INFECTED BLENDER.” Zim screeched, yanking GIR off and flinging him across the room. The robot landed with a sproing and cheerfully flopped onto his back like nothing happened.

Dib coughed, dazed, hair sticking up in every direction. “Did... did your robot just try to smother me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zim said, inspecting some kind of scanner. “He tries to smother everyone. Consider it a rite of passage.”

Dib tried sitting up, wincing. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

“You look like it, too,” Zim snapped, nose wrinkling. “And you reek. Like gore and burnt protein and... adolescent failure. Go shower.”

Dib blinked. “I’m sorry, where would I shower? You’re deathly allergic to water. Remember? Hiss, burn, screams of agony?”

Zim scoffed, already walking away. “I built a non-lethal cleansing chamber, obviously. I’m not a barbarian, Dib-stink.”

He gestured at a sleek, vaguely coffin-shaped structure humming against one wall.

Dib stared at it. “You built a shower.”

“A state-of-the-art, human-compatible rehydration and filth-removal unit.”

Dib rubbed his eyes. “You built a shower.”

Zim crossed his arms. “Are you going to use it or keep repeating things like a malfunctioning audio loop?”

“I’m not even gonna question how it works,” Dib muttered. Then glanced down at his stained, torn clothes. “Still gonna smell like blood, though. These are wrecked.”

“GIR,” Zim barked. “Retrieve the human’s Earth garments. All of them.”

“YAAAAY CLOTHES HEIST!” GIR zoomed out through the ceiling.

Dib sighed. “I can’t believe I’m letting your robot break into my house.”

“Be grateful,” Zim said, already busy with another glowing panel. “Zim was going to harvest your skin and replicate it with scent-neutral fibers. But apparently humans are too squeamish for improvement.”

Dib limped to the shower pod and muttered, “I’m too tired to unpack that.”

Some time later, clean, bandaged, and wrapped in stolen laundry, Dib lay on a cot in the far corner of Zim’s base. His phone was dead. His body felt barely stitched together. And yet, he’d managed to order takeout with one of Zim’s disguised transmitters — because if he had to suffer, he wasn't doing it hungry.

"Disgusting grub." Zim wrinkled his non-existent nose at him, while Dib continued to eat his pizza in peace, GIR having an entire box to himself. "Oh," Dib said after a moment, "your eye grew back."

Zim, adorned in his disguise because he was the one that picked up the food from the delivery man, rolled his eyes at him. "Of course it did, idiot. My body far surpasses your primitive one."

Dib picked up a pepperoni and threw it in his face. Cue screaming and death-threats.

Days passed. Mostly in silence. Zim tinkered. GIR screamed. Dib healed.

And then, of course... they argued.

The trigger had been stupid. Something about a half-installed defense turret mistaking Dib’s sandwich for a biological threat and melting it into sludge.

“You could’ve WARNED me!”

“You should’ve had better reflexes, Earth-worm!”

“You’re a menace!”

“You’re a weak, squishy liability!”

“You think you’re better than me?! You’re a narcissistic, overgrown insect with abandonment issues and a god complex!”

Zim froze mid-step. “At least Zim has a complex. What do you have, Dib? A victim complex and unresolved parental neglect?”

Dib’s breath caught. His fists clenched.

Zim sneered, stepping into his space. “Pathetic little human, screeching about pain and betrayal when you run your mouth and hurl cutlery like some feral, domesticated slug-beast. Maybe if your family didn't actively wish your demise, you wouldn’t smell like trauma and stale corn chips.”

“Fuck you.”

Zim blinked.

Then smiled, slowly. “Ah. Yes. The Earth curse word.” He leaned in, eyes narrowing with eerie delight. “I am aware of what this ‘fucking’ is, Dib-filth. Though it is not yet clear why you would wish to participate in it with your parental unit and the Dib-sister, when you have ZIM.”

Dib made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a gag. His whole face went pale.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Zim looked smug. “You’re the one who said it.” 

Dib’s whole body went rigid. “You are so—so fundamentally broken. What part of ‘fuck you’ made you think I meant—”

“I am not an Earthling,” Zim said matter-of-factly, circling him now, his fake lenses glinting with interest. “Your crude idioms must be taken literally until context is proven otherwise.”

“That is not—no. Context is very clear.” Dib’s voice cracked again. He hated that it did. His face was on fire. “And I wasn’t inviting you to—”

Zim’s grin widened, sharp and feral. “You are red in the face. Your scent markers are spiking. You’re secreting additional sweat. Interesting. Are you... flustered, Dib-beast?”

“No. Shut up.”

“Or perhaps... you are inviting me. In your own backwards, violent, Earth-monkey way.” Zim’s voice lowered, and something in his tone shifted — from mockery to something speculative. Something darker. “After all... you did come crawling back to me, half-dead and helpless.”

“That is not what happened!”

“I cleaned your gore. Bandaged your disgusting limbs. Watched you twitch in your sleep and moan.” Zim’s eyes glinted. “And now you sleep here. Eat here. Bathe in my chamber.

You’re practically mine already.”

Dib’s breath hitched. That word—mine—crackled through him like lightning, wrong and exhilarating and deeply humiliating. “You’re—God, you’re so full of yourself—” he took a shaky step back. He couldn’t look away. “You’re making this weird.”

“Zim is weird,” Zim hissed, stopping right in front of him, Dib's nose nearly touching the smooth skin where there should be a nose on Zim's. “And so are you. Twisted little human with abandonment wounds, craving punishment just to feel seen.”

Dib swallowed hard. “I will punch you.”

Zim leaned closer. “Do it.”

The air between them snapped like a wire pulled too tight. Dib didn’t move. His fists were trembling at his sides.

Zim’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You smell like adrenaline and shame. It’s intoxicating.”

“I hate you.”

“Lie better.”

And then Zim touched him — two clawed fingers against the side of his neck, featherlight, tracing the pulse there. Dib didn’t flinch, but every nerve lit up like live wire.

“I can hear your heart pounding,” Zim said softly. “You want something. You don’t even know what.”

Dib’s breath hitched. “This is a really bad idea.”

“Then stop me,” Zim whispered, eyes glowing faintly.

But Dib didn’t. His voice caught in his throat. His skin was burning. His whole body ached, not from injuries now, but from how tight he felt inside, like he might shatter if Zim kept looking at him like that—like he was prey, puzzle, conquest.

He just stood there, every muscle wound tight, and when Zim’s mouth brushed his jaw — just shy of a kiss, just enough to taste his panic — Dib finally moved.

Not away.

Forward.

Their mouths collided like a car crash — messy, desperate, violent. Not a kiss so much as a collision of heat and hunger and years of unresolved hatred tangled with something that felt too much like need. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t kind.

It was claiming.