Zim looked around. "Whoa..." He then began to shiver in the cold. "Brrrr....Is it me or is it even COLDER? Curse you, winter! We never have winter on Irk....I hope I won't get sick...Go on, mock me! But I will get my revenge someday...." He had a spooky face covered with shadows until he suddenly blushed.

    Dib looked over at the Irken curiously when he started ranting. It really was freezing out. Noticing that Zim had begun to shiver, Dib removed his trench coat and offered it to the other. "Here. Maybe this will help." he said, draping it over Zim as they walked. He could last a few blocks until they reached his house. Zim, on the other hand, wasn't at all dressed for winter weather. The coat was a bit big on the Irken, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Looking back in front of himself as he walked, he lifted his head to stare up at the sky. "So what kind of weather DO you have on your planet? Or do you even have weather?" he asked absent-mindedly. He had always wondered about what Zim's planet was like. Any planet, really. He had always wanted to travel through space and visit other planets, but Earth didn't quite have the technology for that sort of thing yet, and he still hadn't managed to get Tak's ship repaired enough to take into space. So he was stuck on Earth, left to wonder what other planets laid beyond it.

     Zim was watching Dib curiously. Then he gave Dib a confused look. "You confuse me, Dib....a LOT. You're actually being NICE to me. This is so not like you...UNLESS! Unless this is a trick to fool me! And you really think I'll give you information of my home planet? Huh? HUH? Ha! What next? Are you going to ask me to tell you the coordinates? Tell its weaknesses, not that there are any. Tell you the telling about the telling of planet Irk's telling tellingness?"

     Dib sighed in a bit of disappointment as his face fell along with his mood. He knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up too high but with the way things had been going between them, he had really thought the Irken would answer his question. Looking back down at his feet as they walked, he remained silent. He suddenly wasn't in the mood to talk after Zim's last couple of statements. They upset him as he listened to the Irken rant on for a few more minutes. When he couldn't take listening to the Irken's rambling any longer, he exploded on the alien, yelling out exactly what he felt at the moment. "Or maybe the reason I'm being so nice to you is because you confuse me too! I wouldn't go through the trouble of being nice to you if it were just to trick you! But if you really hate it so much, then why don't you just leave me alone?!" he glared hard at the other before stalking off in a bad mood. He had no idea why he had been so nice to the Irken to begin with anyways. All Zim ever did was throw insults and accusations at him no matter what he did for the other. It was infuriating, but Dib couldn't figure out why he kept on trying to help the alien.

     Zim stood there confused and then looked down at his own feet. "I can't leave you alone. Do you even remember WHY am I walking home with you? We have to do this report thing...And if you MUST know...we don't have any weather on Irk. It's always the same, and the sky is always red or pink. There is no night on Irk either..." He mumbled.

     Dib stopped in his tracks to look back at the Irken when he heard that last part. Taking in a deep, calming breath, he just shook his head. "You're right. I'm sorry. Just forget I even asked. You don't have to tell me anymore if you don't want to. Let's just get to my house so we can start the project." he said before continuing on his way.

     The rest of the walk to his house was surprisingly calm as neither of them spoke during the remaining block it took to reach Dib's house. It wasn't until they actually entered the empty house that Dib spoke up again. "Follow me. We'll work up in my room." he said, leading Zim up the stairs and down to the end of the hallway. Opening the last door on the left, Dib dropped his backpack to the ground before making his way over to a closet in his room. Opening the closet to begin searching through it, he pulled out a pair of clean clothes and turned back to face the Irken. "Go ahead and make yourself at home. I'm going to take a quick shower before we get started." he said, kicking papers and other useless items out of his way as he shuffled by the Irken to head towards the hallway bathroom.

     Zim was looking around, his mouth open with a little drool hanging out. "Whoa. You're obsessed with me." He searched the room with his eyes, noting all the photos of himself that were covering the walls. Then he sat on Dib's bed. "Make yourself at home. Now that was really really really really really…" he slapped himself in the face to make himself stop repeating the same word over and over again. "…really REALLY weird...Can this GET any WEIRDER?"

     Dib nearly fell over at such a blunt statement as he was heading out the door. He hadn't considered what the Irken's response to his room being filled with pictures of him would be in advance. Now that he thought about it, perhaps working in his room wasn't such a great idea. If anything, it would only serve to distract the Irken from working. Although he hated to admit it, the alien was right. Over the years, he had become a bit obsessive over Zim, taking pictures of the Irken as often as possible and keeping them all over his room. Blushing a deep red, Dib tried to come up with a good enough excuse as to why he had so many pictures of Zim without making himself seem crazy. When nothing seemed to come to mind as being a good enough excuse, Dib tried the next best thing he could think of. "Hey, I've got a better idea. How about we go ahead and work down in the living room instead. It's bigger, and I can go ahead and make us some snacks to eat while we work. What do you say?" he smiled nervously at the Irken, hoping his attempt at convincing the other to move out of his room would work. He didn't want to have to deal with Zim coming up with even more insulting names now that he knew this little secret of Dib's. This was already embarrassing enough as it was.

     Zim just waved his hand at Dib. "No, no. It's fine. I won't even look....besides...while you are in the shower, I can look around. I know, I know. Don't touch anything. Don't give me orders. And don't change the subject. I'm just telling you that you ARE obsessed."

     Dib's blush remained a bright red as he was about to leave without so much as another word, but he stopped short, wanting to say something, ANYTHING that would defend his position, even if only to himself. Not even turning back around to face the other, he spoke in a low voice. "Yeah, well at least I'M not the one so obsessed that I would try to kiss YOU." he said before leaving the room completely to go take his shower. He had really only meant to say it to himself as reassurance, but there was still a slight possibility that the Irken had heard that last part.

     Dib hurried down the hallway and to the bathroom. Locking himself in it, he proceeded to strip down before stepping into the shower. Turning both knobs on the wall to start himself a warm shower, he sighed in relief when the warm water began massaging his bruised skin and tense muscles. This was exactly what he needed to relax. He wanted to take a longer shower but decided against it, not wanting to leave Zim alone for too long in his room for fear that he might find something else embarrassing that Dib hadn't thought to remove before leaving the room. Dib tried to think of what possible things the alien could come across, but he couldn't think of anything in particular that would be more embarrassing than the pictures of Zim plastered all over his room. He hoped to God he wasn't forgetting anything.

     Zim was sitting and blushing in shock because of what Dib said about the kiss. He had almost forgotten about it, but now he wouldn't. After a couple of minutes of waiting, Zim got bored so he searched Dib's walls full of his pictures. 'Am I really that amazing?' He thought, his tongue sticking out. 'Of course I am.' He thought and closed his eyes like he just said something ridiculous. He then opened one of his eyes to see a drawing of his anatomy. "What the...?!" He stood up and walked towards it to study the drawing closely. His face turned red. "That Dib is even DRAWING me...And this whole thing he imagined...is wrong. The stink beast needs to learn more about me...GAH! What am I TALKING ABOUT?!" He slapped his face with his hands and stared at the drawing for a long time. He just wouldn't stop.

     Dib exited the shower a few minutes later after he had finished rinsing the shampoo out of his hair. His scythe lock of hair flopped down in front of his face as he proceeded to dry off and get dressed in the clothes he had brought with him to the bathroom. Pulling on another blue sweater similar to the one he had been wearing earlier and a pair of blue pajama pants he had found in his closet, he unlocked the door to head back to his room, using another towel to dry off his hair along the way.

     Upon entering his room, he tossed the towel away to the side somewhere as his now damp hair sprang back into place, his scythe lock bouncing back to the top of his head where it belonged. Noticing the alien standing in the middle of the room staring at something with his back turned to Dib, he walked up behind the Irken to see what exactly the other was looking at. All the color drained out of his face when he realized what it was.

     In a flash, Dib was standing in front of the Irken to try and block his view of the poster but from the look on Zim's face, he knew the other had seen more than enough. "Zim! It's not what you think! I drew this two years ago purely for scientific reasons! I...I was just trying to get an idea of what an Irken's basic body structure was like! That's all!" he stuttered out quickly, his face lighting up a bright red again. It was true though. He really had made it two years ago at the beginning of the 9th grade. He had wanted to do some studies on how Irken's healed so fast. It had seemed as though no matter what he threw at Zim, the Irken would recover only a day or two later. It didn't matter how seriously injured he was one day. The next day he'd be back up trying to take over the world again.

     Zim stood there staring at the poster and then looked at Dib with a slightly pouting face though not angry. "You just told me what you wanted to know, and now I know what you want to know and want me to know...But. Gah, Dib! You're totally wrong! You don't have a CLUE about Irken anatomy because you’re a stinking human...Seriously, even GIR knows more...wait...No, he doesn't...Well, you get the point. I would be surprised if you actually KNEW something about our anatomy." He said, a red red blush growing on his face that he couldn't hide anymore.

     Dib just looked away to his side, refusing to meet the Irken's gaze as his own blush wouldn't leave. "It...It was an educated guess, okay?! It's not like I can just look this stuff up online. And I'd be crazy to ask you. You didn't even want to tell me whether your planet had any type of weather or not. There's no way you would just willingly correct my model of the Irken body. Besides! I bet you don't know anything about the human anatomy! I'd be surprised if you did seeing as how you don't even know anything about human reproduction." he said, slowly bringing his gaze back up to meet Zim's. It wasn't like Zim had any reason to even do any research on the matter. "The only difference between our situations is that I HAVE to explain this stuff to you or else I fail. And believe me, I really don't want to. I don't even like how humans reproduce. So don't think I don't already know how gross the whole process is." he said, narrowing his eyes slightly on the Irken. He just knew the Irken would be making all sorts of disgusted comments throughout the whole time they were working on this.

     Zim gave him an 'Ew, gross' look. "I know a little about human anatomy. I once saw it in the biology book."

     "Okay then..." Dib said, looking away to his left again. "I guess that's a start, I think. But I still think you should read the book first before we start. Knowing the anatomy and knowing how reproduction occurs between two humans are two totally different things. But at the same time, you can't explain one without the other. So why don't you get to reading the section in the book about human reproduction, and I'll just go get us some snacks." he said, taking a few steps back as he pointed a thumb behind himself and smiled nervously at the other. He left in a hurry, really just wanting to get away from the other so he could regain his composure. They hadn't even started yet and already he was having problems. He had no idea how they were going to pull this off. Stalling a bit, he took his time down in the kitchen preparing snacks for them, grabbing as many things as he could find that he thought the Irken would actually eat. A few bags of chips, a box of donuts, some sodas. He even grabbed a carton of ice-cream and carried it all upstairs slowly, hoping he could keep their minds more focused on the food than the subject at hand. He figured food might be a good distraction considering he was still starving from earlier this morning, and he hadn't seen Zim eat anything since lunch yesterday.

    Zim was sitting on Dib's bed, almost finished reading the whole section. Some Irkens could read extremely fast, and Zim was one of them. He had a curious look on his face as he blushed and read about the anatomy. Even though he didn't understand all of it, he was still blushing, knowing that Dib was supposed to teach him about all of this.

     Dib walked back into the room carrying the pile of snacks he had grabbed from down in the kitchen. Placing them on the bed next to Zim, he took a seat and began searching through them for a soda and a bag of chips. The Irken was busy reading through the book silently. Pulling out two bags of chips, he offered one to the alien. "Chips?" he asked, holding one of the bags out for the other to take. It was all Dib said seeing as how Zim seemed concentrated on reading for the moment. Not even taking his eyes off the book, he reached out to take the chips from Dib and place them in his lap for the time being. Dib turned back to face forward on his bed, watching Zim silently out of the corner of his eye as he continued his reading for a few more minutes. Every once in a while, Dib would pop a chip into his mouth and munch on it slowly before taking a sip from his soda. Fingers twitching slightly, he idly fiddled with the bag of chips sitting in his own lap as he waited for Zim to finish reading the section in the book about human reproduction. He considered getting up to start his own work on the introduction, but he felt frozen in place, his stomach doing flip flops inside of him. Searching the room with his eyes, he tried to find anything he could look at to take his mind off their project since the food didn't seem to be working.

     Zim silently closed the book. "Done...I am SO confused...Why do they DO this?" He blushed. "I feel like you would explain it better..." He looked to the side to hide his blush.

     Dib nearly choked on his soda as he was taking another drink, coughing and sputtering a bit as he forced himself to swallow the rest of what he had in his mouth. His blush had returned to his face full force as he tried to croak out an, "okay." When he had finally caught his breath and was able to speak again, he grabbed the book from Zim to open it to the reproduction section, stuttering out a response, his voice cracking a bit. "O...Okay...Well...ummm...I guess we can start with the basics...ummm...Humans have sex to make babies...though I personally can't see why anybody would really want to other than for that reason...and sex is basically when a male and female...ummm..." Dib mashed his hands together repeatedly as he tried to think of how the best way to word all this would be. "Well they...ummm...become intimate...and the female will usually conceive a baby and give birth to it about 9 months later." he finished quickly, looking back at Zim nervously. "Does that make more sense now?" he asked, knowing he had just barely skimmed over a very delicate topic that he'd have to go into more detail about later. But perhaps it wouldn't be as hard once Zim understood the basic information and process. The rest could be considered just more technical terms used to describe a simple process that was actually more complex than most people would consider it to be.

     Zim at first had his mouth hanging open a little and his eyes wide as Dib was explaining all of this, a little drool hanging out. "I...ummm...sort of." He was looking at Dib with a blush and getting a little hypnotized. He was staring RIGHT at Dib.

     Dib was looking away from Zim when the Irken answered him. "Well, what exactly don't you..." he cut himself off as he looked back to see Zim staring at him in the same way he had been staring at Dib yesterday, both in the locker room and their English class. "...understand?" he finished his sentence, drawing out the last word a bit. Looking to his left and then to his right, he tried to back up on his bed a bit as he rested his gaze back on Zim. "W...What? Zim, don't look at me like that. It's creepy." he looked away, trying to ignore the other's gaze, wondering exactly what could be going through the alien's head at the moment.

     Zim was blushing hard. "Well, don't humans do...this?" He leaned into Dib closer and closer and closer to finish his sentence by demonstrating what he meant.

     Dib's eyes went perfectly wide as the alien locked lips with him for the second time. At first, Dib wanted to push the other away and ask him what the hell he was doing, but he stopped himself before he could do that. Gripping the covers tightly, he let the Irken continue even though it didn't last too much longer. Zim pulled away and stared at Dib in a daze. Dib still looked fairly shocked but just swallowed thickly before speaking in a low whisper. "You're wrong...That's a sign of affection. It has nothing to do with sex even though some people do kiss while having it. But it doesn't affect the outcome in the end." he said in a cold voice as he looked away to the side again. To say the very least, Dib was upset, though not with Zim this time. He was upset with himself.

     To Dib, a kiss was something special shared between two people who deeply cared for each other. So why had that kiss felt so right when he knew in his mind that it was wrong? And although he hated to admit it, he had almost kissed back. He hated to think that hormones could so easily take over, making him nearly reject everything he had always believed in. Why was Zim doing this to him?! He was sure the Irken couldn't possibly care for him. Needing a moment to himself, he stood up to leave. "I need some air. Be right back." he mumbled before leaving the room in a huff, his body language showing how agitated he was with the whole situation.

     Zim watched Dib leave with a blush and a small smile. He giggled a little. "Maybe it's ME who's crazy around here."

     Dib walked outside into the cold atmosphere, his mind racing as he contemplated what should be done about his current situation. He didn't think he could continue working on this project with Zim. Not after what the Irken had just done to him...AGAIN! He hated to think about what the alien might do to him the next time he got that look in his eye. Dib shuddered. No.  He couldn't handle this. There was no way he'd be able to just walk back in there and pretend none of that had just happened. He didn't even think he could bear to be around Zim at the moment let alone look at him. It gave him a sickening feeling that just wouldn't go away until he did something about it. So, coming to a final decision about what to do about Zim, Dib headed back inside after several minutes of just standing around outside in the snow.

     Making his way back up the stairs and to the room, he found Zim waiting patiently for him on his bed. Dib looked at the small alien for a long time, almost as if trying to read his thoughts. What could possibly be going through that Irken's head that made him want to do all these things to Dib? After years of learning to read the other's facial expressions and moods, Dib was finding himself unsuccessful in deciphering this one. It didn't matter though. He couldn't continue working on this assignment with Zim anymore today. He wanted the other to leave his house. So, beginning in a low tone, he spoke up in a monotone voice. "I think you should leave now. We'll work on the project later this week. Do you have any last questions before you go?" he kept his gaze level, never taking his eyes off of the Irken sitting on his bed.

     Zim looked at Dib a little curiously. "Why?" He whined a little. "We have the time, don't we? And the sooner we finish, the sooner we can get back to being...er...normal." he didn't realize why exactly Dib was acting like this, but he knew that what he felt was right was wrong for Dib, making him feel a little guilty.

     Dib dropped his eyes to the floor to stare at his feet, blushing slightly. As much as he just wanted to get this project over with, he couldn't stand working on it anymore today. But he had no easy way of explaining that to the alien. "I...It's not that I don't want to just get this project over with, but I just don't feel like I can work with you anymore today. Not if you won't stop making advances on me, Zim. I don't know what the hell is going through your mind whenever you kiss me, but I know it can't be what should be going through a person's mind when they do that kind of thing. A kiss is something special shared between two people who care for each other, not two enemies who hate each other. So I wish you'd just stop it already. This isn't the way things are supposed to be between us, even if we do have a truce. It doesn't change anything between us." he looked back up at the Irken to give him a pleading look, as though to say, "Please stop." He just wished it hadn't hurt so much to say that, but it was something he felt he needed to get out in the open. Otherwise, Zim may never stop. He just hoped the Irken would understand his reasoning without feeling too offended by Dib's word. It was for the best.