we'll be a fine line (we'll be alright)

by Whiscash

pairing: Zim/Dib (ZADR)

notes: I always wanted to do an outsider POV fic, and this turned into a little bit of a character study, I think, possibly? anyway, it was fun to try Gaz out and explore the Membrane fam dynamics a bit, alongside your daily dose of ZADR being Gross(™), obviously, so here goes...something!

as always, thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoy the thing and would absolutely love to hear your thoughts! :D

As far back as she remembers, there's two constants in Gaz's life: she has Dib, and she's annoyed.

When they were tiny gross babies, she'd shut him up with a clunk to the head from her bottle; sometimes he'd cry, and that was funny for a while until it hurt her ears, so then Gaz would start crying too to prove she could do it louder. She didn't have much else to entertain her, back in the bad old days before she could play video games. It was mostly just the two of them and the NannyBots, unless their dad managed to schedule a half hour of non-science time to spend with them.

But that was fine, because Gaz has never needed much attention. She just wanted to be left in peace with her stuffed animals, since they were much more intelligent company than other people - especially other kids, who were dumb and annoying and ruined everything, a constant stream of irritating enemies she had to fight for the good stuff in life, like pizza or the latest GameSlave.

Dib, on the other hand - from the moment he learned to babble he's been disgustingly desperate for attention. Always tugging on her sleeve to look at those funny lights in the sky, come see these prints in the garden, help him stalk that sickly guy across the street who is obviously a vampire, Gaz, don't you see? There's something new every week, but the ending is the same: there's nothing worth opening her eyes for. Professor Membrane shakes his head in vague disappointment before telling Dib that when he's older he'll grow out of these tiresome conjurings of an overactive imagination and come to appreciate real science. All the kids at skool call him a freak, and Gaz just...doesn't get it, why he cares so much about convincing other people, chasing validation that he's never gonna get. That wouldn't mean anything anyway because the people in their town are all dumb as rocks and will believe anything that fits with their idiotic fantasy worldview and aggressively ignore anything that doesn't. Gaz could've told him that years ago, if he could get his stupid big head out of his butt long enough to consider that she might have better things to do than help him make tinfoil hats. But there's maybe also a kind of trainwreck fascination in watching her brother edge a little closer to the brink of insanity every day. She wonders if one day he'll snap, steal one of their dad's lasers and start blasting everyone who ever ridiculed him, except that sounds too cool for Dib.

Instead, Zim shows up, and Dib doesn't so much fall as cannonball launch himself into the abyss, never to return the same.

The thing with Zim isn't that he's an alien or whatever - he's obviously too dumb to take over the world (except for that one time, but seriously, Gaz could do way more diabolical things if she had half of his tech. She's considered it, but ruling Earth seems like too much work and way too many people). It's that he, unlike everyone else, actually does notice Dib - considers him a threat worth engaging with, water fight after muffin battle after bologna head - and that, it turns out, is pretty dangerous. With his self-proclaimed mortal enemy, Dib's like a bottle of Poop that's been shook up, fizzing with manic energy, constantly scheming, plotting, spying, and laser-focused on Zim, Zim, Zim. Which, she guesses, is sorta an improvement, because at least if he's stalking Zim he isn't bugging Gaz as much, apart from when he's bugging her to stalk Zim with him. But Gaz's had her whole life to perfect ignoring him, so this is normal now. Dib's too pathetic to convince anyone else Zim's an alien, Zim is too incompetent to pull off any of his schemes and they're equally pig-headed (literally), so they'll probably be doing this mating dance of the dumbass until they either die or get married. Preferably the former.

Til then, she's stuck with her brother for at least one more lunchtime. The cafeteria slop is disgusting, but Gaz gets some anyway in case she needs a weapon to deter anyone idiotic enough to talk to her while she's trying to beat her high score on Disturbingly Overfed Doggos 3.

Right on cue, Dib bursts through the doors, slightly red in the face and out of breath as if he's run all the way to skool, and stumbles over to her.

"Gaz -"

"Busy," she answers without looking up.

"This is important!" It always is. "It's Zim."

Gaz's Heckin Chonker collapses, and she growls, throwing down her Schmintendo Blitz and turning her frustrated glare on Dib. "This better be good, or..."

"You'll make me pay, I know." Dib keeps talking like he wants to get a face full of whatever this 'special' is. "You know how he hasn't come to class in days? I checked the cameras and I think he's actually getting ready to leave Earth! Maybe for good!"

"Huh." Gaz inclines her head a fraction. "...So? Congrats, I guess? Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"Well - yeah, kind of, but not like this! After all these years, my whole epic struggle to save the human race, Zim's just - giving up, just like that? Without even telling me...?" Dib seems to deflate, his hair scythe drooping like a sad (but ugly) puppy's tail. "Don't you think it's suspicious? What if his leaders called him back and they're sending someone even worse, or - or I don't know, but something smells rotten, and I think we should go sniff out the truth."

"I'm not sniffing anything. I have a physics quiz." Gaz intends on keeping her GPA up if she has any shot at getting into a college with slightly fewer lame people. "You go stop him. Just tell him you don't want him to go because you looove him."

She's only half teasing, but Dib flushes full lobster, glancing around to check if anyone's listening, and that tells Gaz way more than she needed to know. "I can't - I mean, I don't! Gaz, I hate him! He's - have you been listening to anything I've been saying for the last five years?"

What does he think she's been trying to do? "If you hate him so much, why aren't you happy he's leaving?"

"Because!" Dib opens his mouth to protest, then closes it, then does the same thing again like a goldfish in a stupid coat. He gesticulates uselessly, drags his hands through his hair with a wordless noise of frustration, then collapses in his chair, his still ridiculously big head hitting the table with a thunk. "It's...more complicated than that. I don't expect you to understand the intricacies of extraterrestrial diplomacy."

Gaz scoffs. "I've met as many aliens as you, stinkbrain. Just 'cause I don't get all weird about it."

"How is it weird to care about the fate of our planet?" Dib huffs; Gaz doesn't bother to dignify that with an answer, and they sit in silence for a moment or two until he glances back at her. "...Do you really think I should?"

There's this glimmer of something that might be called hope in his eyes. Gaz could snuff it out by telling him what any normal person would: he should let Zim go, for real, this obsession isn't healthy, it's time to move on and do literally anything else with his life. She could try - but this is Dib, who's refused to be reasoned with for the last 17 years. He's not gonna start listening to her now, and honestly? If there's one thing lamer than being Dib, it's being normal.

"Whatever," she says with a shrug, picking up her phone and letting him stew in silence a little while longer. "I'm just saying. If you don't say anything, someone else might."

Dib blinks, frowning as he takes a moment to get it, self-proclaimed genius and all. "Are you...blackmailing me?" He doesn't sound angry so much as surprised, maybe even pleased, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Wow. It's been a while, I didn't know you cared."

"I don't." It's almost the truth; Gaz wants to be able to not care about her brother's deeply questionable life choices. If she could take another summer of him melting into a miserable chair-dweeb, stinking up the whole house and too pitiful even to laugh at. If she didn't know that, in whatever twisted way, Dib needs Zim, and he's gonna go after him no matter how obviously terrible a decision that is. With an exasperated groan, she elbows him in the side with maybe 98% of her full power, hard enough to make him yelp but not to go flying across the room. "Now get out of my face and go get your gross alien boyfriend."

Dib winces and cringes at the same time as he shuffles away from her. "Only if you promise never to say that again."

He knows she'd never promise that, and she knows it wouldn't stop him from bolting back through the cafeteria doors anyway. When he's gone, Gaz sighs to herself, her lips quirking a fraction of an inch, before picking up her Blitz for round two.

She might regret this, but she could never resist a good trainwreck.

"Gaz-human!"

Gaz never did find out what exactly Dib did, probably because she doesn't care enough to ask, but a couple months later, Zim is very much still here and to her dismay, very much not the pizza she ordered.

"What do you want?"

"I see - you are utterly flamboozled as to why Zim would see fit to grace your miserable dwelling with his amazing presence! But I…"

"Get to the point," she snaps; Zim flinches slightly as though she might bite.

"Anyway - eh, no need to cower before me, once-little Gaz! Zim will spare your insignificant life, in exchange for the whereabouts of your Dib."

Slowly, Gaz opens one eye. "Are you gonna kill him?"

"Eh?" Zim blinks, cocking his head like he's debating whether it's a trick question. "Noooooo…?"

"Good. Don't think about doing it without me." She takes a deep breath and yells: "Dib! Your gross alien boyfriend is here!"

"I told you not to call - wait, he's here?" Dib emerges from his room, rubbing his eyes like he hasn't seen daylight in weeks; Zim's face lights up, and he pushes past Gaz to invite himself in.

"Ah, the Dib-stink awakens! Just as I expected!"

"I mean...yeah, this is my house, so -"

"I didn't come here to listen to your tedious Dib-logic." Zim dismisses him with a wave of his hand (and honestly, that's a mood). "Just show me these machines you spoke of so I can dismantle them into something that might possibly be acceptable."

"Oh, I'll show you alright! I got things up here that'll blow your tiny alien mind." Dib catches Gaz's eye as he motions for Zim to follow him upstairs, and immediately glances away when she lifts an eyebrow. "We're, uh - they made us lab partners."

Gaz didn't ask, but she didn't need to. She can still hear them when she heads back to her room to work on some coding for her computing course; Dib's grating whine whine whine, Zim goes squawk squawk squawk, and then various thumps like something, or someone, being thrown across the room. After a while their voices get gradually softer, until Gaz can't make them out any more, and that's when she sticks her headset on and fires up Soldier of Doody 25 - for stress relief, and in case she ends up overhearing something she really doesn't need to.

When she eventually ventures downstairs on a snack run, nobody's dead or even maimed, somewhat disappointingly. They're still on the sofa, jostling each other over Dib's laptop. Even while he's arguing that Zim isn't a total traitor to the Irken empire if he shares some Vortian tech secrets (whatever any of that means), Dib isn't objecting to Zim occupying most of his personal space, and he doesn't even seem to notice when Gaz walks over.

"Hey, partners." She yanks on Dib's hair scythe to get his attention; he yelps, and Zim cackles, pointing at him like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. "Are you gonna be here all night? I need the TV to play Five Nights at Bloaty's VR."

Dib rubs his head, glaring from Gaz to Zim with a hilariously wounded look. "We've barely gotten started! I didn't even get to my Bigfeet backlog, or the zombee tracker, or -"

"Or!" Zim shuts Dib up - huh, maybe he is good for something - by grabbing his face, squishing his cheeks together so he can only splutter indignantly. "We could explore the repurposing of unfairly tall yet obviously inferior species as seating devices, so that their warmth and squishy...hairy...things could be efficiently exploited for Irken enjoyment!"

"You're not cute, Zim," Dib mutters, half-heartedly pushing at his legs as Zim proceeds to crawl into his lap, smugly stretching himself out over Dib and the laptop like a cat claiming his territory.

"Riiight." Gaz stares at Dib for an uncomfortably long time, just to watch him squirm and try to act like he's not enjoying having a lapful of space bug like the certified freak that he is. She could easily tip them both off the sofa if she really wanted, but she might actually puke, so she goes to raid the kitchen for chips and soda - at least Dib actually left some for her this time. By the time she's halfway up the stairs to her room, clutching her hoard, they're actually having a freaking tickle fight.

The worst thing is, Gaz kinda indirectly orchestrated this. She should probably be ashamed of herself.

The weirder thing? She isn't.

For a long time, Bloaty's Pizza Hog was Gaz's second favourite place in the world.

Not just for the pizza, or even the nightmarishly dead-eyed animatronics that inspired Gaz's own slight modifications to her stuffed animals - growing up, these were one of the few times she got to hang out with the only person whose attention and approval actually mattered. Professor Membrane was never much of a hands-on father, and Gaz's never resented him for it. She gets it: kids are dumb and gross, why waste time with them when you could be working on actual cool and useful things and leave them to your bots, who only caught fire a couple of times? And they turned out - okay, one of them turned out fine, the other turned out Dib, but that's trial and error or something. Anyway, they've somehow kept up the annual family tradition, and even though it's not such a huge occasion now she's doing this internship at the lab, Gaz couldn't really pick anywhere else.

Dib is late, which is as much part of their tradition as anything, except now instead of talking about Zim the whole time he's cut out the middleman and just brought him along. Which he probably regrets when he proudly informs Professor Membrane that "your eldest flesh-spawn calls Zim 'daddy' too". Dib almost chokes on his soda, spluttering that first of all how old is that meme now but just for the record he's never called Zim that in his life; Gaz hides a snicker behind her menu; and their father remains admirably unfazed (she thinks, it's hard to tell with the goggles), brushing aside those "profoundly unsettling images" to suggest they order their pizza.

It's not exactly like old times, but maybe that's a good thing; there's less tension, less pressure now that Gaz hasn't been waiting all year just to see her dad and Dib isn't ranting and raving that they're all about to die. He still babbles plenty, about college and how he's started this PoopTube channel - because of course he has - for his paranormal investigation that has like, four whole subscribers now. Zim contributes, he chimes in - after refusing to order any human slop and then stealing half of Dib's anyway - and one went viral because people apparently really like watching a robot in a dog suit dance on a 10-hour loop. Gaz remembers why she doesn't like people.

But she does, she guesses, like being able to get a word in edgeways to talk about the research they're doing into hyperintelligent amphibious life forms. Professor Membrane praises Gaz's innovative thinking, even if her battle suits for frogs may have been a little on the destructive side for Peace Day, and fondly ruffles her hair like she's still eleven. She lets him.

Then Bloaty lumbers past their booth and Zim shrieks, grabbing Dib's arm as he shrinks away. He looks briefly embarrassed when they all look at him, before clearing his throat and declaring that he has some old scores to settle. After he marches off to engage in some intense debate with the animatronics, their father turns to Dib and acknowledges that he perhaps hasn't always been the most supportive of his non-scientific interests. But Dib seems...happier since he moved out, he admits, with a surprising but sincere softness to his voice, and - however perplexing his chosen pursuit in life may be - Professor Membrane is happy for him.

Dib's eyes bug out, and Gaz thinks for a moment he's actually going to cry, but he manages to answer that yeah, Dad, he's happy, a soft little smile on his face as he glances at Zim pulling wires out of Ms Manatee's head. Gaz makes a fake gagging noise, he sticks his tongue out at her, and now it does feel like old times. And maybe, she guesses, that doesn't totally suck.

The moment is interrupted a nanosecond later when a bunch of kids start screaming and Zim yells that he has successfully reprogrammed all the robots - and the one that's just a dude in costume, but Gaz suspects he's going with it because his life is terrible anyway - to obey his every command and possibly also to feast on human flesh. Gaz and Professor Membrane hurry back to the car when they start smashing through the walls, and before they can say their goodbyes Dib gets scooped up by Sgt Squid and promptly disappears screaming into the sunset.

And it's fine, because this is their normal. They're going their separate ways and her brother's a confirmed alienfucker, but he'll live to annoy Gaz another day. Another year, when it'll be his turn to pick where they eat again. And barely another minute later, when she spots him in the rearview mirror: tangled in mechanical tentacles with Zim clinging onto his shoulders like a jetpack and an expression of simultaneous pure terror and joy that couldn't exist on anyone but Dib.

Gaz waves to him, and she smiles.