C&C means happy author = more fics.
Ask and I shall write.

    Dib swore. First in English, then is the other sixty Earthly languages he could speak, and then in Irkan. Needless to say his captors were impressed. Humans. People who, rather than fight the invasion, acted as servants to Zim. Dib wouldn't be so lucky. These were slavers. If he became anything to Zim, it would be his slave.

    His sister had joined the resistance as a technological advisor. All of those games she'd played helping her aid the cause. His father had been the first to fall. Since Zim grew during his time on Earth and became taller than the almighty tallest, he was the new ruler of Irk and once Earth was invaded, he chose to stay there. Obviously it was in much better shape than the planet Irk or something, because Zim had some kind of deep attatchment to it.

    The human cried out as he was tazzed and caught his glasses right before they were lost. "Watch it! I'll have you know Zim will much rather damage me himself!"

    The guard stopped for a moment, probably unused to his captives speaking Irkan. But Dib was a survivor. He knew to live through whatever Zim was planning, he should know his language.

    Zim. The name had once been synonomous with evil. Then later friendship. Dib should have known not to trust the alien. The minuet he could, he led the invasion. And Dib, Dib had had a chance to kill him. To end it all. And he spared his friend. He'd let the creature who would destroy all of his dreams live. He deserved slavery. Because of him his father was dead. He schoolmates were enslaved. He human race was divided and he was caught in the center of the whole thing.

    "Move!"

    He flinched back from the tazer, "I'm Moving!"

    Back when he was 12 he'd imagined this was Zim's plan for Earth. When they'd celebrated his seventeenth birthday though, it had been as friends. Two years they'd been inseperable. Then one day Zim had come to visit him. He hadn't been home, but he wished he had so badly, because that was the day Zim killed his father and began his attack.

    Truth told, Dib hadn't known his father very well, and his death, though painful hadn't been a deep pain. What hurt worst was Zim's betrayal and he was left wondering. . . would Zim have killed him as well? If he'd been home?

    He was tossed against a wall and chained there, hands above his head. On either side of him where other captives. This was Zim's personal slave block. From here the best would be taken to Zim, the others auctioned like cattle to his soldiers. Dib could only hope he wasn't taken to Zim. There was no telling what the Irkan tallest would do to him.

    Gir slipped through the door munching on a cupcake happily. The little S.I.R. unit looked over the new slaves cheerfully, "Master Zim just wants one."

    Dib tried to hide his face. He couldn't believe Zim had kept Gir operational! He was always messing things up. Dib had loved the little robot. He was funny and friendly and a good cook! But Zim hadn't liked him so well.

    "DIB!!!!"

    //Shit.//

    Gir jumped up and down and pointed Dib out to the guards, "That one! That one!"

    Once again, Dib found himself poked and proded into motion. He was taken to a cold white room, his hair was trimmed, stubble shaved, and body washed. Then, naked and shivering, he was lead through the halls of Zim's mansion on a leash and in chains.

    At the large, ornate office doors. The guard stopped and Gir ran inside exitedly.

    A roared, "WHAT?!?!"  Burst through the halls.

    Dib felt the shock of that voice hit him hard, and with it, all of his resistance crumbled. He was cold, starving, tired and ill and he slid to the ground, unwilling to fight anymore. Not against Zim. Not against the only friend he'd ever had. //You win Zim. You win.//
_________________________

    Dib was hanging by his wrists up so that his toes barely grazed the lazer scorched ground. He had tried to run again. The first time he'd been warned, the second he'd been starved, and he'd still run again. Humans who ran so often had to be taught, that's what the Irkan slavers told the others as he hung Dib up for his punishment.

    Blood ran down the pale flesh of his arms from his chaffed wrists. Each slight motion was agony! He fought the need to cry out. They would never see him cry out!

    "What is your name , human?"

    "Dib Membrane."

    "No." The wetted whip gouged a trail of bloody fire across his flesh and he could feel the skin of his back split. "You are nameless. Humans have no names. Again! What is your name?"

    "Dib. Dib Membrane."

    Again and again the whip peeled back the flesh off his slim shoulders and down his spine. He choaked back a scream and panted in the agony of the pain as they struck him again and again.

    "Your name!"

    "DIB!"

    "DIB!"

    "DIB!"

    "Dib?" A cool touch pulled him from the pain and the human forced his body to relax. The slashes were scars now. That had happened a long time ago. There was no whip here. //Is there?//

    "Dib. Please open your eyes."

    Golden orbs peaked from heavy lids and Dib tried to focus.

    "Come on. You are a stubbourn human. Show it. Open your eyes."

    The pleading in the choaked voice gave him strength and he found himself blinking up at an Irkan! And a familiar Irkan too. "Zim."

    "Ha! I knew you were not so easily delt with!"

    "Alien Atrocity! Why did you bring me here?" He was too weak to put any force behind the words and had to close his eyes as the room began to spin.

    "I have been searching the Earth for you!"

    "Taking the rival thing a little far aren't you Zim? You won."

    "I have not won if I lose you."

    Dib felt the tears slipping over his cheaks, "You killed my father. Why did you kill him? I thought we were friends!"

    Zim watched the delerious boy cry himself to sleep and sat back hard in the chair beside his bed. //His stupid Earth father was no father for him. He would have killed Dib to draw out the alien his son had been talking about so often in his youth. It would be too much for him. How can I tell him that his family and planet were captured, killed, and taken over, because an alien loved him? Because an Irkan invader claimed him for his mate.//

    "Tuklan? (Daddy?)"

    Zim opened his arms and smiled as a bundle of giggles and energy climbed onto his lap. "Good Morning Diz. Did you sleep well?"

    "mhm. Tuklan? a zat le? (Uhuh, Daddy? Is that him?)"

    Zim nodded and Diz clambored off of his father to study the man in the large Irkan bed. The Irkan ruler took in his son with great love. Diz was four years old now, and just learning English. He had pale, human colored skin and uncontrolable dark, gold and brown hair which stood in a very familiar scyth like way in the middle. Tan antenea twitched up from the deep lochs and his eyes, though they were Irkan eyes, were deep brown with gold flecks. His son was his pride. A beautiful child who had the genes in him to grow tall enough to be a wonderful ruler. His child was the second reason that Professor Membrane had had to die.

    He had found out about Diz when he was still growing in the egg Zim protected and guarded jealously in his special backpack. The man was planing to take his egg away from him. Zim had only done what was needed to protect his family.

    "Les ta Seclat! (He's so beautiful!)"

    "Yes. He is."

    "Ione? (mine?)"

    "Ours." Zim sighed and smoothed Dib's wild hair back from the sleeping man's face. "You father. My mate."

    "eep an nos el? (Can we keep him?)"

    The Irkan ruler hugged his son close and stared down at his sleeping human beloved. "I hope so Diz. Yi paz co."
 

<Part 2>
 

    Dib woke to the sound of soft humming and the feeling of water on his skin. His eyes shot open at the foreign feeling and he found himself staring at a young human boy just about the age he had been when Zim first landed. "Wha. . .?"

    "Shh. Master says you were real bad hurt."

    "Master?"

    "Master Zim, sir. He tell all of us to keep extra fine care of you."

    The human was puzzled at the clumsy language until he realized they were speaking Irkan. "English. I speak English."

    "Oh no sir! Mister Gatz sir, he doesn't speak the English, so it's forbidden for us to speak it."

    "Gatz?"

    "Slave trainer sir. He's been given run of all of us 'ceptin' you. Master Zim, you his. He tell Gatz ta stay away."

    "I. . . I don't underst. . . could you stop trying to dress me?!"

    The slave boy jumped a foot in the air and yelped, "I. . . sorry sir. Sorry!"

    "No! No I didn't, I'm not made I just can't think when you're moving around like that. My head already hurts as it is."

    "Do you need something? I can get some medicine."

    "I'll be ok, tell me more about this Gatz guy, why wasn't I given to him too? Have you heard anything abou twhat Zim plans for me?"

    "Well sir, Gatz is the son from Red and Purple, They the almighty tallest before Zim. He hate that Zim got so much taller than him, but he treated well as the slave man, so he stay.  He mad that Zim got a tan baby, not green like a proper Irkan, an he try ta hurt you if master zim don't keep you safe."

    "Wait a minuet! Zim is keeping me 'safe'?!"

    "Ye'sir. master Zim tell us treat you like we would treat him sir."

    "I don't understand. . ."

    "'s jus' slave rumors but some peoples say you . . ."

    "Tobias."

    The slave's eyes widened and he spun to the doorway. "Misser Diz!"

    "Hi!" The Irkan child smiled brightly and ran up to Tobias. "Daddy said to make sure you get mister Dib's food, he doesn't trust Gatz to do it."

    "Right away. . . I. . ."

    "Don't worry, I'll stay with him, just until you get back."

    "Thank you little master."

    Diz smiled brighter still and as soon as the door closed he vaulted onto the bed. "Daddy didn't really say that. I just wanted to talk." He leaned in and stage whispered, "Toby's really jumpy about things."

    Dib grinned, "You must be Zim's son."

    "Yep. Daddy says I'm his precious little worm baby." He giggled, "He's funny sometimes."

    The human found himself grinning back, "Yeah. He is isn't he."

    "You're really pretty."

    He blushed, "And you are an adorable Irkan."

    Diz nodded, "Daddy says I'm special. That I have special blood inside of me to make me a wonderful tallest some day."

    "You look like you do."

    "Daddy said I'm made from love. He says that this whole war started because someone tried to take me away from him when I was an egg."

    Dib's heart fired and his chest constricted. //That was it! Dad said he was staying home to do some important experiments. He was reading my notes. He went after Zim! After his egg! That's why Zim killed him! How could I have overlooked that?!//

    "Are you ok?"

    "Fine." He mumbled, //but who could he have made an egg with? The pack contains a preformed egg but it takes a mating bond to fertalize it. At least I thought. . . but Zim wasn't around anyone but . . .// His eyes grew large and he snatched of his grey mirrored glasses.

    "What's wrong?"

    "You. . . our eyes. . . you have my eye color." He pulled the Irkan child closer, "And my skin tone, and hair. I. . . Did Zim tell you who his mate was? Who you're other parent was?"

    Diz looked down, "I knew. . . I wanted to see if you would. . . know me. . . without being told."

    "My son." Dib's eyes were full of tears as he clutched the child tightly, "You're my son!"
 
    "Papa!" Diz sniffled and burried his face in Dib's shirt.

    "I didn't know! I swear if I had known I would have never been away from you! Never!"

    "I thought you hated me! Because I was what started the war. . ."

    "No! My father started this war when he tried to hurt you. You're special. A gift. A precious gift."

    "Do you still love daddy? Papa? Even if he's leading the invasion?"

    "I. . ." Dib bit his lip, "It isn't just the invasion Diz. You're father doesn't respect me because I'm human. He sees me as inferior."

    "No! He told me so! He says the best parts of me come from you! He says so! He thinks you're smart and kind and sweet and determind and all of the other bigger words I can't say yet."

    "Diz. . ."

    "Give him a chance Papa. Please."

    Dib swollowed hard and hugged his son again, "I guess It can't make things worst can it."

    The Irkan/Human child smiled and Dib smiled with him, "Let me get dressed ok?"

    "Daddy's coming down to see you after the morning work is done." Diz's face glowed with happiness, "Let's make you look so pretty he has to reclaim you!"

    "I. . ."

    "Please Papa?"

    "Why do I get the feeling you've got me right where you want me?"

    Diz giggled and Dib resigned himself to becoming a doting father. It wasn't any sacrifice at all though. He already loved the energetic little child who looked so much like Zim and so much like himself. Maybe being captured this time had set him free.
 

~tbc~

    The Irkan language is made up by me, so is the concept of the backpack Zim always wears being a sort of incubator. For all I know It could be a lifesupport system and Irkan's could speak French, but for the duration of this fic at least, they don't.

Raihne