Chapter Text
He’s almost elbow-deep, dark burgundy spattered across the medical gloves.
“Too bad we couldn’t keep him awake,” Dib mutters, “he could have told us what these were called.”
Zim grunts, something like, you think? Because they both know by now that ‘awake’ means ‘alive’.
The Skålrt on the table - a soft, humanoid creature shorter than Zim and covered in fur - of course has no input. Its rabbit ears, all four of them, trail down as the eyes gaze up sightlessly.
It used to bother both of them. Now it was just a nuisance.
Dib glances up as Zim pulls down the anatomy chart they’ve set up - it’s got the basic organs of a Human and an Irk written in their perspective languages; Dib thinks that what he has ahold of might be intestine. Maybe.
His eyes rove to the Irkin letters, and he takes a moment slowly to read it. He’s not fluent, not yet, but he does think that this is the Skålrt’s digestive tract since it looks similar enough to the Irkin one.
“Can you get me one of the jars? I think I’m done for today.”
“Get it yourself, Dib-filth,” Zim snips back. They’re both over-tired after fighting the Skålrt when it got loose earlier.
Dib shows his bloody gloves and sends him a curse for good measure; it’s nowhere near as fluid as Zim makes it sound, but Dib’s certain he got the tone down right.
Zim gapes at him a moment, and then bursts out laughing, loudly. “That? That was your best attempt?”
Dib fights off a smile, focusing on his irritation. “Hey! It’s not like you speak English perfectly! And you get to download all your language in your PAK! I have to learn the hard way.” Never mind that my throat literally isn’t made to make those noises, he thinks.
“ ‘I, Dib-idiot-whiny-worm, has to learn everything the hard way!’ “ He mocks, while going to get the jar. “Please, you’re just not as great as Zim!”
“Says the alien who still mixes up his first-and-third person.”
“I heard that!”
Dib let’s loose a wry smile.
It was . . .odd, for sure. They had hated each other for so long, tried to even kill one another. But now? They could pass their relationship off as, well, friends. They still bullied one another, and slung insults, and occasionally got into a destructive battle of wits, but it wasn’t anywhere near what it once was. Their mutual respect had come to the forefront, and their disdain had been shoved aside.
It wasn’t all that surprising, Dib supposed; the Swollen Eyeball had eradicated ‘Agent Mothman’ from the organization, and Zim had been abandoned. Both considered a danger to their respective ‘bosses’. Without either of them having their purpose, their drive to destroy one another had simply. . .faded.
Zim still wanted to cause chaos, of course, and Dib certainly would prove the world wrong - you couldn’t tear away what had been hard-wired into their cores.
But, their objectives had changed, and with it, they found middle ground.
Hence the body on the table that Dib had been digging into for the last several hours.
The jar - one of the containment units that kept the bodies they obtained fresh - clinked as Gir pulled it off of the hoverer, humming a little ditty. Zim gazed down at the body, clacking his claws on the table.
“Well? Findings?”
Zim was unusually pensive, but Dib didn’t press.
“Just what you already told me; it’s digestive tract was weird, probably because of how it needs to process. It definitely had organs for processing whatever gas is in its home planets atmosphere, and it looked like two organs to pump its blood. Nothing too complex beyond that though.”
Zim, of course, knew all of this as he had been watching the entire time. Dib knew that Zim had been itching to dig in for himself, but the Irkin respected that the dissection was Dib’s - it was part of their deal.
Irkins and their weird territorial-possessive-whatever.
“Hmm, mmmnmmm,” Zim nodded, humming; his antennae bouncing.
Dib started to drag the body off of the table and into the jar - it was surprisingly heavy. “Okay, what now?”
“What, what now?”
There was a dull thunk as it fell into the jar. “You’re being weird, like, quiet-weird. That usually means something is on your mind, or that I need to be ready for another rodent mishap.”
Zim’s antennae shot up indignantly, as he pointed accusatory. “You lie! I - the rats were not meee; Zim was framed!!!” He dragged out words and syllables, so Dib knew that he was lying blatantly.
He gave him his best, ‘cut-the-bullcrap-now’ look.
Zim wilted and the finger dropped. Dib smirked; gottem. “I, in my superior intelligence, have been contemplating, er. . .”
The Irkin started squishing two fingers together nervously. He shuffled from side to side. Muttered something.
Dib blinked rapidly. “What? Look, you gotta speak up.”
“I, The Great and mighty Zim, have decided that you, Dib-stink, can join me on my next capture mission!” Zim finally burst out, hands on his hips and nodding approvingly at himself.
“Whoa, for real!” Dib darted forward, intending to grab his arms, but Zim hopped back with a screech about the filthy gloves. “Aw man, this’ll be so, so,” Dib sounds around with stars in his eyes, “so COOL!”
“Yes, yes, Dib-stink. Very cool,” Zim brushed himself off although Dib hadn’t even touched him. “Now, dispose of your filthy, rotten gloves - I need to go over the plans and rules. And then!” Zim’s grin was sharp zipper-links.
Dib grinned back just as dangerously.
“Then, we catch ourselves an alien,” Dib finished for him.