50 Words of ZAGR

Summary: An Invader Zim one-shot, based on fifty prompts for the Zim/Gaz pairing. Slight violence, cursing and innuendo.

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Zim had heard other hyumans refer to their love-pigs as "angels" all the time. Yet for some reason, when he did it, all he got were weird looks and a thirty-minute lecture from Dib about how little he understood about hyuman theology.

It didn't make any sense, granted, but Gaz didn't care, and Zim…well, his grasp on logic was never too strong to begin with anyway.

Tripping the Dib-monster as he walked by with his lunch tray was very, very funny. However, tripping his younger sister as she walked by with her lunch tray had been very, very stupid, Zim thought, trying to untie him antennae from the top of the flagpole as Dib rolled on the ground laughing below.

"What are you two children doing in this janitor's closet?!"

"Ms. Bitters-beast?! Zim was, uh---and Gaz---"

Needless to say, a lot of people were going to need therapy after this incident.

No, Gaz did not care if Zim wanted to take her out for pizza again. The fact that she was playing video games by the phone was entirely coincidental.

Most boys would be put off by that sort of thing, but since Zim still thought that Earth-love was pain-based, he merely collected all the stones the Gaz-beast threw at him and, smiling warmly to himself, brought them home to a shoe-box covered in crudely-drawn pink hearts.

Stupid application, stupid interview-but Gaz ordered pizza every night, so if Zim actually got hired for this job, all this stupidity would at least be worth something.

"I mean, come on, Zim/Gaz. You can't just order Gaz/Zim to do what you want. A real relationship is about sacrifice, doing something for somebody else. You have to put her/him before yourself; you can't make her/him yours."

Dib leaned back, blinked and reread what he wrote. "Yeah, that'll work," he said, and started to memorize it for the next time Zim and Gaz had a fight.

People were so stupid sometimes; all it took was one veiled accusation of racism and anyone, stuttering profusely, would quickly backtrack from any questions on why Gaz was on a date with somebody green.

"No, Zim, I'm not actually dumb enough to think that I can stop you and Gaz from doing this. But let me tell you this: I love Gaz, a lot, and whether she likes to show it or not, she can feel a lot of pain when somebody hurts her. So if you ever, ever break her heart, I swear to God I won't wait to get you on an autopsy table to rip your guts open and start taking things out. GOT IT?!"

Gaz didn't know what that word Zim had called her meant---in fact she wasn't totally sure it was pronouncable with only a human tongue---but based on the tone she decided whacking him upside the head was probably the best course of action to take anyway.

"Well, you know how girls are about getting ready. Why, on my first date with Gazlene's mother…" Professor Membrane droned, as Zim pulled at his wig helplessly, eye twitching.

"Ha! I can't believe you tried to trip her AGAIN!" Dib said, doubled over with laughter, while Zim merely glared at him and tried to undo the knot trapping his tongue on the flagpole.

"I don't know how you manage to misunderstand that girl so much," the Computer muttered, as Zim began to fuse a toy pig and a vampire together for Gaz's birthday present. "I mean, it's not exactly like she's subtle…"

"Oh big fucking whoop you're not really a stupid Invader. You've been trying to destroy this planet for four years, Zim, and you've cost this city millions of dollars and Dib most of his sanity doing it. If your stupid little leaders don't appreciate that, then just tell them to go fuck themselves already." Gaz paused for just a moment, taking a sip of her soda as Zim gaped at her in astonishment. "And besides, these 'Tallests' of yours sound like pretty lousy leaders anyway."

"Can-dy? CANDY?! Insolent fool!" Zim screamed, throwing the heart-shaped box back in the startled shopkeeper's face. "My precious Gaz-girl would never want that! Although...hmm, do you have a similar-looking package with some of those little pizza-bagels inside?"

Zim loved Gaz so much, he never wanted to leave her side.

Fortunately for her, the security droids could handle him.

Zim was loud; Gaz hated loud. Zim loved to talk; Gaz hated talking. Zim was stupid; Gaz hated people who were stupid. And yet, for some reason, she stayed with him anyway.

"Your smelly brother has apparently drinken the last of your sodas. Therefore I have brought you ORANGE JUICE!"

Gaz raised an eyebrow. Vaguely she wondered how Zim knew what her favorite backup drink was, but mostly she was just surprised how much his overly-dramatic posturing was a welcome change from the terrified stuttering most people would exhibit in that situation.

Annoyed after their stupid fight, Gaz stormed her way over to Zim's house and slammed through the door.

"Ah. Come crawling back to me, huh Gaz-hyuman?"

Gaz's eyes widened before her hands balled into fists.

"Agh! OW! I mean, uh-I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"And this is what you'd look like as a cute little smeety-baby, and this is you at the Academy, and look! You and Master's holdin' hands, hee-hee-hee-hee!"

Zim would never forgive GIR for finding those doodles.

"Squeak?"

"What? Oh," the Computer said. "They're downstairs in the labs."

"Squeak?"

"What are they doing? Uh..." The Computer turned on his sensors in the lower part of the base, then quickly shut them off with a strangled gasp. "Uh...you don't want to know."

When Gaz first offered Zim the last soda in the fridge, he finally really believed that she loved him too.

(…Of course, when he hastily drank it in his excitement he wound up getting third-degree internal burns and nearly had his organs explode, but Zim decided to imagine that Gaz too had simply forgotten about that little factor.)

And that was how Zim learned that no, despite what all the movies showed, grabbing one's mate and pulling them into a passionate kiss would not actually work in getting you out of a fight.

"Hey, Zim? Do you remember our first date?"

"You mean when you threw water at me for taking you to a cheap restaraunt and then stabbed me with your fork?"

"Yeah. ...Good times."

For the life of him, Zim could not understand why the horrible little Dib-monster threw such a stupid fit when he found Zim and Gaz sleeping together in her room. And while Gaz was someone you always had be cautious around, he further couldn't figure out why Minimoose's response to the incident was to lecture him for an hour about "protection."

I can't believe it, Zim thought. I've actually found one pitiful hyuman that I don't want to destroy.

I can't believe it, Gaz thought. I've actually found one stupid person I don't want to destroy.

…Well, that badly, anyway.

Gaz thought it was stupid when Dib decided to try to grow a mustache. She found a way to vent her frustrations, however, when Zim leaned forward on their date, peered closely at her upper lip and off-handedly commented that so far hers was looking much fuller than his was.

Despite being utterly clueless to just about anything else, somehow Zim wound up being the first person who could tell when Gaz's "whatevers" were actual apathy and when they were actually veiling a threat.

Zim balanced on the tree branch, his eyes never leaving the quiet house. He didn't care how much Gaz said this was unnecessary-it was late and until either her father or the stupid Dib-stink got home, he wasn't going to move from this spot.

"And that's the standard human ritual for when you find your mate with another female," Gaz said, putting down the crayon she had been using to illustrate the process. Zim could only turn pale and wonder how she had managed to capture the color of Irken blood so absolutely perfectly.

"You know, that didn't really happen," Gaz grumbled, ten minutes into Zim's ranting plan on how to recreate the zombie apocalypse they'd seen in the movie.

"…and rebuilt over the shattered civilization with I, the amazing ZIM!, as supreme overlord…and you, my scary darling, as my dark and terrible queen."

"…Meh. Whatever," Gaz shrugged, her eyes never leaving the video game's screen.

"You know, if you would just let me do it for myself-"

"SILENCE!" Zim screamed, slamming another dollar bill on the counter. "Carnival-drone! Zim demands more balls! MORE BALLS! For as Irk as my witness, that Bitey doll shall be OURS!"

Gaz was never mooshy, rarely openly sympathetic, and yet, no matter how many times his plans failed (not that they ever did!) or how many times he fell, she was always there to angrily grab him and pull him roughly back to his feet.

She hadn't liked it, hadn't wanted it and it really meant nothing given who it was from. But still, Zim could never quite forgive GIR for being the first person to ever kiss Gaz, even if it was just another moment of his random, joyful stupidity.

"To be fair, my Tallests, the idea of all hyumans being pathetic pig-smellies worthy only of abject slavery and utter annhiliation really only works as an abstract idea. I can think of at least one example…"

Of course Zim knew he was perfect, so there really was no reason to listen to what any of those other fools said. Yet for some reason, he couldn't help but dwell on it a little whenever it was the Gaz-hyuman who criticized him.

"An entire planet of restaurants, and not ONE lousy pizzeria?! Come on, we're leaving!" Gaz snapped, throwing her napkin down as she rose to her feet.

Gaz didn't even watch as the Voot Cruiser flew away from the planet into the darkness of space. "Like I care," she grumbled, but Dib still detected the slight sob in her voice.

Dib was ecstatic when he realized: if he had a plan that actually had a chance of killing Zim, Gaz would actually agree to help! She really did want to save the planet after all, and with the two of them together, nothing could go wrong, right?!

Of course, these plans never worked, and it took him about ten failed with-Gaz plans for him to finally realize she had been sabotaging him the whole time.

"And to think, Dib thought that just killing you would be enough to end our relationship," Gaz muttered, pulling him after her while off-handedly punching Señor Diablo in the jaw.

"Foolish fool-monkey! I AM ZIM! I do not listen to the commands of any stinky Earth-creature, and I---"

"GRR!"

"Um...h-how high did you say again?"

Gaz heard Zim scream from Dib's makeshift autopsy lab downstairs. "I warned him not to be late to the prom," she growled, looking back at her video game and vowing not to intervene for at least another five minutes.

"It's not over until I say it's over," Gaz growled, shaking her fist at him. "Got it?!"

Zim turned pale, realizing that with that simple statement she had just single-handedly overthrown all of Irken law about Invader-alien romance.

"You lying BITCH!" Dib screamed, his hand almost crushing the remote as the evening news showed the destruction of Zim and Gaz's latest joint plan.

"Whiner," Gaz mumbled, eyes still on her Game Slave as the blackened and crusty Irken collapsed into the nearest chair.

Even he, the amazing ZIM!, had never expected such an esteemed and lavish welcome when the pair boarded the Massive. But then again, the new Tallests didn't want to be rude---as Red and Purple had learned, making that strange little alien girl mad was not the way to ensure a long and prosperous reign.

The thing was, sometimes Gaz really did want to break up with him. Being the control freak that she was, then, it was rather terrifying the first time she had tried and discovered that she simply couldn't.

"Ugh...but it's for my Gaz-love," Zim grumbled, inserting a sample of filthy hyuman DNA into the machine. He allowed his finger to hover over the red button, taking his last slow, unsteady breath as an Irken. "Well, here goes nothing..."