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Taking Notes

Written by:

PetPetAngel

Dedication: My BFF, Leslie, who drew this awesome picture: http/ www . deviantart. com/view/26628158/ (remove spaces and copy into address bar if you’d like to view it, doesn’t support links for some weird reason) which inspired this very, very short fic.

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There came a time when Dib’s observations of Zim weren’t just to find out his ultimate weakness, but a mere excuse to watch the alien in ordinary day life.

Dib sometimes found himself thinking about Zim’s paranoia as merely, ‘I’m an alien pretending to be normal’ but an insecurity that came from the scorn of his home planet. Dib always thought that aliens might be better at accepting their own kind than earth was with it’s humans, but that didn’t seem to be true with Zim.

Zim did his day that was not exactly weird to a human mind (as if the people in Skool seemed to have the ability to tell what was weird and what was normal, nor did they have the right) but rather, it was unique. Over time Zim had caught on with human ‘practices’ as Dib had found him to call them, though he did have his quirks.

Zim always entered the classroom the same way. He back was always rigid, his eyes darting among the students, eyes almost always lingering on Dib the longest, and a precarious attitude his air. He always sat in his seat the same way, carefully, eyes still darting around the classroom but being careful not to meet eyes with Ms. Bitters.

He always left class the same way as well, always the last one to leave unless Dib slowed don purposefully and waited for him. Occasionally, Ms. Bitters would give him a ‘get-out-of-my-room-doomed-child’ look, which would be the only reason he would leave while Dib was still there.

Dib also knew that at lunch, Zim never touched his food. If it hadn’t been for the fact Zim had basically told him that Irkens do eat food (mostly snacks, it seemed), he wouldn’t have been sure. Zim would poke at his food, stare at him with mixture of disgust and nearly-suppressed horror on his face. Dib couldn’t make much emphasis on that – he rarely ate at lunch himself.

Zim also always left school the same way, precariously. Everything about Zim’s behavior proved his insecurities and put them on display to the world. He always watched everyone leave for a good ten minutes before finally scurrying away in a hurried rush, always looking over his shoulder with wide eyes.

But something about Zim had changed over time.

When Zim looked at Dib, Dib no longer saw hatred in his deep, crimson eyes.