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Description
Walking into the house after Dib, Gir looked at the door, Zim's earlier words about closing the door seeming to run through his head. Smiling happily to himself, he closed the door and headed on upstairs to find the teenage boy. Looking down the hallway when he reached the top, he noticed Dib slip into one of the rooms at the end of the hallway and skipped to it, peeking his head in before making his way into the center of the room to look around, a slightly amazed look coming to his face as he felt the sudden urge to touch everything in there and find out how it worked. Just as he was about to let out an "Ooooh," sound at all the things in Dib's room, he was bombarded by the weight of a heavy shirt, weighed down by water and dirt, being thrown over his head, concealing his current location from the boy as he undressed, throwing all of his dirty clothes into a pile on top of Gir before grabbing a towel and walking out of his room to head for the bathroom, not once noticing the other's presence. He was in desperate need of a shower.

Dragging the front portion of his body out from underneath the pile of dirty clothes, Gir looked back over at the door, watching as Dib left the room completely and headed for a different room. Pulling himself out of the pile to stand back up, Gir giggled again and followed Dib out into the hallway, curious as to what the human was up to now. Noticing him enter into another room and close the door behind him without locking it, Gir made his way up to the bathroom door and opened it just enough for him to see inside. Sitting across the room on the edge of a bathtub, Dib was leaning over in a towel and adjusting the temperature of the water coming out of the faucet before turning the shower on. Then, standing up, he dropped the towel away completely and stepped into the shower after setting his glasses to the side, not even bothering to pull the shower curtain closed due to the fact that he thought he was alone and it wouldn't really matter whether it was open or closed. Little did he know that Gir could see everything perfectly from his spot at the door, his eyes able to focus on Dib even if at an awkward angle.

Looking up and down the human, the bruises forming on Dib's body from when he and Zim had been fighting earlier were becoming painfully obvious as the boy brought up one of his hands to his opposite shoulder so he could run his fingers over the bloody claw marks Zim had left there. He winced, the action painful, but didn't pull away, feeling along them in an attempt to get an idea of how deep Zim had dug his fingers into him. Then, once he had come to the conclusion that they weren't deep enough for him to need a bandage job, he brought up his free hand to join his other hand as he gingerly felt along his neck where Zim had tried to choke him. Despite being a tad bit stiff, it seemed alright overall.

Dropping his hands down to his sides again, he sighed and picked up a bar of soap to start cleaning himself off vigorously. All that food and grime from the pond had been disgusting and he just wanted to get it off of himself. "Zim...That jerk! I can't believe he threw all that ice-cream at me. And all just because I refused to take part in his stupidity today." he muttered to himself, reaching a hand up to his hair and making another disgusted look when he felt how sticky it was from the frozen dessert.

Grabbing a shampoo bottle next to him in the shower, he squeezed out a fairly large amount of it into his hand before bringing it up to scrub as much of the ice-cream and dirt out of it as he could. Hands moving hastily over the dark strands of hair covering his head, he suddenly brought them to a halt as he just stood there and stared down at the ground beneath him for a moment, his eyes half lidded.

"...but why would it matter to him whether I took part in trying to stop him anyways? It's not like my being there helps him to accomplish anything. Shouldn't he be happy that I'm not trying to stop him?" he asked himself, thinking on it for a few moments before finally just shrugging it off and finishing his shower. Turning the water off as soon as he was sure he was completely clean now, he stepped out of the shower and reached down to grab his towel, giving his head a shake and bringing the towel up to run through his hair first.

Meanwhile, Gir just continued to watch him, his curiosity about the thing hanging between Dib's legs growing. He focused in on it even more, leaning forward a bit on the door, causing it to let out a loud creaking noise. Dib turned instantly upon hearing it, bringing the towel down to cover himself up and reaching for his glasses. "Who's there?!" he asked in a surprised voice, eyes growing wide when Gir fell through the door onto his stomach on the bathroom floor.

Face suddenly becoming a bright red color, Dib let out a scream that anyone within a 10 mile radius could probably hear. For anyone who might have been passing by the Membrane household at the time, they would have heard an assortment of loud crashes coming from within the house before seeing a giggling, chocolate-covered green dog bolt out of the front door with a half dressed teenage boy chasing after him, yelling and holding his fist up as he chased him down the street.

Rocketing into Zim's base a few minutes later, giggling, Gir closed the door behind him as Zim looked up from his spot on the ground where he had been looking this entire time for his insane SIR unit and the human's wallet, which had mysteriously disappeared the second he had gone down to his lab. "GIR! Where have you been?!" he asked sternly, standing back up and leering down at the small robot.

Smiling up at Zim with his tongue hanging out as he removed the top half of his doggy disguise, he answered his master's question happily. "At da Big-Head Boy's house. He was naked!" he said cheerfully before playing back everything he had seen as a holographic image in the middle of the room. His turquoise eyes were basically cameras that could record everything he saw. But just as the part that involved Dib taking a shower started to play, said paranormal investigator burst through the front door to Zim's base, panting and dressed in only a blue pair of pajama pants and his trench coat, which he held closed with only one hand to try and cover up his bare chest.

Cheeks a bright red still, he glared down at the small android as he made an advance on him. "There you are, you little-" he stopped mid-sentence, becoming still suddenly as he shifted his gaze up to Zim, who just stood there with perfectly wide eyes. That's when he noticed the hologram of himself dropping his towel onto the floor, standing completely naked as the holographic form of him stepped into the shower. He gasped, his entire face lighting up a bright red. He felt so exposed and horribly embarrassed. Then, before the Irken could even say or do anything, he turned and ran out the door, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he ran the entire way home. This was by far the worst day of his life.

Eyes still utterly wide in disbelief, Zim stood in his spot completely speechless. He seemed unable to take in everything that had just happened for a moment. His mouth was hanging open as he slowly brought up a hand to point at the holographic image of his totally nude enemy before shifting his stunned gaze to the door where Dib had ran from and then pointing his raised hand over in that direction. He looked back and forth between the door and the hologram for a while before stopping to look back at the hologram again, eyes fixed on it in horror and, for some reason, unable to shift away from it for a moment.

Once he had gotten an eyeful of Dib's entirely naked body and the thing hanging between his legs, Zim threw his arms out in front of himself and shut his eyes tightly to block out the view as he felt that he'd seen enough. Antennas flicking upwards on the top of his head, a slightly darker green blush began to form across his cheeks, something that rarely ever happened to the Irken. "AUGH!! Enough!!" he bellowed. "GIR! Turn that off before I go bliiind!!!" This was surely going to be burned into his and his enemy's memories for a long time. He would have been laughing at his rival's humiliation if he hadn't been so horrified himself.

"Gir! Enough already!!" Zim loudly begged his insane minion, his arms up over his eyes, shielding them from the view of the hologram still being projected in the center of the room. "For the love of Irk, just TURN IT OFF!! Obey meee!!"

Gir, still not turning off the projected image, stood there and giggled at the view before them, which irritated his master even more. "Aww, but it not finished! You missin the best part!"

Throwing his arms down from his face to glare furiously over at the malfunctioning SIR unit, Zim growled threateningly and charged forward towards him, curled hands out in front of him, ready to grab the little robot and throw him through the window before stopping suddenly a meter or so in front of him as he heard a voice being emitted out from Gir, the voice being the recorded one of Dib from that moment in the shower he had first started speaking. Zim had only just caught the last part of his sentence. "…all just because I refused to take part in his stupidity today." Lowering his hands down a little, one antennae rising up slightly to listen carefully through the light thudding sound of the shower water, he waited for a moment to see if anymore would be said.

After a few seconds, almost sure that he wasn't going to hear anymore, Zim was just about to make a violent advance on Gir again before stopping when the recorded voice of Dib could be heard again. "...but why would it matter to him whether I took part in trying to stop him anyways? It's not like my being there helps him to accomplish anything. Shouldn't he be happy that I'm not trying to stop him?" Zim stood there in thought for a moment, the words repeating themselves in his mind before he frowned and turned to the hologram, almost as if he was going to argue with it before sharply turning away from it, remembering it was just a hologram and a naked one at that, then kicking Gir right in the head. The hologram disappearing instantly once Zim's foot had collided with the robot's metallic head and sent him to the floor, Gir sat himself back up again and giggled, rubbing at his head. "Let's watch it again!!"

"Nooo!!" Zim yelled out, grabbing Gir from the floor and throwing him into the pile of empty pizza boxes in the corner of the room. "Augh!! Why did you show me that Gir!? Whyyy!? What could have possibly made you think I would actually WANT to see… Thhhat!?"

Giggling again as he scrambled out from the pizza boxes and skipped over to the couch happily, Gir took the remote and looked up at his master. "Cuz he wuz alll NAKEY! Eeheehee!!"

Growling yet again and throwing his arms up in disgust, Zim stormed over to the door angrily before slamming it shut and throwing himself back onto the couch again. He stared at the screen with a blank expression and one eye twitching slightly, unable to focus on the images on the screen before him as his mind replayed everything that had just happened. This was by far the most awkward thing to have happened to both Zim and Dib, and it probably wasn't going to be forgotten anytime soon.

~~~~~

Hours passed, hours turning into days and then days into weeks as Dib refused to so much as even take one step outside for fear that he would run into Zim again the instant he decided to venture out from his house.

As could be expected, he spent the first several days of his seclusion locked up in his room. But when the silence and worsening nightmares from sleeping so much, or at least attempting to, began to get to him, he finally decided to at least move himself to the downstairs couch where he could mope about and watch TV. Reaching the end of his second week of laying around watching TV like a lazy bum, Gaz finally reached her breaking point and brought down upon him every ounce of her annoyance. Not only was he hogging the couch and downstairs TV, but she had had to suffer through listening to every Mysterious Mysteries recording he had ever taped in his lifetime. She couldn't take it anymore.

So approaching his slouched over form on the couch one day as she was heading out for her shift at her job, a game shop, she towered over him with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. "Listen, Dib... If you're not going to be out chasing after Zim or whatever the hell it is you're always ranting about, the least you could do it get your lazy ass off the couch and make yourself useful by getting a job or shopping at the store for what we're running low on." she said, shoving a list of things they needed from the grocery store in his face.

Blinking wide eyes at the list for a moment, he let them fall half lidded in annoyance as he shoved the piece of paper out of his face before glaring slightly up at her. "No way, Gaz! You can't make me leave the house if I don't want to.." he said, sitting up on the couch a bit just to switch positions before folding his arms across his chest and returning his gaze to the television screen.

"Oh really?" she said, one eye wide now as she reached for the phone. "Well maybe I should just call dad then and tell him about how you're still using his lab for your 'experiments' despite him telling you numerous times that you're no longer allowed down there." she said, reaching out a hand to dial his number.

Those words had Dib turning instantly to stare at her with wide eyes. "You wouldn't." he said, hanging over the back of the couch now, his fingers gripping it nervously.

"Try me." she said, narrowing her eyes in his direction before dialing in the first few numbers.

"Alright! Alright! I'll head to the store today!" he exclaimed, holding up his hands defensively for her to stop.

Placing the phone back down on the receiver, Gaz gathered her things together quickly and began heading for the door. "You better, Dib. Now I'm late for work, so it better be done by the time I get back." she said, opening the door and slamming it shut behind her.

With his scary younger sister gone now, Dib couldn't help but breath out a sigh of relief. "Fine...but you can't make me leave the house anytime soon afterwords." he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

Looking down at the list in his lap and then his trench coat which was by now clean but still ripped up and full of holes courtesy of Zim and his laser-shooting gnomes, he sighed again and figured that if he was going to be going out anywhere, he might as well go ahead and buy himself a new trench coat at the mall first. So grabbing his house keys and some money that their father left them for food and trips to the store, he headed out the door also and began making his way towards the mall.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, back at Zim's base, Gir sat on the living room floor, staring wide eyed up at the television screen, only to get pulled out of his hypnotic gaze once a ball of scrunched up paper hit the back of his head. This was probably the fifth or sixth time Zim had pelted him with a paper ball, so Gir didn't really take much notice of it after a while as he continued to watch his favorite angry monkey show happily.

Zim, who was occupying the couch behind Gir, sat frowning down at his skool book, scribbling something down onto the page and muttering in annoyance before tearing the page off, scrunching it up in his hand, and throwing it onto the floor of his already messy base. It was either out of boredom or a desperate search for a distraction that Zim had decided to attempt to work through his math homework that had been given to him to complete before the end of the summer break, but he had barely gotten a quarter of the way through it before he had grown horribly bored yet again and his writing had somehow turned into a collection of childish doodles scribbled onto the page.

He wondered what reason there could possibly be for someone to learn such pointless, long-drawn out ways of working out these ridiculous 'mathematical' questions. Of course, he was able to complete this task with ease if he was in the right mind frame, but it seemed he was unable to focus on anything recently. He hadn't bothered to even attempt to contact his leaders as he was pretty sure by now what the outcome would be. On top of that, he hadn't even seen Dib for what may have been a few weeks now. It was quite likely that the human was too ashamed to show his face to the other after the rather humiliating incident, which Zim smirked at in thought, but it could also be for the one reason he feared, that Dib just didn't care anymore, that Dib had lost interest in him and no longer saw him as a threat to the world or of any importance what so ever, similarly the things he feared with his leaders.

Zim's gloved hand now gripping the pen he had been writing with tightly, it began to shake slightly from the ever tightening grip as those thoughts entered his mind. It was clear all this was getting to the Irken, and he looked to be at about his breaking point. Suddenly, pulling himself strait out of his unpleasant thoughts, Zim bolted himself upright and stood in front of the couch with his fists slightly raised. "No!!" he bellowed. "Enough of this pitiful foolishness! This vacation from world conquest has gone on long enough! I must take action! And then! THEN! The Dib shall know the true meaning of vengeance when he suffers the wrath of ZIM!!" Quickly sitting himself back onto the couch with his pen in hand and pressed to a fresh page of his skool book, he smirked as he readied himself to jot some notes down for his next, brilliantly evil scheme. This random jolt of enthusiasm rising within him from what could only be described as weeks of hopelessness and lingering doubt, Zim was sure that he could come up with something that would have his nemesis come running. But despite Zim's sudden motivation, the pen in his hand refused to move on the page to form words. He had nothing.

Frowning a bit in thought as he began to tap the pen against the blank page impatiently, he wondered what kind of plan would be so horrible that Dib would have no choice but to try and stop him with some amusingly feeble attempt. But that's when the tapping came to a sudden stop as Zim's eyes widened for a moment. Why on Irk would it matter to him whether the Dib-filth got involved with his scheme or not? Why would it matter if he was no longer out to try and expose him? It's exactly like what he remembered the human had said in the projected hologram. Shouldn't he be happy? He was right. He should be happy, shouldn't he?

Dropping the pen, Zim tightly gripped the sides of the skool book, clenching his teeth and frowning down at it in frustration. He hated having these thoughts. He hated all of the thoughts that he had been having during these weeks, and they seemed to get worse every time, filling him with doubt and making him feel pathetic and weak. Bolting up from the couch yet again, he threw the skool book across the room so it thwacked loudly against the wall opposite him before landing onto the floor with a loud thud, startling Gir, who quickly turned to face his master, who was now sitting back on the couch, glaring morosely at the television screen with his arms folded. "Ooh! Was dat a baaad book!?" Gir screeched in an insanely cheerful tone, only to have Zim grunt in response.

"Aww, mastah needs a hug!" Gir yelled joyously as he tottered over to his master with outstretched arms. But Zim quickly reacted to this by kicking the little robot away from him, making him land on the floor back into a sitting position and stare up at Zim all teary eyed.

Zim just let out another irritated grunt and turned his head to the side in an attempt to ignore his minions sappy little display but found this impossible once Gir began to let out a chorus of ear splitting wails and roll around the floor hysterically, making Zim grip the ends of his antennas. "Enough! Ugh! Look, Gir. If you really HAVE to try to make me feel better…then-", Zim reached into his PAK, pulled out a few dollar bills, and quickly handed them to Gir, "Then go buy yourself some kind of useless Earth thing, and do it now!"

Gir bounced up and down and giggled excitedly. "Yaaay!! I gonna buy DOOKIE!!"

"Yes, yes. Now go! Your presence sickens me." And with that, Gir darted out of the house, leaving Zim alone to wallow in his own misery.

Opening the front door to the base and closing it behind him, Gir trotted off in the direction of the store excitedly, money in hand and a big smile on his face.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, back with Dib, the paranormal investigator had managed to make it into town without running into Zim, which had him breathing out a sigh of relief. Walking through the front doors to the mall, he stood back and looked about the crowded establishment for a few moments. The place was huge. He couldn't recall the last time he had been here. But he was certain his sister worked in one of the game shops the mall had to offer.

Shrugging that off, he made his way over to one of the directories placed at the front of the building and searched through the list of stores for anywhere that sounded promising in providing him with a new trench coat.

Finding a clothes store that was located all the way on the other end of the mall from where he was, he began heading in the direction that the map indicated until he finally came to stand in front of the entrance to a large store with a flashing sign above the door that read "OPEN." Staring at it for a few moments then the door, he hesitantly pushed it open and headed on in to have a look around. The place was well air-conditioned and not nearly as crowded as all the other stores seemed to be.

"Hmmm...That's odd. There doesn't seem to be many people in here." he said out loud to himself just to be answered by another voice, female in nature.

Description
Walking into the house after Dib, Gir looked at the door, Zim's earlier words about closing the door seeming to run through his head. Smiling happily to himself, he closed the door and headed on upstairs to find the teenage boy. Looking down the hallway when he reached the top, he noticed Dib slip into one of the rooms at the end of the hallway and skipped to it, peeking his head in before making his way into the center of the room to look around, a slightly amazed look coming to his face as he felt the sudden urge to touch everything in there and find out how it worked. Just as he was about to let out an "Ooooh," sound at all the things in Dib's room, he was bombarded by the weight of a heavy shirt, weighed down by water and dirt, being thrown over his head, concealing his current location from the boy as he undressed, throwing all of his dirty clothes into a pile on top of Gir before grabbing a towel and walking out of his room to head for the bathroom, not once noticing the other's presence. He was in desperate need of a shower.

Dragging the front portion of his body out from underneath the pile of dirty clothes, Gir looked back over at the door, watching as Dib left the room completely and headed for a different room. Pulling himself out of the pile to stand back up, Gir giggled again and followed Dib out into the hallway, curious as to what the human was up to now. Noticing him enter into another room and close the door behind him without locking it, Gir made his way up to the bathroom door and opened it just enough for him to see inside. Sitting across the room on the edge of a bathtub, Dib was leaning over in a towel and adjusting the temperature of the water coming out of the faucet before turning the shower on. Then, standing up, he dropped the towel away completely and stepped into the shower after setting his glasses to the side, not even bothering to pull the shower curtain closed due to the fact that he thought he was alone and it wouldn't really matter whether it was open or closed. Little did he know that Gir could see everything perfectly from his spot at the door, his eyes able to focus on Dib even if at an awkward angle.

Looking up and down the human, the bruises forming on Dib's body from when he and Zim had been fighting earlier were becoming painfully obvious as the boy brought up one of his hands to his opposite shoulder so he could run his fingers over the bloody claw marks Zim had left there. He winced, the action painful, but didn't pull away, feeling along them in an attempt to get an idea of how deep Zim had dug his fingers into him. Then, once he had come to the conclusion that they weren't deep enough for him to need a bandage job, he brought up his free hand to join his other hand as he gingerly felt along his neck where Zim had tried to choke him. Despite being a tad bit stiff, it seemed alright overall.

Dropping his hands down to his sides again, he sighed and picked up a bar of soap to start cleaning himself off vigorously. All that food and grime from the pond had been disgusting and he just wanted to get it off of himself. "Zim...That jerk! I can't believe he threw all that ice-cream at me. And all just because I refused to take part in his stupidity today." he muttered to himself, reaching a hand up to his hair and making another disgusted look when he felt how sticky it was from the frozen dessert.

Grabbing a shampoo bottle next to him in the shower, he squeezed out a fairly large amount of it into his hand before bringing it up to scrub as much of the ice-cream and dirt out of it as he could. Hands moving hastily over the dark strands of hair covering his head, he suddenly brought them to a halt as he just stood there and stared down at the ground beneath him for a moment, his eyes half lidded.

"...but why would it matter to him whether I took part in trying to stop him anyways? It's not like my being there helps him to accomplish anything. Shouldn't he be happy that I'm not trying to stop him?" he asked himself, thinking on it for a few moments before finally just shrugging it off and finishing his shower. Turning the water off as soon as he was sure he was completely clean now, he stepped out of the shower and reached down to grab his towel, giving his head a shake and bringing the towel up to run through his hair first.

Meanwhile, Gir just continued to watch him, his curiosity about the thing hanging between Dib's legs growing. He focused in on it even more, leaning forward a bit on the door, causing it to let out a loud creaking noise. Dib turned instantly upon hearing it, bringing the towel down to cover himself up and reaching for his glasses. "Who's there?!" he asked in a surprised voice, eyes growing wide when Gir fell through the door onto his stomach on the bathroom floor.

Face suddenly becoming a bright red color, Dib let out a scream that anyone within a 10 mile radius could probably hear. For anyone who might have been passing by the Membrane household at the time, they would have heard an assortment of loud crashes coming from within the house before seeing a giggling, chocolate-covered green dog bolt out of the front door with a half dressed teenage boy chasing after him, yelling and holding his fist up as he chased him down the street.

Rocketing into Zim's base a few minutes later, giggling, Gir closed the door behind him as Zim looked up from his spot on the ground where he had been looking this entire time for his insane SIR unit and the human's wallet, which had mysteriously disappeared the second he had gone down to his lab. "GIR! Where have you been?!" he asked sternly, standing back up and leering down at the small robot.

Smiling up at Zim with his tongue hanging out as he removed the top half of his doggy disguise, he answered his master's question happily. "At da Big-Head Boy's house. He was naked!" he said cheerfully before playing back everything he had seen as a holographic image in the middle of the room. His turquoise eyes were basically cameras that could record everything he saw. But just as the part that involved Dib taking a shower started to play, said paranormal investigator burst through the front door to Zim's base, panting and dressed in only a blue pair of pajama pants and his trench coat, which he held closed with only one hand to try and cover up his bare chest.

Cheeks a bright red still, he glared down at the small android as he made an advance on him. "There you are, you little-" he stopped mid-sentence, becoming still suddenly as he shifted his gaze up to Zim, who just stood there with perfectly wide eyes. That's when he noticed the hologram of himself dropping his towel onto the floor, standing completely naked as the holographic form of him stepped into the shower. He gasped, his entire face lighting up a bright red. He felt so exposed and horribly embarrassed. Then, before the Irken could even say or do anything, he turned and ran out the door, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he ran the entire way home. This was by far the worst day of his life.

Eyes still utterly wide in disbelief, Zim stood in his spot completely speechless. He seemed unable to take in everything that had just happened for a moment. His mouth was hanging open as he slowly brought up a hand to point at the holographic image of his totally nude enemy before shifting his stunned gaze to the door where Dib had ran from and then pointing his raised hand over in that direction. He looked back and forth between the door and the hologram for a while before stopping to look back at the hologram again, eyes fixed on it in horror and, for some reason, unable to shift away from it for a moment.

Once he had gotten an eyeful of Dib's entirely naked body and the thing hanging between his legs, Zim threw his arms out in front of himself and shut his eyes tightly to block out the view as he felt that he'd seen enough. Antennas flicking upwards on the top of his head, a slightly darker green blush began to form across his cheeks, something that rarely ever happened to the Irken. "AUGH!! Enough!!" he bellowed. "GIR! Turn that off before I go bliiind!!!" This was surely going to be burned into his and his enemy's memories for a long time. He would have been laughing at his rival's humiliation if he hadn't been so horrified himself.

"Gir! Enough already!!" Zim loudly begged his insane minion, his arms up over his eyes, shielding them from the view of the hologram still being projected in the center of the room. "For the love of Irk, just TURN IT OFF!! Obey meee!!"

Gir, still not turning off the projected image, stood there and giggled at the view before them, which irritated his master even more. "Aww, but it not finished! You missin the best part!"

Throwing his arms down from his face to glare furiously over at the malfunctioning SIR unit, Zim growled threateningly and charged forward towards him, curled hands out in front of him, ready to grab the little robot and throw him through the window before stopping suddenly a meter or so in front of him as he heard a voice being emitted out from Gir, the voice being the recorded one of Dib from that moment in the shower he had first started speaking. Zim had only just caught the last part of his sentence. "…all just because I refused to take part in his stupidity today." Lowering his hands down a little, one antennae rising up slightly to listen carefully through the light thudding sound of the shower water, he waited for a moment to see if anymore would be said.

After a few seconds, almost sure that he wasn't going to hear anymore, Zim was just about to make a violent advance on Gir again before stopping when the recorded voice of Dib could be heard again. "...but why would it matter to him whether I took part in trying to stop him anyways? It's not like my being there helps him to accomplish anything. Shouldn't he be happy that I'm not trying to stop him?" Zim stood there in thought for a moment, the words repeating themselves in his mind before he frowned and turned to the hologram, almost as if he was going to argue with it before sharply turning away from it, remembering it was just a hologram and a naked one at that, then kicking Gir right in the head. The hologram disappearing instantly once Zim's foot had collided with the robot's metallic head and sent him to the floor, Gir sat himself back up again and giggled, rubbing at his head. "Let's watch it again!!"

"Nooo!!" Zim yelled out, grabbing Gir from the floor and throwing him into the pile of empty pizza boxes in the corner of the room. "Augh!! Why did you show me that Gir!? Whyyy!? What could have possibly made you think I would actually WANT to see… Thhhat!?"

Giggling again as he scrambled out from the pizza boxes and skipped over to the couch happily, Gir took the remote and looked up at his master. "Cuz he wuz alll NAKEY! Eeheehee!!"

Growling yet again and throwing his arms up in disgust, Zim stormed over to the door angrily before slamming it shut and throwing himself back onto the couch again. He stared at the screen with a blank expression and one eye twitching slightly, unable to focus on the images on the screen before him as his mind replayed everything that had just happened. This was by far the most awkward thing to have happened to both Zim and Dib, and it probably wasn't going to be forgotten anytime soon.

~~~~~

Hours passed, hours turning into days and then days into weeks as Dib refused to so much as even take one step outside for fear that he would run into Zim again the instant he decided to venture out from his house.

As could be expected, he spent the first several days of his seclusion locked up in his room. But when the silence and worsening nightmares from sleeping so much, or at least attempting to, began to get to him, he finally decided to at least move himself to the downstairs couch where he could mope about and watch TV. Reaching the end of his second week of laying around watching TV like a lazy bum, Gaz finally reached her breaking point and brought down upon him every ounce of her annoyance. Not only was he hogging the couch and downstairs TV, but she had had to suffer through listening to every Mysterious Mysteries recording he had ever taped in his lifetime. She couldn't take it anymore.

So approaching his slouched over form on the couch one day as she was heading out for her shift at her job, a game shop, she towered over him with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. "Listen, Dib... If you're not going to be out chasing after Zim or whatever the hell it is you're always ranting about, the least you could do it get your lazy ass off the couch and make yourself useful by getting a job or shopping at the store for what we're running low on." she said, shoving a list of things they needed from the grocery store in his face.

Blinking wide eyes at the list for a moment, he let them fall half lidded in annoyance as he shoved the piece of paper out of his face before glaring slightly up at her. "No way, Gaz! You can't make me leave the house if I don't want to.." he said, sitting up on the couch a bit just to switch positions before folding his arms across his chest and returning his gaze to the television screen.

"Oh really?" she said, one eye wide now as she reached for the phone. "Well maybe I should just call dad then and tell him about how you're still using his lab for your 'experiments' despite him telling you numerous times that you're no longer allowed down there." she said, reaching out a hand to dial his number.

Those words had Dib turning instantly to stare at her with wide eyes. "You wouldn't." he said, hanging over the back of the couch now, his fingers gripping it nervously.

"Try me." she said, narrowing her eyes in his direction before dialing in the first few numbers.

"Alright! Alright! I'll head to the store today!" he exclaimed, holding up his hands defensively for her to stop.

Placing the phone back down on the receiver, Gaz gathered her things together quickly and began heading for the door. "You better, Dib. Now I'm late for work, so it better be done by the time I get back." she said, opening the door and slamming it shut behind her.

With his scary younger sister gone now, Dib couldn't help but breath out a sigh of relief. "Fine...but you can't make me leave the house anytime soon afterwords." he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

Looking down at the list in his lap and then his trench coat which was by now clean but still ripped up and full of holes courtesy of Zim and his laser-shooting gnomes, he sighed again and figured that if he was going to be going out anywhere, he might as well go ahead and buy himself a new trench coat at the mall first. So grabbing his house keys and some money that their father left them for food and trips to the store, he headed out the door also and began making his way towards the mall.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, back at Zim's base, Gir sat on the living room floor, staring wide eyed up at the television screen, only to get pulled out of his hypnotic gaze once a ball of scrunched up paper hit the back of his head. This was probably the fifth or sixth time Zim had pelted him with a paper ball, so Gir didn't really take much notice of it after a while as he continued to watch his favorite angry monkey show happily.

Zim, who was occupying the couch behind Gir, sat frowning down at his skool book, scribbling something down onto the page and muttering in annoyance before tearing the page off, scrunching it up in his hand, and throwing it onto the floor of his already messy base. It was either out of boredom or a desperate search for a distraction that Zim had decided to attempt to work through his math homework that had been given to him to complete before the end of the summer break, but he had barely gotten a quarter of the way through it before he had grown horribly bored yet again and his writing had somehow turned into a collection of childish doodles scribbled onto the page.

He wondered what reason there could possibly be for someone to learn such pointless, long-drawn out ways of working out these ridiculous 'mathematical' questions. Of course, he was able to complete this task with ease if he was in the right mind frame, but it seemed he was unable to focus on anything recently. He hadn't bothered to even attempt to contact his leaders as he was pretty sure by now what the outcome would be. On top of that, he hadn't even seen Dib for what may have been a few weeks now. It was quite likely that the human was too ashamed to show his face to the other after the rather humiliating incident, which Zim smirked at in thought, but it could also be for the one reason he feared, that Dib just didn't care anymore, that Dib had lost interest in him and no longer saw him as a threat to the world or of any importance what so ever, similarly the things he feared with his leaders.

Zim's gloved hand now gripping the pen he had been writing with tightly, it began to shake slightly from the ever tightening grip as those thoughts entered his mind. It was clear all this was getting to the Irken, and he looked to be at about his breaking point. Suddenly, pulling himself strait out of his unpleasant thoughts, Zim bolted himself upright and stood in front of the couch with his fists slightly raised. "No!!" he bellowed. "Enough of this pitiful foolishness! This vacation from world conquest has gone on long enough! I must take action! And then! THEN! The Dib shall know the true meaning of vengeance when he suffers the wrath of ZIM!!" Quickly sitting himself back onto the couch with his pen in hand and pressed to a fresh page of his skool book, he smirked as he readied himself to jot some notes down for his next, brilliantly evil scheme. This random jolt of enthusiasm rising within him from what could only be described as weeks of hopelessness and lingering doubt, Zim was sure that he could come up with something that would have his nemesis come running. But despite Zim's sudden motivation, the pen in his hand refused to move on the page to form words. He had nothing.

Frowning a bit in thought as he began to tap the pen against the blank page impatiently, he wondered what kind of plan would be so horrible that Dib would have no choice but to try and stop him with some amusingly feeble attempt. But that's when the tapping came to a sudden stop as Zim's eyes widened for a moment. Why on Irk would it matter to him whether the Dib-filth got involved with his scheme or not? Why would it matter if he was no longer out to try and expose him? It's exactly like what he remembered the human had said in the projected hologram. Shouldn't he be happy? He was right. He should be happy, shouldn't he?

Dropping the pen, Zim tightly gripped the sides of the skool book, clenching his teeth and frowning down at it in frustration. He hated having these thoughts. He hated all of the thoughts that he had been having during these weeks, and they seemed to get worse every time, filling him with doubt and making him feel pathetic and weak. Bolting up from the couch yet again, he threw the skool book across the room so it thwacked loudly against the wall opposite him before landing onto the floor with a loud thud, startling Gir, who quickly turned to face his master, who was now sitting back on the couch, glaring morosely at the television screen with his arms folded. "Ooh! Was dat a baaad book!?" Gir screeched in an insanely cheerful tone, only to have Zim grunt in response.

"Aww, mastah needs a hug!" Gir yelled joyously as he tottered over to his master with outstretched arms. But Zim quickly reacted to this by kicking the little robot away from him, making him land on the floor back into a sitting position and stare up at Zim all teary eyed.

Zim just let out another irritated grunt and turned his head to the side in an attempt to ignore his minions sappy little display but found this impossible once Gir began to let out a chorus of ear splitting wails and roll around the floor hysterically, making Zim grip the ends of his antennas. "Enough! Ugh! Look, Gir. If you really HAVE to try to make me feel better…then-", Zim reached into his PAK, pulled out a few dollar bills, and quickly handed them to Gir, "Then go buy yourself some kind of useless Earth thing, and do it now!"

Gir bounced up and down and giggled excitedly. "Yaaay!! I gonna buy DOOKIE!!"

"Yes, yes. Now go! Your presence sickens me." And with that, Gir darted out of the house, leaving Zim alone to wallow in his own misery.

Opening the front door to the base and closing it behind him, Gir trotted off in the direction of the store excitedly, money in hand and a big smile on his face.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, back with Dib, the paranormal investigator had managed to make it into town without running into Zim, which had him breathing out a sigh of relief. Walking through the front doors to the mall, he stood back and looked about the crowded establishment for a few moments. The place was huge. He couldn't recall the last time he had been here. But he was certain his sister worked in one of the game shops the mall had to offer.

Shrugging that off, he made his way over to one of the directories placed at the front of the building and searched through the list of stores for anywhere that sounded promising in providing him with a new trench coat.

Finding a clothes store that was located all the way on the other end of the mall from where he was, he began heading in the direction that the map indicated until he finally came to stand in front of the entrance to a large store with a flashing sign above the door that read "OPEN." Staring at it for a few moments then the door, he hesitantly pushed it open and headed on in to have a look around. The place was well air-conditioned and not nearly as crowded as all the other stores seemed to be.

"Hmmm...That's odd. There doesn't seem to be many people in here." he said out loud to himself just to be answered by another voice, female in nature.