#amyisherenowwriting

[amyisherenowitsokay]

Alrighty. If you’re still doing those writing prompts, all I know about your ship preferences is that you like ZaGr and Stolitz, sooo… Idk, I think 18 sounds cute? Or. 22 or 33 also interest me lmfao. Whatever you want and whoever you want since you’d be the one writing it. I suck at these, but I do like your writing so I figured I’d send one in... 😔

Paige I have chosen all of them at once because you are my friend and I am also incapable of making even the most inconsequential decisions 

This can pretty easily be read on its own, but I imagine this set in the unpublished AU I’m still writing in the background of all my other many projects. No matter what universe it's set in, it’s right in the middle of a will they/won’t phase of their relationship.

Fandom: Invader Zim

Pairing: Zim x Gaz

Words: 2200+

Prompts: 

18. “I’ve never been there. Wanna go?” 22. “You’re not going to settle for that. Not if I have anything to say about it.” 33. “I was lying earlier.”

A/N: I imagine this set in the unpublished AU fic I have ongoing, but I think you could argue this fits in just about anywhere where Zim and Gaz are bordering on the will they/won’t they line.

The air smells like gasoline, copper, and something distinctly metal that puts her teeth on edge.

The silence is disquieting. In particular, because it was only moments ago punctuated by a screaming so loud it’d drowned out any hope of thought. Gaz was smart, and intelligent, and had an eerie amount of composure for someone her age. Even still, her body physically aches from keeping so still and so tense for so long. She feels sick. It feels like she was holding a golf ball in her throat that she couldn’t swallow. It makes it hard to breathe, and the churning in her stomach threatened to send the imaginary golf ball back up the other way.

The only sound she’s able to register is her own heartbeat. She has her teeth clamped hard against one another to prevent making any noise. 

Zim still isn’t making any noise. Gaz wants to say something—anything—but keeps her mouth shut. It would be incredibly stupid to potentially trigger additional security just so she could verbalize a question that should’ve spoken for itself. Zim would let her know if it was safe, and in the meantime, she was going to stay parked in this little corner of what had once been his otherwise immaculate lab. A lab that he’s now destroyed. Thoroughly. Gaz can’t help but sneak glances in the places that the precariously dangling lights hang on (and fuck, this lab really is made of stronger stuff; most of the lights in the circle of destruction are seemingly hanging on by literal threads, but through all the violence, had only swayed, without showing any significant signs of detachment. The only disturbance was the occasional flickering.) It’s bad. Really bad. The word ‘vulnerable’ comes to mind, but somehow, looking at Zim poised in the center of it all, remarkably unscathed, the word dies, discarded in the back of her mind. 

The sudden absence of growling makes her realize that he was growling in the first place. It’d just sort of filtered out, unregistered by her ears. Now that she was paying particular attention to that portion of her senses, some of the general hustle of city noise could be heard in the distance as well. 

She makes another valiant attempt to swallow the metaphorical golf ball to no avail. Her mouth is too dry. 

Only when he takes a deep, steadying breath does she suddenly remember how to breathe. He stands up straight, fingers carding over his antennae, and turns. 

Whatever he sees in her is enough to make him wince.

Gaz’s brow rises, somehow finding the energy to be a little offended. What did he want from her? She was only human. Exceptional, but still. Sometimes a body compelled decisions, overriding the brain. In her case, and in this instance, that is exactly what had happened, and was exactly why she was curled out of the way, as far from the epicenter of violence (aka Zim) as she could manage in the confined area. Sometimes, a body screamed ‘duck and cover’ without ever consulting the brain. In this case, it felt warranted, even if it left her probably looking like some cowering idiot in front of her . . . friend. Whatever they were. 

He looks like wants to say something. She could be wrong—it’s not like she’s used to interpreting the shifts in skin and muscle on an alien face just yet—but he seems to be holding an apology behind his clenched teeth. 

Whatever he wants to say, if anything, he seems to reconsider. Instead, he makes his way over the scrap towards her. Some of it he kicks away spitefully. Most of it he just steps over until he’s crouched in front of her. One hand finds her bicep. It’s gentle, but firm.

“Up,” he coaxes.

She manages to get to her feet, but only barely, and mostly with his help. It’s embarrassing how much she needs his help. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug, and it was doing a number on the steadiness of her legs. 

“We shouldn’t have come here,” he announces quietly. 

The snort that comes out of Gaz is compulsive, and earns her a sharp, curious look that she pretends to not feel burning a hole into her cheek. She pretends to be enraptured by the surrounding mess of what was once a lab, stationed in the middle of nowhere. 

“It’s not your fault,” she says, generously. “It’s my bad.” 

And it had been. Zim had mentioned it off-handedly, in a moment of unusually careless honesty. An old hideout, in a city more dangerous and intriguing than where the two of them had been stashed away. The newness of the idea had been immensely appealing, enough where she’d pressed for details, until eventually, the words had seemed to come on their own.

18.

“I’ve never been there,” she’d said. 

Zim had turned to her with a calculated interest. His eyes had narrowed, lips pursing briefly, before seeming to decide in favor of his initial impulse. 

“Would you like to?” He’d asked. 

And now look what’d happened.

Zim sighs. The noise quickly morphs into a groan. “This will take me ages to repair.”

Gaz somehow finds herself reaching for the nearest robot. She feels Zim stiffen, but he doesn’t stop her. Not even when she picks it up—or the biggest piece of it up, anyways—and rolls it in her hand.

“I’ve never seen robotics like this,” she comments. It’s true. The robot is immensely advanced. That nerdy, secreted part of her wants to sit down with a screwdriver and better lighting and start peeling it apart. Her father would be proud. 

Zim scoffs. His toe snaps in the direction of a chunk of leftover, once-hostile robot, sending it bouncing off into the dark. “Tch. This is hardly impressive,” he grumbles. “This lab is more the Empire’s than mine—including its laughably outdated security. I could show you much better inventions. Things of my own design that would put this to shame. Oh, what things,” he finishes with a deeply satisfied hiss.

Gaz’s brow rises. “Oh yeah?”

“Of course,” he boasts. The lingering oddness between them seems to be dissolving in favor of Zim’s usual arrogance. One of his hands reaches for her expectantly, clearly encouraging her to get off the floor and leave the ‘inferior’ robot pieces alone. 

But because she’s Gaz, she ignores him. Even the metal encasing the device is unfamiliar to her. 

Said device is suddenly plucked from her hands by a metal claw, and tossed away. Before she can offer her protests, or start an argument, its in front of her face, all four little finger-appendages clicking together. It’s hard to say, but it feels nearly disapproving. 

Non-metal claws grip the back of her neck. Not hard, and not threatening, but he’s angry. She wants to categorize that under ‘what else is new,’ but goosebumps break out along her neck and shoulders. It’s a physical reaction to his proximity, one she’s been noticing more and more of lately. She wishes she didn’t notice. It’d be easier if she was still oblivious.

He brings himself level with her, looming over one of her shoulders from behind. The way he hisses in her ear sends an uninvited thrill up her spine that she firmly ignores. 

22.

“I will not tolerate you being so fascinated by something so pathetic,” he insists. It sounds nearly like a threat, but not necessarily one meant for her. “Not as long as Zim is here to properly educate you on what a real death machine looks like.”

“These were real death machines,” she points out. She’s trying to figure out how to shrug him off without making it painfully obvious how uncomfortable she is. 

“Bad ones,” he dismisses. The hand on the back of her neck flexes. She always forgets how creepily long his fingers are. His thumb and index finger are closer together than they would be on a similarly proportioned hand. Not quite touching, but close.

Oh, wait. He’s done that talon thing again, where he flexes them, like some sort of demented green cat. He must be fighting with his own residual adrenaline. Still tense, and waiting for another attack.

“I was told this would be a fun field trip,” she points out. Another robot bit is juuust out of reach. She tries to stretch for it without Zim noticing.

The hand on her neck flexes sharply, keeping her in place without actually hurting her. A growl that sounds more like a warning than just impatient irritation rumbles against her back. The shiver that follows is entirely involuntary. She tries to play it off by following it with squirming, as though she was simply trying to wiggle out of his hold.

His other hand grips her shoulder, pressing her center of gravity into the floor. Keeping her kneeling in place. A part of her thinks it might be precautionary, but she’s mostly convinced he’s just fucking with her. She’s got a feeling an imminent comment about subservience is incoming. Normally she’d already have her snarky reply ready to go, but her mind is drawing a blank past trying to figure out how to grab another robot bit without being too obvious about it. It’s probably impossible like this. Zim’s face isn’t visible from his position behind her, but she knows he’s watching her every move like a hawk. A creepy, weird, murderous, arrogant little hawk.

She reaches behind her, going for a swat at his face. He jerks backwards, which counts as a success, but he never relinquishes his grasp. 

“Fuck off,” she snaps. 

The hand on her shoulder now comes to grip her defiant hand. The action only serves to bring them closer as she tries, semi-successfully, to pull that away too.

“Shut up,” he snaps. “I’m doing a sweep for more of them.”

“No you’re not,” she argues. She’s slippery and wily, and while her neck remains trapped in his fingers, her hand manages to break free. She clutches it between her other one protectively. “You’re just standing there.”

“I am infiltrating the security as we speak, idiot girl,” he insists. “If anything is left online, you run the risk of incineration upon standing. My PAK is emitting minimal shielding for us. Be patient for once in your miserable little life.”

Now that she’s paying attention to it, she can hear a little bit of a hum in his PAK that she’s come to recognize as it’s ‘I’m doing something’ noise. So he probably wasn’t lying. But that doesn’t make this position any more comfortable.

Their brief struggle however has managed to scoot them a little closer to one of the robots. She thinks if she’s quick, she can snag it, so she goes for it. 

She grabs it successfully. Unfortunately, Gaz hadn’t anticipated just how sharp it would be. She jerks backwards, and three of her fingertips have blood beading on them. 

She’s extremely glad he can’t see the wince, but her swallow must be obvious with the way he’s still got a grip on her throat.

“Done,” he suddenly announces.

His grip on her disappears, and she pretends not to notice the cold left in its absence. Less friendly is the way he not-so-gently drags her to her feet. She only barely gets her barings before he’s pushing her forward.

“You are safe now,” he purrs, mocking her with the sweetness of his tone.

Gaz has a really hard time believing that. She turns to meet his eyes as hers narrow suspiciously. 

They’re not really friends. They’re not even formal allies. She doesn’t trust him. She shouldn’t trust him. Especially not with how he’s smiling at her like that.

‘I don’t feel safe,’ she nearly says. Nearly. Gaz only just manages to suck her lip in at the last second to keep from voicing it. She’s not afraid of him, but she’s not stupid. There had to be at least a few dozen robots, each determined to eviscerate the ‘intruder,’ aka her, scattered across the floor in shreds. She’d seen him tear a few of them with his teeth, and plenty of them fell to the talons that are only just now retracting back into ‘normal’ appendage lengths. 

Her three fingers start stinging viciously, reminding her that she’s in need of minimal medical aid. It seems like a bad idea to suck them into her mouth, given her unfamiliarity with what the evil robots are made of. Who knows what they could be coated with. Whatever it is, it’s probably not a good idea to ingest them.

She wipes them on her jacket instead. Zim grimaces at the sight of it.

33.

“I was lying,” he said suddenly, meeting her eyes flatly.

Gaz’s brow rises in a prompting fashion.

“Earlier,” he explains. “You are never safe, reckless creature.”

She beams, immensely smug about having irritated him so thoroughly. “Is that a threat?”“You’re a threat to peace,” he retorts. However, the sentiment seems to amuse him. He smirks at her. “Which makes you an appropriate associate of Zim. Now hurry up, before something else stupid happens.”

[amyisherenowitsokay]

WARM-COAT!

( Please and thank you :] )

🧥 warm coat: share a happy or fuzzy scene from your wip!

And so polite too!

Oh gosh I have so many WIP's now. Oh gosh oh jeez.

Actually, now that I'm digging through all my million WIPs, I just realized ages ago I wrote a short story for this art comic I did of Zim and Gaz getting up to something. I just never got around to actually publishing it. So you can have it!

Short story under the cut ~

Hold Still

Rated: M for Mild (but actually E for Everyone, or K+, or whatever is the most vanilla of ratings)

Words: 1848

“Hey,” he said suddenly.

His outburst barely registered in her peripherals. She didn’t even spare him a glance, tossing her hoodie into the laundry basket. “What?”

She heard the creak of her desk chair as he rose. She turned towards him reflexively. 

Something was off in his face. He seemed overly serious given the context of their prior conversation. The abrupt tension was weird. It made her a little nervous—not that she’d ever admit to Zim unnerving her. It wasn’t like that, and the nuance would be lost on him. She wedged the tip of one shoe in the back of the other (with vague ideas about hitting him with that shoe if he didn’t stop acting so weird). 

He came to a standstill within arms reach of her.

“Stay still,” he ordered.

Her head swung towards him sharply, giving him the entirety of her attention.

“Uh, no,” she replied, brows furrowing. After a beat, she added, “Why?”

Irritation flooded his gaze, one hand reaching decisively for her face. “Just—.”

Gaz jerked away so sharply that her shoe was sent flying. She tripped over it, teetering alarmingly backwards. It scuttled across the floor, bouncing a few times on the hardwood. She might’ve been bouncing right alongside it were it not for the hand gripping her shoulder.

The skin of his brow rose wordlessly in mockery. Gaz made a move to shrug him off, but the other suddenly snaked into her hair. Zim, for all his bravado about growth serums and heeled boots (he could deny it all he liked, but Gaz wasn’t blind), he still remained several inches short of her current height. Now, he rose up on his toes, nearly eye-level with her.

She didn’t recognize the expression on his face. Which wasn’t normal. Gaz had been hanging out with this moron long enough that she could tell his thoughts just by his facial tics. She could tell when he was smug, or up to something, or nursing a grudge. She could tell what Gir had broken this morning by the frequency with which he checked his watch, or whether or not he’d tried to contact his leaders that day by how often she caught him gazing out at the sky. This expression she didn’t recognize. It was so soft, his eyes lidded, mouth barely parting—so close she could feel his breath ghost across her skin.

She froze, lips parting wordlessly. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat, and panic crawling after it. 

“Hold. Still,” he reminded her, gaze sharpening only in the span of time it took to usher his command before returning to his previous expression.

Her socked foot drifted back to steady herself in a last ditch effort to ground her. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some stupid cultural misunderstanding that she’d get to mock him about later. She should toe off her other shoe and smack him right in the temple with it right now. 

But she did none of those things. She just froze, one hand finding his middle, poised to push him away and doing nothing of the sort. He drew closer, his intent terrifyingly clear, and found herself incapable of stopping it.

Their lips touched, and the world seemed to hold its breath. Or maybe that was just her. She was fairly certain neither of them were breathing. Zim definitely wasn’t—he breathed through his mouth, and that was very obviously occupied. Having a nose included in her anatomical design, she didn’t have as good of an excuse. Her mind was just . . . inactive at the moment. Nothing but white noise and the sensation of their lips pressed together. A passive thing. One that swallowed her whole and flooded her face with feverish embarrassment and other nameless, overwhelming sensations she couldn’t categorize. 

Gaz had never been kissed before. Ever. Never ever in the history of ever had someone even reached for her face with even delusions of trying. There had been one semi-memorable moment at one of her father’s anti-Christmas parties where some poor frazzled event planner had, in their misunderstanding of Professor Membrane’s desires, hung mistletoe from the ceilings. Many interns had spent the night discretely removing as many festive decorations as they could without disturbing guests as the Professor seethed in the corner. Gaz had noticed one above the punch bowl, frowned, and lowered her gaze to find some greasy teenage son of some guest giving her a suggestive grin. 

The only thing he kissed was her knuckles, and she’d burned her glove in a candelabra. She kept the other for the memories. 

Kissing Zim wasn’t anything like that. 

He was colder than her. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to notice. They rarely made skin-contact, but on the few times they had, she noted how incredibly soft he was. She noticed that now in the places they pressed together, and was mortified by the sudden self-consciousness that struck her. What if her mouth was chapped and scratchy? What if he didn’t like the feeling of her textured skin against his? 

These hysterical thoughts babbled into a continuous ringing whine. Only when he began to pull away, eyes reopening, did she realize hers had never shut.

He looked briefly dazed before his gaze sharpened. He dropped back to his feet. One hand brushed the one at his middle, and she quickly released him upon noticing that it’d fisted in the fabric of her shirt without notice.

“Why?” 

Zim tilted his head, one eye narrowing. 

“This is your expression of affection, yes?” He asked. At her mute nod, he lifted his chin. “Good. Don’t do it with anyone else.”

“You can’t kiss me without asking me if it’s okay first,” she said. She was desperately honing in on anger, hoping the familiar burn of it would drown out the flush in her face with something colder. 

“Mm,” he hummed, taking the information in. “I will note this for the future. For now, I must leave you. Skoodge is expecting my call soon.”

What?

Wait, no, was he serious? His expression wasn’t actually joking. He was even checking his watch.

The words escaped her before she could reign them in.

“That’s it?” 

He paused.

Slowly, he turned on his heel, eying her with the first sign of trepidation he’d shown since coming in here. Across from him, Gaz didn’t know who she wanted to bludgeon more; him, or herself. ‘That’s it’ she’d said, as though she was asking for . .  something else. She wasn’t. She was just in shock was all. This little frog had up and kissed in her bedroom with no warning, and now was just going to waltz off without at least establishing what the fuck that was for? Was he an idiot?

“Is there . . . something else?” He asked slowly. “Have I not completed this ritual?” 

“Kissing is for people who are dating,” she said with equal slowness. 

Zim’s eyes narrowed further. “Yes . . .?”

“We’re not dating.”

“. . . Is that not the initiating sequence?” He pressed, now turning to face her completely. He seemed irritated. “I have expressed my interest, you reciprocated. We have successfully performed a mating ritual, and we are now here. What else is expected?”

There was so much wrong with that sentence, but the most pressing one was definitely—. “Hold on, I did not reciprocate.”

His eyes narrowed sharply. “You grabbed Zim’s shirt, and kept me there. Is that not reciprocating?”

“You are getting this backwards,” she insisted. She was getting a headache. Rubbing a palm over her eyes was also a good excuse not to look at him. “You ask to kiss me first, I say yes—.”

“See?” He interrupted. “You would’ve said yes.”

“—or no,” she said quickly. “I could say yes or no. And you only kiss me if I say yes.”

“Fine,” he snapped.

He was suddenly in her space again, on his tiptoes, balancing himself by holding her arms. “May I—?”

“You’re not supposed to touch me without asking either,” she said in a rush. 

Zim’s left eye twitched. Then, his hands fell away, and he dropped back to his feet. Some relief (and some unnamed thing that was not disappointment that she was completely ignoring) washed over her. A few moments later, mechanical clicking filled her room. She recognized that noise.

Zim was hovering over her, lording a few inches over her in fact, as he balanced on his PAK legs. The movement always looked so precarious, but he never wavered or tottered. He was perfectly still, scowling at her.

“May. I. Kiss you?” He said in a low tone of voice. Not quite irritated, but there was definitely an edge to it, and a very harsh punctuation to it that made every word its own sentence. 

“To be clear,” Gaz said. “This is you trying to ask me out?”

Zim’s expression turned exasperated. “Now we need to go outside? Is this ritual not meant to be private?!”

“Shut up,” she hissed, one hand smooshing against his mouth. Dib was still home, somewhere. The last thing she needed was him barging in on his old nemesis trying to kiss his little sister. Her brain was still stuttering on the ‘Zim wants to kiss you’ part of this interaction. She couldn’t deal with any other deciding factors. 

Thankfully, no pounding footsteps were headed their way. Zim jerked his head back out of her reach with a frown. 

“Your wretched sibling is downstairs watching television,” he said, answering her unspoken fears. His mouth twisted in consideration. “Asleep. He’s snoring.”

God that was always freaky. Him and his weird alien hearing. The wig never seemed to have any effect on it. It was eerie. 

“And yes,” he added. “I am attempting to establish a formal relationship between us, wherein you do not,” he said, his tone suddenly turning sharp. “Make kissy faces at any other creature on your planet.

Her lips twitched, drawing his focus, and she tried to pretend that didn’t make her heart do something weird in her chest. “I’ve never made kissy faces at anything on this planet.”

“Good,” he said cheerfully. “Then you are in practice.”

Arguably, the more pressing issue was that she was out of practice. With romance. And kissy faces. And whatever other affectionate gestures he was trying to initiate. 

“Now,” he pressed. “No further stalling. As I said, I am on a timeline.”

She snorted. “That’s not really romantic,” she pointed out.

“Further romance rituals can be initiated after I successfully negotiate a supply shipment through his contacts. A negotiation I cannot be late for. Choose. Immediately.”

“I . . .” Gaz was left a little speechless. This was happening very, very suddenly, and equally quickly. Which was exactly like Zim. The surprise, in itself, was no surprise. “Fine.”

Fine? She screamed in her head, berating herself. Her mental image had a rolled newspaper, and was mercilessly smacking anything it could reach.

Zim didn’t give her time to clarify—or take it back. One of his hands much more aggressively found her jawline, the edges of his fingertips sinking into her hair, and dragged them together.

[amyisherenowitsokay]

Howdy-hoo! Back for seconds!

🌧 Rain.

Please and very much thank you!

Here is your dessert mother of the sea, happy harvest

🌧️ rain: share a sad or emotional scene from your wip!

Because most of the dm's I get are regarding Re:MHNY and its sequel, here's a teaser for the sequel!

Spoilers inside! Readers beware! You have been warned!

A/N: One of the big themes that I've mentioned before that is getting reworked from the original MHNY series is Gaz and Dib's relationship. Originally, Gaz just sort of bullies him, and their closeness is more controlling and artificial than sincere. In the rewrite, I wanted to acknowledge and really get elbow-deep in the legitimate grievances the two of them have with each other, their choices, and the inherit dynamics of an older sibling incapable of looking out for a younger sibling who feels she knows better. As mentioned, while the story is primarily about the sweet sweet ZAGR, Dib and Gaz's familial relationship is also going to be addressed. Not mentioned is the fact it's going to be one of the central themes of the sequel. Huehuehue.

Re:MHNY2 Spoilers (LAST CHANCE TO DIP)

“Zim was the only thing that gave you any consistent attention outside of this family, or a counselor,” Gaz pressed. “And then I come along, and I get in the way—!”

“—I don’t even know what you’re talking about—!”

“And suddenly, this thing you’ve had for a decade is just,” she lifted her arms. “Gone. Poof. No more fighting, no more rivalry, because your stupid little sister has to take everything from you, because it’s not like she cares about this guy. Nooo, she just wants to torment you because she’s just as evil as her fucking boyfriend!”

“Are you kidding me?!” He shrieked, his voice rising. “I’m relieved to have Zim off my back! He took up so much of my free time!”

“You hate him, and you think I’m naive to have feelings for him,” she hissed. “Say it.”

His hand went to the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply. “Gaz—.”

“Say it!”

“YOU ARE,” he shouted, hands thrown wide. “You’re seventeen, Gaz!”

“Just because you’ve never been ‘interested’ in anyone—!”

“THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOUR SEXUALITY, JESUS,” he shrieked, his hands dragging down his cheeks. He held up a finger, taking a deep breath. “I need to say something. Let me say it.”

Gaz crossed her arms, seething. She widened her eyes, wiggling her head, a mocking acceptance of his request.

He brought his hands together in prayer, eyes sliding closed. He took another presumably calming breath before opening them, pointing his folded hands in her direction.

“I know about the mating thing,” he began.

Gaz froze.