Recipe for Truce

It had all happened so quickly. 

Try as he might, Dib couldn’t wrap his mind around just how it had happened. How their usual antics had silently crossed the line into this new, uncharted territory in mere seconds. How their arguing had been cut off by the unmistakable sound of Zim’s Voot colliding with something to rival its own structural integrity. Suddenly, all Dib’s years of stupid, impulsive decisions seemed to come back to him in one resounding question: had it been this dangerous the entire time? If so, it was only catching up with him now. 

Earlier that evening, his biggest obstacle had been sneaking onto Zim’s Voot Cruiser while the latter was preparing for some sort of excursion in deep space. It must have been deep space, at least, as he appeared to be leaving his little robot behind to supposedly take care of the base. Dib had been successful in his initial endeavor, crawling onto the ship when Zim’s back was turned and hiding behind some food rations in the storage hatch. When he heard the sound of the engine starting up and the Voot take off, he knew his plan was going flawlessly. 

Until it wasn’t. 

They hadn’t even been in space for a full hour before Zim casually opened the hatch, reached for a bag of chips, and almost instantly made deadpan eye contact with Dib. They remained perfectly still in their respective states of shock for a moment. Then, all hell broke loose. Yelling. Screaming. It was just like the many, many other verbal brawls they had engaged in over the years. Dib’s voice clashed with Zim’s, demanding to know information on where he was heading, while Zim’s vitriol began targeted at Dib before moving onto entire human race. 

“How did you get onto my ship?” 

“Where are you going, alien scum?”

“Did you disable my security cameras?”

“What are your coordinates? Why did you leave your robots behind?” 

“Get off my ship before I throw you out of the airlock!” 

“Answer my questions!”

“Horrid, stinking humans!”

They yelled over one another, neither even entertaining the idea of answering the others’ questions. 

Zim had formed his next words on his lips when, out of nowhere, the entire ship quaked, then rocked to the side. His face dropped from anger to a blank, blood-drained expression. He turned to face his windshield just in time to see an asteroid collide with the side of the ship and knock both of them to their knees.

Dib remembered yelling something, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what. It couldn’t have been a plea for help. Certainly, it couldn’t have been. He caught a glimpse of Zim scrambling back up to the control panel before another crash sent the Voot—and all its contents—spinning. This time, it was Dib who regained his footing and lurched towards the controls, only to flounder at how impossibly different Zim’s Voot was to Tak’s modified Spittle Runner. He had only a moment to hover panic-stricken over the buttons before Zim was back on his feet and pushing him away. 

Another shudder. 

This time, it was followed by a blunt pain against his temple and then darkness. Dib awoke (Seconds? Minutes?) later to more chaos and confusion. This time, though, his brain couldn’t keep up. Couldn’t register what was happening. It went on and on, circling through his head. Then, somewhere in his addled mind, the commotion stopped. Silence. He allowed it for a moment without protest. Then, he worked up the courage to open his eyes. His cheek was pressed against the floor of the Voot and angled to the underside of the control panel. 

“Ughhh…” The sound of his own voice surprised him. Almost as if he wasn’t entirely convinced he was still alive until then. He wiggled his fingers. Then his toes. Flexed his arms and legs.

With another groan, he lifted his head and looked around. The combination of headrush and confusion almost forced him back down. The Voot was tilted upwards on one side, and anything that hadn’t been tied down was strewn and piled up on the other side. 

He did another quick evaluation of himself. He felt alright, but shock was a hell of a drug. Part of him feared he would be missing half his leg, or bleeding profusely, or experiencing anything else equally as awful. However, the throbbing pain in his head, the swelling of a fat lip, and a soreness in his limbs seemed to be the extent of his injuries. 

He looked around again.  “Zim?” 

There was no response, and Dib was again surprised by the jolt of shock that ran up his chest. “…Zim?” 

He unsteadily sat up and crawled out from under the consol. That was when he saw him. Zim was lying prone over the dash, draped across the very same buttons, levers, and screens he’d been frantically hovering over just moments ago. 

“Zim!” Dib stumbled to his feet and lurched forward, shaking his shoulder.

Instead of replying, Zim’s body simply slumped to one side and fell to the floor with a sickening thud. 

He stared down at it, mouth wide open and eyes enormous. Then, he closed his mouth and swallowed dryly. The sour taste of blood lingered on his tongue and a feeling of nausea swept over him.  

Zim was… dead? Could that be possible?

He continued to start down him in suspended disbelief, wondering why Zim dying was a bad thing. Rather, why his first response was so deeply visceral, equating the sight to something worthy of dread. He had wanted Zim dead for years, after all.

Unconsciously, his shoes shuffled backwards across the uneven floor until his heels hit the back wall. He crumpled to the ground, eyes still fixed on the motionless form in front of him. 

“REACTIVATE.”

Dib jumped with a start. 

At the same time, Zim’s body jolted and flopped to the side with all the grace of a freshly caught fish. He seemed to go through some sort of spasm on the floor. His mouth opened, but instead of a scream, he sucked in what sounded like the most desperate breath of air any creature had ever taken. Almost immediately, he released it in a torrent of coughing. 

“Zim!” Dib staggered over to him before dropping to the floor at his side. Zim groaned and went still again. This time, though, Dib could plainly see the rise and fall of his chest. “Hey, wake up!” 

A rough shake to the shoulder had him groaning once more. This time, it was accompanied by the faintest slit of his eyes as he peered dimly out at the shape hovering over him. “Hhhhhuh?” They slipped shut again.  

“Come on! I need your help! The ship is trashed, and I don’t even know where we are!”

No response. 

His words seemed to jar his current predicament to the forefront of his own mind, though. For the first time, he actually realized just how dire their circumstance was. They were alive, yes, but for how long? What was outside their window?

Dib took a breath and held it. Slowly, cautiously, he moved towards the windshield, still clouded with smoke and caked with ash. He rubbed away some of it with his sleeve, then cupped his hands around his face to look out. From beyond the lingering smoke, he squinted at the shapes in the distance. It didn’t look to be some heavily militarized alien society ready to take them prisoner. It looked like…a forest. 

Taking another breath, he pressed the button that opened the windshield, and a sad grinding noise accompanied the small, lopsided opening the ship was able to make. Dib wriggled through it and into the unknown. Staying close to the Voot, he peered around. 

It was like he had been shrunken to the size of an ant and placed in a succulent garden. The area he and Zim had crash-landed on was nothing more than a meadow. Less than one hundred feet away, though, enormous trees, bushes, and other such flora gathered together in tightly packed clusters. Each specimen was colossal, with fat leaves and strange prickly flowers blooming from some. 

He observed it for some time, wide-eyed, then made his way back inside. 

Zim was fading in and out of consciousness, blinking slowly in the low light of the cabin. Dib stared at him, his lips tugging down in a frown. He thought about what had come out of his mouth just moments before, and for the first time, the gravity of the words hit him. 

I need your help! The ship is trashed, and I don’t even know where we are!

He hadn’t been wrong. There was no way he would be able to repair the Voot without Zim’s aid. He hadn’t even been able to repair his own Spittle on his own, even after months upon months of research and afternoons spent in his garage with the thing.

He shifted closer to Zim, who’s eyes were closed again. Now that he was observing him closer, he could see one of his arms was twisted in an unnatural position. Dib drew in a shuddery breath, feeling sick at the sight of it. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt that it was broken. Zim’s head, too, was already blooming with dark green bruises from having hit it against the control panel. Probably more was wrong with him. Things wrong that Dib had no way of knowing.

One faraway look faded into another just as easily as shock melded into the feeling of operating on autopilot. Without thinking about what he was doing, he shifted Zim into a more comfortable position propped up on the floor.  

“Whuuu…” Zim drawled. He gave him a long, lazy stare that seemed to go directly through him. “Dib thing?” he asked at last. 

“Yes, it’s me, ‘Dib thing.’” He rolled his eyes and sat back on his heels.  

Then, without any warning, Zim’s PAK began to emit a strange, mechanical whirring. 

Dib shot an uneasy glance at it. What the hell? Is the thing broken? Doing something to heal his injuries? Self-destructing?

Zim seemed not to have even noticed it, though. He was back to blinking in the low light, looking only slightly more aware of his surroundings than he had moments ago. 

Dib kept one eye on him as he shrugged out of his trench coat. Then, he removed the undershirt he had on beneath his blue pullover—nothing more than a thin, sleeveless white garment. He held it dumbly in his hands for a moment, trying to dredge up memories of first aid units in health class. Then, carefully, he lifted the elbow of Zim’s broken arm. 

The second he did so, a shriek tore from between Zim’s lips and both antennae shot up. “What are you doing?!” he screamed almost incoherently. 

“I’m trying to stabilize it!”

For the first time, Zim’s gaze didn’t shift back to complete disassociation. The agony in his arm seemed to have pulled him at least partially from the hazy confines of his teetering consciousness. He clutched the arm to his chest tightly, breathing in and out in quick little bursts. 

Dib hesitantly slung the fabric over his head and around his neck, fully expecting another outburst. He was noticeably surprised when Zim didn’t pull away. Dib carried on, wrapping it around Zim’s torso and beneath the injury. When he brushed against it, Zim hissed balefully in the back of his throat and cringed into himself. Still, he refrained from pulling away or yelling obscenities. Dib tied one end of the shirt to the other and leaned back to scrutinize his work. It wasn’t a pretty bandage, but it was passable. It wasn’t a permanent solution—just a way to keep it stabilized. Zim was able to release his grip on his arm, though, and the sling kept it folded across his chest. When he realized this, a flicker of relief took hold over his face. 

The whirring noise in the PAK hitched, then started up again. This time, Zim’s antennae perked up in acknowledgement. He turned a bit, just enough for Dib to see a single crack down the center of the device. A spark shot out above the top port, and both their eyes went wide. Zim’s already pale face took on an even ashier tone. 

“Look Zim,” Dib started, still gaping at the PAK. “When you’re able to, I need you to help me with the ship. I can’t fix it myself.” Perhaps in a different situation, his pride would have made the statement sound more defeated. More like admitting failure. Shock had chased those sentiments away, though, and the words were spoken flatly. Decidedly. He was running on the need to survive.

“Why…” Zim swallowed thickly, then tried again. “Why should I…” he trailed off. 

“Why should you help me?” Dib finished. “Because without me, you’re going to die out here. I have no idea what planet we’re on, or if it’s even safe. And your PAK is sparking. If we can just work together once, we could both get out of here alive.” 

Zim was beginning to fade out of consciousness again. The fact that he could only seem to stay awake for short increments was deeply upsetting. 

Before his eyes closed all the way, Dib snapped his fingers in his face. “Well? What do you say? Is it a truce?”

He was out again. Likely, he hadn’t even heard what Dib had said initially. 

Dib sighed and leaned back against the wall opposite Zim. Everything that was currently happening sloshed around in his head. 

Why can’t Zim stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time? Was this normal for injured Irkens? Did it have something to do with his PAK? Had the damage been enough for it to just stop functioning? No… it had been well over ten minutes, and he was still alive. The thing had even “reactivated” him, whatever the hell that meant. 

Whatever was wrong with the PAK, though, Dib had a sneaking suspicion that it was affecting his cognitive abilities, and he didn’t know how to work with that. If Zim couldn’t stay awake or lucid, how could he be any help?

Other worries snuck up. Worries that weren’t relevant now but would be in due time. Food. Water. Where the hell were they? Was there any other intelligent life on this planet? Dangerous predators who kill them the moment they strayed too far away from the ship?

“Truce.”

Dib was shaken from his trance. “What?” He turned to Zim, who, by all accounts, looked to still be unconscious.

“Truce,” he muttered again. His head slumped forward, and another faint spark shot out from his PAK. 

Dib sat back, staring inquisitively at him for a moment. Then, peering out the windshield again, he swallowed. 

Truce.

At least one thing was settled.

~The End~

Author’s Note