You two walked down the quiet road. The sun warmed your face. You could hear the rhythmic clicking of Zim's boots marching beside you. The calming sound of leaves lightly rustling in the wind.

Everything felt so-

"PIZZA!!" You belted out of nowhere, making Zim jump back in surprise.

"Wah?!" Zim said, confused.

"I FORGOT I PROMISED GIR PIZZA!"

"Oh yes, for helping you with your little plan." Zim said, easing up and giving you a snarky smile.

"YEAH AND I-
Wait.
How...
how did you know about my plan?"

"Simple,
Gir told me yesterday after you left." Zim said nonchalantly.

"Darn it Gir!" You mumbled under your breath.

You looked at Zim embarrassed, Lost for what you should say. You thought maybe you should apologize, but before the words could leave your mouth, Zim spoke up.

"No need to worry Y/N. I understand your UNCONTROLLABLE NEED to do this 'hanging out' thingy with the great Zim.
Aaand, I must admit, It was quite impressive how you constructed a plan great enough to fool an Irken invader like myself."

"Well thanks...I guess. Although Dib ended up wrecking it, it was mostly a success. I mean, we did get to enjoy ourselves for a little bit."

"This is true." Zim said as he nodded in agreement.

"But I couldn't have done it without Gir! So we have to get him that pizza!"

"Well, we can go to my base and simply order the filth from there."

"No," You quickly objected "I have to have it with me when I get there, so I can surprise him with it. I don't want to go there empty-handed..."

You thought for a moment.

"I know!
We can quickly go to my house, order it there, then bring it to your base." you exclaimed.

"Y/N, I'm sure Gir won't even noti-"

"WE'RE SURPRISING THAT BEAUTIFUL ROBOT BOI WITH PIZZA!" You demanded loudly, shaking your fist.

"FINE FINE!"

Zim reluctantly followed you to your house, curiously observing the streets he'd never seen before.

"Okay, we're here! Home sweet home!" You announced, leading Zim up to your doorway.

You unlocked the door and walked inside while Zim strolled behind, eyeing the house's interior.

It was roughly the same size as Zim's, but with a better layout of course. There was a living room just to the right of the entrance with a comfy couch, NORMAL sized tv, and stairs leading to the upper level.
On the left side of the room was an open concept kitchen with a small round dining table placed to the side.

"THIS is what your home looks like?" Zim sneered.

"Oh pardon me for the lack of ominous wires hanging from the ceiling and creepy-looking robot parents." You joked in return.

"Where are your par-ents anyway?"

"Oh, they're at work. They work quite a bit now."

You lead Zim into the living room and pulled out your phone.

"Ok Zim, I'll try and make this quick. In the meantime, you can take a look around. Consider this your first human lesson: the typical human home. Just...please don't break anything."

You dialed the number for Bloaty's Pizza and Zim headed upstairs.
He had a hard time climbing the staircase, considering he was so used to using elevators. Though, he managed to awkwardly wobble up each step and eventually reached the top floor.

Zim walked down the hallway and found a bathroom, stepping inside.

As he walked in he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror and thought it was another Irken for a moment. Quickly realizing it was just himself, he then used it to adjust his wig and continued.
Next, he stepped towards the toilet and saw a plunger placed beside it.

"It seems they keep an odd-looking weapon beside their toilet." Zim said to himself as he held up the plunger.

Zim looked at it closely and put it back down, taking out his notepad device and pen.
In it he wrote:
-Odd weapon beside human toilet.
-Smells like DOOKIE
-Used for
toilet monsters?

Proud of his observations, and finding nothing else of interest, he left the bathroom.

Zim strolled down the hall more, spotting a door ahead, just barely open.
Zim approached it and slowly pushed the door in, as he curiously crept inside.

"Hmmm, Interesting" Zim hummed. Finding himself in a small bedroom.

"This must be an energy restoration chamber. Or as the humans call it, a 'bedroom'. "

Zim walked around to each wall, examining the odd wall coverings which he came to recognize as posters.

"HA! Silly humans, worshipping people they don't even know."

As Zim spoke he took a step back, feeling a soft lump under his boot.
"Eh, what is this?"
Zim lifted his leg and picked up the soft fabric.

As he swiftly uncrumpled it, It revealed to be a shirt, YOUR shirt. Zim squealed like a scared child and whipped the article of clothing across the floor.

"Stinky, stinky humans and their fabric-y FILTHY-
eh,
FILTH!"

After finishing his hissy fit, he lastly observed the bed centered in the room.

"Ah Yes, the energy recharging device itself. Poor, pathetic earth worms and their inferior, useless bodies. It's not like any Irken would need such a pitiful object.
Although...
I do wonder how it works."

Zim stared at the bed, mentally arguing with himself on whether or not he should try the foreign piece of furniture.

"Hygggg-
FINE! I'll try it...
For research purposes."

Zim's shaky arms lifted him onto the bed and he positioned himself in the middle, sprawled out like a star.

He sat for a moment confused as to what should be happening.

'Maybe it only works on humans, ' he thought. 'Or maybe, ' Zim stared at the blanket beneath him, 'I need this material thing on top.'

Zim crawled underneath the covers head first, and surprisingly found himself...

Having a panic attack.

"AHHHGHHHHHHHHHGGG!!! IM TRAPPED, ITS GOT MEEEEE!!" Zim cried, whilst becoming tangled within the sheets and rolling off the bed.

Meanwhile:

"No I don't want more meat on my pizza, just make sure you put a good amount of cheese on there.

*Sigh*

No, cheese is not a type of meat!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhggg!!!"
*THUD*

"Wha-What the heck was that?!" You said pulling the phone away from your ear.

You looked towards the stairs, watching anxiously as the yelling grew louder and louder until a flailing blanket appeared at the top of the steps and quickly tumbled all the way down.

"OH MY-
Sorry, what was that? Thirty minutes? Uh yeah ok! thankyoubye!"

You barely captured the last few words from the bored-sounding teen on the other end, as you swiftly hung up the phone and rushed over to the screaming pile of fabric now rolling on the ground.

"Zim, what are you doing?! WHY are you doing?!"

"You're hideous comfort item is attacking MEEE!!!"

You just exhaled slowly while gripping the bridge of your nose in slight disappointment.

"Zim..."

You pulled the blanket off with ease, revealing the ridiculous alien underneath still with his eyes swished shut and noodle arms still swinging wildly in the air.

"It's just a blanket. It's not alive!"

Zim finally stopped and looked at you and the blanket in flustered disbelief.

"Lies! It's evil! EVIIIL! And it hungers for the ZIMMM!!"

"What? No! Here just watch, it's fine."

You opened up the blanket, held it firmly with a corner in each hand, and lifted it up in one swift motion. The air caught it, and it slowly and softly fell back on top of Zim.

.  .  .

"Aaaaaaaahhhhggg!!

It's back for revenge!" Zim screamed, repeating his panic-filled motions from seconds before.

You, now realizing how obnoxiously ridiculous this was, decided to give up trying to convince Zim of anything, and that it was best to simply free him of his idiotic misery.

You grumbled and lifted the blanket off him once more, wrapping it up in a ball in your arms.

"I think you've had your fill of human knowledge for one day. Well, that, and I don't need you getting into any more trouble. God knows, if I let you wander around any longer you might just find some way to burn the whole house down."

Zim got up and you led him over to the couch.

"Here, just sit on the couch and I'll be right back." You told the green boy, and you left to put the blanket back.

Zim's eyes wandered the living room. He believed that he did a pretty good job of replicating this one. This filled him with some pride and he gave himself a confident smirk.

You came back down and went to sit on the couch beside Zim. You let him know that you placed the order and that it would be another thirty minutes before it would arrive. Zim acted like he understood how long that was, but you knew that he had absolutely no understanding of human time.

You both sat in silence for a while, until you realized that this was the perfect opportunity to have Zim teach you.

"Hey Zim, tell me a little about your race." You said turning to him.

Your voice was calm and collected while your eyes were filled with glimmers of excitement and anticipation. This nearly made Zim jump, obviously not expecting a human to be so eager to know about his kind. Well, at least without wanting to cut him open to find out about it.

Nonetheless, this fed Zim's ego and he confidently cleared his throat and began the first Irken lesson.

Zim started by telling you about his role as an Invader (which you could tell he exaggerated quite a bit) and told you how he became one, and how great it felt to be given a planet to invade. He then talked about their society and the tallests, and made sure to let you know how 'amazing' they were.
However, you felt disappointed to learn that the tallests were only a little taller than Zim, being the height of the average adult. This was significantly shorter than the massive tallests you imagined in your mind, being the size of skyscrapers.

Unfortunately, you realized that this was not the only thing you were wrong about. Once the topic was switched to Irken biology (with your request), it was revealed to you that Irkens did NOT spit acid, read minds, or shoot lasers from their eyes. And despite your begging, Zim made it quite clear to you that he did not have the ability to give you 'superpowers'.

The lesson took up a good twenty minutes of the waiting time, leaving you quite satisfied with the information. No, it wasn't INCREDIBLE, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

There was a pause of silence after you realized how much time had passed. Without meaning to, your eyes shifted up to Zim's wig and another question popped into your mind.

"Zim, what about your antennae? What do they do?"

"Wha- oh. Well. Ehhhm. Theyyyy sit on my head, YES, they sit on my head!"

"That's it? I thought they could have been for navigation or something. I know some bugs here have them and use them like that."

"DO NOT COMPARE ME TO YOUR EARTH PESTS!"

"Alright, calm down, calm down...

I know I technically already saw them, but can  I see them again?"

This question caught Zim off guard. There was nothing special about his antennae. If anything he considered them a hindrance due to their sensitive nature. They were always in the way and caused a horrible pain when accidentally bent. But to amuse the starry-eyed human, he lifted the wig off his head and placed it on the arm of the couch. The two antennae whipped upward after being released. Zim made a slightly satisfied sigh, as constantly crushing them under the wig was quite uncomfortable.

"Cool! So the entirety of your disguise is just a wig?" You asked, not taking your eyes off the antennae.

"Of course not! I also have wear these."

Zim put his hands to his eyes and took out his contacts revealing the glossy magenta eyes underneath.

A smile slowly grew across your cheeks. Something about seeing Zim without his disguise made you happy and quiet "wow" was all you could let out.

Zim responded with a slightly offended "What?"

"You look great!" You said kindly.

Zim's expression softened. 'This was odd. She was odd.' Zim thought. No one else had ever said nice things to him. No one else had ever made him feel this... strange. But also kinda nice.

You sat there still taking in his features and slowly raised your hand from your lap. For some odd reason, you had the sudden urge to touch him. Maybe you just wanted to make sure you weren't dreaming, or delusional, or had just gone insane.

Zim watched in confusion as your hand crept closer to his antennae.

"Can-can I see what they feel like, it's ok if you don't want me to."

Zim couldn't figure out why, but at this moment he really, really wanted you to. It was as if you suddenly didn't seem as stinky or gross, and that you were the one exception to the rest of humanity.

So in a moment of impulse, Zim quickly turned himself so that his back faced you, and lowered his antennae.

"There. I don't know why you want to, but if you must.
Just don't pull them!
Or bend them!!
OR brake them!!!"

"Don't worry, I won't be rough." You reassured him.

you leaned closer to him and held one of the antenna softly in the palm of your hand. It didn't feel like what you expected. By their appearance, you'd assume that they would have felt hard like the exoskeleton of a bug, or stiff like bone. Instead, they were bendy and their texture was soft, like they were covered in tiny hairs.

Zim shivered the second he felt your hand. He almost told you to stop but once you started to pet softly, his brain seemed to turn to jelly.

Your hand felt along the antenna. It relaxed you, similar to the feeling that comes with doing someone's hair.

Meanwhile, Zim was feeling many things that both scared him and intrigued him. He felt a 'prickly' feeling (which was the best word his mind could find to describe it) on his antennae and head, as well as in his gut. He also noticed a warm feeling grow on his face. Zim was almost certain that this was bad, but he just didn't want it to stop. So, dumbfounded and somewhat enjoying the experience without wanting to admit it, Zim just sat silent which quickly got your attention.

"Hey Zim, this doesn't hurt right? You've been pretty quiet so I just wanted to make sure you weren't dead or something."

"Im fine."
Zim said, in an obscurely quiet and insistent voice.

This seemed out of character for him, but you just shrugged it off and grabbed the other antennae, comparing the two.

Letting your hands glide up and down them both, you found yourself making a very odd discovery.

That Zim could purr.

It was the most off putting and adorable thing you've ever heard come from the alien. The noise sounded like a mixture of a very happy cat purr and the light chirping of a cricket.
But the most amusing part was that Zim himself didn't notice the drunken-looking grin that had been stuck on his face for the past five minutes.

Zim's breathing grew heavy, and in this same moment, Zim's arms seemed to weaken and he started to slowly hunch over as his muscles relaxed. In fact, Zim was so relaxed, that he was starting to lean to the side, head loosely dragging with it like a rag doll.

Unfortunately, before you could react, Zim leaned himself right off the couch and onto the floor with yet another thud.

Now Knocked out of this entranced state, Zim blinked a few times in confusion, bringing himself back to reality. He then realized what had just happened and looked at you with both concern and anger.

Zim opened his mouth to speak.

"What did you d-"

*DING DONG*