“Dib?”
The Dib in question remained unresponsive, his long eyelashes covering his sleepy gaze as he mindlessly surveyed the opposite wall.
When his audience closed his eyes again, Zim was dissatisfied.
“Dib-humannnnn…?”
A small green finger poked at the sleeping mass of flesh. Dib hummed an unintelligible syllable in response and shifted.
Zim was now thoroughly upset.
“Dib-beast!”
At the violent jab to his stomach Dib sprang awake.
“Who? What-?! Oh.” The alarm in his eyes disappeared when his stare met that of his arch-nemesis. “So that wasn’t all just an uncomfortably pleasant dream.”
The Irken chose to ignore his enemy’s insane rambling. “Dib-beast! Answer when I speak to you!”
“Mmmm. Okay.” Dib dreamily rubbed his eye, looking very content and sleepy.
“I’ve been wondering: what is this strange activity you perform at night?”
“Wha-? Zim, you’ve been here for- what? -years now. You don’t know what sleep is?”
“SILENCE!”
“Seriously, Zim. That’s pretty bad.”
The boy’s blank stare made his enemy’s haughty expression fade to a thoughtful one. “Yes. I am indeed great and powerful. Now answer the almighty ZIM.”
The boy sighed and rolled his eyes, still not awake. “Sleep is what all humans and lots of land animals do at night. It allows our brains to consolidate the events of the day and our bodies have time to repair before tomorrow.”
The little alien actually seemed to be taking this in. “Hmmm! Very interesting indeed.”
Dib’s eyelids drooped. “Yeah, well, I’m gonna go back to doing all that stuff now, okay?”
“MMMMN?” Zim hummed in one of his displays of nonsensical horror. “No!” He began to poke the human maniacally with both index fingers. “I am Zim! I am ZIM!!”
“Stop,” Dib muttered, frowning with his eyes closed and waving away the green and pointy claws. “Sleep now, Zim. Paranormal inquiries later.”
The tiny Irken’s antennae laid back against his head as he frowned at his rival, his luminous crimson eyes unearthly in the unusually bright moonlight. “Dib…?” His voice softened as he leaned closer, expression quizzical. “Smell?”
The boy crinkled his brows together once more, not bothering to form coherent syllables. He fisted the blue sheets and yanked them up over his shoulder, rolling onto his side to nestle against the warm green creature.
Antennae lifting a little, Zim stared in fascination at the boy as he exhaled softly and his face faded to a peaceful blank.
“Your ways are strange, Dib-smell,” the invader murmured thoughtfully. “It will take time for the almighty Zim to decipher such pig-smelly nonsense.”
“Shut your eyes, Zim.”
Zim blinked down at his human as the boy forced himself upward towards consciousness.
“Just shut your eyes and stop … talking … for a little while.”
The invader took a long moment to scrutinize the warm body rested against him, its constant sneer absent and the rocklike tension gone from its limbs.
