50 Words of ZADF

Summary: An Invader Zim one-shot. When a young paranormal investigator is best friends with a psychotic alien monster, life is bound to be weird in a whole lot of ways. Here and fifty of them, based on one-word prompts.

"Well, this is unexpected," Dib muttered, wringing out his hair-scythe as Zim held out his umbrella to encompass his human companion.

He couldn't see it when Zim was alone on the planet. He couldn't see it when Skoodge was there too, or when they were battling Tak. But the first time Dib actually saw Zim around other Irkens, he began to realize that the two of their lives had actually been a lot more similar than he had ever expected.

"And another thing—I'm getting the bed!"

Dib growled to himself, taking out a set of fresh sheets as GIR ran around in the background, laughing as he knocked over an antique lamp. Once again he asked himself: if I've spent the past two years trying to turn him into the Eyeballs myself, why exactly am I helping him hide from them now?

"But—th-th-that doesn't even make any sense!" Dib screamed, throwing up his hands as he continued to float inside Zim's containment sphere. "Tacos don't even have static electricity! How the heck can you use them to power that thing?!"

Zim stared at the boy for a second, then just rolled his eyes as he poured GIR's lunch into the machine, shaking his head. "Poor Dib-stink. You can never think outside the box, can you?"

Zim didn't know which was more bizarre---that GIR had somehow picked up the term "kindred spirits," or the fact that he had applied it to him and the Dib.

"Y-yeah!" Zim stammered, shooting a quick look back at Dib. His friend flashed him a smile and two thumbs-up, and Zim, feeling a renewed sense of confidence, turned back to the screen with a steely red gaze in his eyes. "Because you know what? You can't fire Zim! Zim QUITS!" And he hung up before either Tallest had the chance to say a word.

"See, I knew the two freaks would start hanging out eventually!" Jessica muttered, shaking her head as Dib and Zim began arguing over their lunches.

"Alright, fine!" Zim screamed, suddenly grabbing Dib's hand and pulling him out the door. "I'll get you a new pair of glasses, if it'll make you just shut up about it already!"

"Well I hate to break this to you, Dib, but I've actually been up there" he motioned dismissively up to the night sky "and never-ever found any traces of any dead Dib-mom. So there."

He crossed his arms and turned away. Dib stared at him, then rolled his eyes and sighed. "Why do I even try to speak to you in metaphors?"

If there was a Hell, Dib decided, then the egotistical, nasty, vicious and downright genocidal Zim was definitely going to go there.

But for some reason, that thought was actually kind of depressing to him.

Each of them stubbornly claimed that it was the other who gotten them sent to the Underground Classrooms in the first place; heck, they were screaming at each other even as the basement-droid was dragging them to the Detention of Subterranean Badness. To be honest, though, neither of them was really worried; they knew by now that they would wind up teaming up together by the end of this day, and once that happened they were pretty much assured of getting out of anything.

"So, do I get one of those too?" Zim asked idly, trying to balance a pencil on his upper lip.

Dib considered the question for a moment; of course technically he wasn't sure if he even had one, and non-human animals were a whole different question philosophers could argue about…and the fact that Zim was technically a cyborg really complicated matters…

"Um…yeah. You have a soul too."

"Oh." Zim paused for a moment, head cocked slightly to the side so that the pencil slipped away. "Neat."

"So you give her a shiny rock attached to a circle and she agrees to mate with you? Feh," Zim muttered, throwing the engagement ring back at his startled best friend. "Hyuman customs are stupid."

"Wow…isn't that sunrise amazing?"

"Meh, big deal," Zim muttered, kicking at the pinkish grass that grew from the alien ground. "It's a lot more impressive when this planet's other sun rises, but we'll have to wait a few weeks for that…"

"And then," Dib said, purposefully trying to spit as much of his food out as possible as he spoke, "they bring the cows to a slaughterhouse---no, really, that's what they call it---and put them on this long conveyer belt---"

"Ah! Shut up, shut up!" Zim cried, throwing his hands up over his wig where his antennae were kept.

Dib snickered, sending more half-chewed hamburger flying. Ever since he figured out that Irkens were herbivores, lunch had gotten a lot more fun.

"Hypnotic toast?" Dib said, raising an eyebrow. "…Okay, seriously, Zim, I'm starting to think you're just making these plans up as you go along these days."

"SILENCE! Now, where was I? Oh yes! After the toast, I will unleash my flesh-eating, eh…how about turtles? I've never used turtles before."

"Yes you have."

"THEN IT'LL BE MONGEESE!"

Eventually, Dib stopped bringing water guns and hamburger meat to their fights. It just didn't seem sporting.

"Uh…is your arm supposed to go that way?" Dib asked, standing over his fallen opponent with an odd twinge of concern in his voice.

"'A lot in common?!'" they both screeched, causing the guidance counselor to jump in her seat and send their permanent records flying. "Are you NUTS?!"

Tenn raised an eyebrow. "…They've been glaring at each other for over twenty minutes now."

"Yeah," Gretchen said. "They do that."

"Oh. And you…say they're best friends?"

"Yeah, but they don't really know it yet."

"…Ah."

"Wow!" Dib said, grinning as he maneuvered the ship flying above the trees. "This is pretty easy!"

Zim only grumbled in response, shaking with rage. I mean, really. How dare a puny worm-monkey learn to do this faster than he did!

"You know, I really wish you kids would play nicer," the Robomom said, scrubbing the dirt and dried blood off as both Zim and Dib fought with all their strength to repel her. The Robodad laughed. "Oh honey---boys will be boys!"

"And so that is clearly the meaning of existence. YES!"

Dib stared. "…Potatoes?"

Zim grinned. "Yes. Brilliant, no?"

"See now, you shouldn't be roaming the streets alone like that, Dib-worm," Zim scolded, retracting a bloody PAK-leg as a shocked Dib sat up and "Mmy the Homicidal Maniac" fled screaming into the night. "It's not safe in this part of town!"

As Zim and Dib grew closer, and Zim seemed to get more and more friendly, more and more normal each day, Dib finally realized: his bizarre psychosis had merely been from years and years of having no one to listen to him, no one to sympathize, for more years than any human could even hope to live.

But what scared Dib was knowing that if not for the alien, the exact same thing would have happened to him.

"Okay-okay, let me get this straight. You're a century-old genocidal madman dedicated to wiping out all of humanity…and you need a night-light?"

"SHUT UP!"

She practically never saw either of them happy, truly happy, unless they were either together or ranting about the other. Clearly they liked each other, on some weird level, they needed each other, and yet all of their energy was set to trying to wipe the other from existence.

"Wow. Those two are twisted," Gaz mused, before shrugging and going back to playing her game.

"So, you can either stay up here…or let the Swollen Eyeballs find you."

Zim growled, looking away. He hated being locked up in this attic, but he had to admit (not out loud, of course), Dib's logic did sort of-almost</U> make some kind of sense.

"IT CONTAINS NOTHING!" Zim screamed, slamming the photo album shut in a huff. "And I mean, why would I have pictures you anyway, huh?! Just because it has your name on the cover doesn't mean anything, foolish worm!"

"I mean, for goodness' sake," Zim muttered, shaking the sweater as Dib turned slightly pink. "A monster in your closet? What are you, four?"

Dib crossed his arms sullenly, stinking out his tongue. "Well, excuse me, Zim, but see, the fact that I'm sleeping at an alien's house kind of works to stretch my credulity, know what I mean?"

Zim merely rolled his eyes and threw himself back on his bed.

"AIGH---let go!" Zim screamed, trying his best to wriggle out of his friend's tight hug. "For Irk's sake, Dib, I was only gone for a year!"

"No. If I'm going to see the Tallest, Earth's official ambassador comes with me," Zim said firmly, as Dib raised an eyebrow and the two guards looked at each other with shock on their faces.

"Oh, hey, sweet!" Zim said, as Dib stared at his father's old papers with his mouth hanging open. "You were grown in a tube too! What was your robot arm like?"

"Oh, please, give me that---uh, 'Dear Coach Walrus, Zim cannot participate in swimming class today. He broke his…spleen. Signed, Doctor…scribbly line.'"

Dib shoved the forged note back at Zim, who stared at it, amazed. "And this'll work?"

"Please, just write messy enough and nobody'll check," Dib muttered, waving his hand. "Just remember to wear your paste from now on, okay?!"

"Whoooaaa!"

"Whoooaaa!"

"BLEGH!"

The teacups stopped; Dib staggered dizzily out, pumping his fists into the air, while Zim stayed behind, barfing over the side.

"I did it!" Dib cheered, practically falling with each step. "I won! I—ugh…BLEGH!"

"Quick!" Dib screamed into his communicator, running from the approaching threat with all of his strength. "Beam me up, Zim, beam me up!"

Zim stared at the Voot Cruiser screen, one eyebrow-less eyelid raised. "'Beam you up?' You watch too many of the SCI-FIS!"

"Be honest. Do you…really think my head looks big?"

"Oh, wow, I really cut you bad there, didn't I?" Zim muttered, scratching his head with the PAK-leg still dripping Dib's blood. "Er…GIR! Fetch me the Band-Aids!"

AgentMothman: Wow, Zim. I really like your new screen name. It's very…subtle.

IAMZIM: huh? wat do u mean?!

"You know, Dib," Zim mused, slumping down in his cafeteria seat, "sometimes I think nobody in the universe understands me but you."

Dib stared at him for a moment. "What the hell are you talking about? I NEVER understand you!"

"A truce?! PERMANENTLY?! But---but that means neither one of us will ever win!"

"Really? Because I prefer to think of it as meaning we both win."

"BOTH?! …Can we do that?"

Oh my gosh, Dib thought, the blood draining from his face as his eyes went wide in horror. ZIM is my BEST FRIEND?!

The two of them were allies now, even friends; Zim honestly didn't want the Dib-monkey to get hurt.

Granted, that didn't stop him from pushing his friend down and fleeing when Tak caught the two of them breaking into her base, but really, he was wishing Dib the best the whole run back to his house.

Dib just stared. "…Robotic wienies? Honestly, Zim, I'm not even sure this plan is worth foiling."

"I'm telling you, all these attempts to find the 'supernatural' are just plain stupid," the alien said, rolling his eyes as his two robots danced insanely in the background. Dib, of course, was speechless.

"That's…surprisingly brilliant of you," Dib said, utterly flabbergasted that such a deep insight had just come out of Zim's mouth.

"Yeah, sure…I'm the crazy one."---A sentence each of them could find a way to use to one another at least three times a day.

"You're going to try to destroy Eurasia today?"

Zim nodded.

"And that's…my birthday gift?"

"I'm going to try to destroy only Eurasia today," Zim explained, nodding his head. "See? Much less work for you to do, hmm?"

"MEM! MIZ! Can't you two just BEHAVE?!" Dib and Zim both screamed, as their respective sons wrestled furiously across the floor of Zim's base.