Disclaimer: Characters and settings are © Viacom/WB.

- -- First Player -- -

Story by Bozeia, October 2009.

It started with mouse.

For her part, Gaz was perfectly sober. She'd only been halfway to tipsy once in her young life on the allowances of her brother, who had turned a blind eye. People who knew him would probably balk at that little tidbit, but after living across the hall from him for so many years he'd come to respect her strong sense of privacy and independence. Lest, that is, she cast upon him a world of inexorably black nightmare from which there was no waking. And after that little fieldtrip unto a surreal piggy netherworld where whence he cleaned out a demonic hog toilet with his head…well, let's just say Dib just doesn't mess around half as much at her expense if he can help it.

This loser, though, was just absolutely amazing. Her hand hovered tentatively over the right-click, her fingers twitchy. All it would take was just that one click, one click, and she could block him. Blocked, as in no more having to put up his whining about this and that and whatever the hell else he thought he was saying. Except that she was fairly certain that this guy was drunk off his kisser and schmoozing like a royal asshole on purpose just so he could deal with whatever pitiful stress he was suffering. She was also fairly certain it was nothing compared to some of the shit her brother had to put up with though, and she pretty much thought Dib was little more than a whiner as it was.

PigGirlG4m3r: If I could hear your voice, it'd probably make me sick.

SpCyJAcKiE01: sry 2 save u sum tm awy frm d porcelain diva cuz God nos dats messy biz

She scowled, her frown deepening. Why, of all the—!!

"Woah, hey, that's my computer you're using Gaz."

Ah. The brother was home. She didn't bother to turn around. "Yeah, I know."

"…Yeah. Um, don't you have, like, your own desktop?"

She spared him a sideways glance. His body language wasn't terribly agitated. He was leaning against his book shelf, trying to surreptitiously look over her shoulder. His carrier bag lay in a heap at his feet, and he idly fiddled with an as-of-yet unopened tab to a Poop cola fresh form the fridge downstairs. He'd just walked through the door.

She glanced to the opposite side of her, to his alarm clock on the nightstand. 6:03 PM.

"You didn't come home straight away from school." She noted, keeping her voice fairly nonchalant. She would retain her patience for now; after all, it was his computer. "I know you don't do that 'fate of the world' shit with Zim anymore…so what was it this time? Bigfoot in the jungle gym again?"

As she talked, she typed back a quick response.

PigGirlG4m3r: Says the illiterate.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Dib creasing his brow line up in irritation, but he physically bit down on his bottom lip and thought better as what he might've said. He wasn't a total idiot, she'd give him that much.

"You're still on my computer."

"Yeah, and last time I checked you had a laptop." She gritted her teeth, but reigned herself in. It was hard to restrain herself around her brother at times, but he'd always annoyed her something fierce. "My desktop was running slow as hell this morning, and then when I got home it wouldn't even start up right. Just kept freezin'. So dad unhooked it and took it down to the basement the fix it…and he sort of told me I could use your computer if I needed to."

"Yeah, but…I had it triple locked with passwords and—"

"Dib. It's me." Gaz turned towards him in her seat, and gave him a blunt look. "Out of anyone else in the entire damn universe, don't you think your own sister would be able to figure out how to hack into your stuff? Never mind that I didn't actually have too, since your passwords are kind of pathetically obvious."

That deflated him. "…Oh…really?"

"…Well, other than that 'zimisanalien' is pretty obsolete by this point."

She turned her eyes back to the screen, if only to hide the small smirk of self-satisfaction as he stood there all red in the face and stuttering like an idiot. That had always been the thing with him; he was earnest, resolute, and unshakable. He was also a broken record, and far more transparent than any open book imaginable. It was one of many negative side effects of an obsessive personality if one wasn't careful. And sure, she was predictable too, to an extent, but she was by no means transparent.

While she'd been distracted, the idiot IM'ing her had just kept typing.

SpCyJAcKiE01: sEz u hu hasnt actuly hurd me spk

SpCyJAcKiE01: but ey uv got clss

SpCyJAcKiE01: bravo

She scoffed.

PigGirlG4m3r: Right. I can capitalize and add periods and commas too.

"Wow, he sure sounds intelligent." Remarked he who was called crazy.

"Well, you come off rude when read over other people's shoulders." She snapped.

"It's also still my computer." Dib got up from where he'd been loitering and walked around to her other side, taking a swig from the can. He ignored her ire, which only angered her exponentially more so, as he squinted at the tiny messaging box on the screen. "Oh hey, wait a minute. I know this guy."

She started out of her agitation suddenly, having not expected that and, despite herself, becoming intrigued. "Really?"

"Yeah, actually. He's on my friends' list over at my BlackMail account." He took another sip, hovering a bit too close to her side. She's be just about ready to push him out his bedroom window if he didn't move. "He's actually a distant cousin of Keef's. A year or so back, we had some sort of stupid family penpal exchange thing we had to do for Social Studies. We were supposed to be mailing letters out to relatives still living in whatever country our ancestors had immigrated from, except that they wrote down the wrong address for me. Mine ended up in China, of all places."

"…That's stupid."

He shrugged. "Isn't it? Really though, he's actually pretty smart. Well, err…when he's sober that is."

She turned back towards the screen, and narrowed her eyes. Her hand still hovered over the mouse, wavering somewhat. "…Smart how?"

Dib had already turned away and started towards his carrier bag again. She didn't bother to look, but she could hear his shuffling, jeans rustling, dragging the bag across the floor. He dropped it on the bed, and yanked something out of it. Laptop, probably. His voice carried on, preoccupied, not really paying too much attention to her hesitation. "He's super tech-smart like woah. He can talk circles around me about astrophysics, nanochip schematics, and a whole buncha other things. A lot of his ideas are actually almost on par with some of Dad's work." She could hear the lid unclick and being pushed upright, as the machine started up. "He even built a time machine. A fuggin' time machine. And not like that matter displacement thingy dad invented a few years back. He actually managed to construct a stable time-stasis field that'd allow people to be transported too. I didn't believe him at first when he told me, until he sent me the blueprints and some photos. Blew me away."

Gaz could hear the clicking of keys in the background, could see his fingers typing deftly in her mind's eye. Her hand wavered a centimetere higher over the mouse. "If he's so smart, then how come he isn't…I don't know, super famous like dad?"

"Hmm…to be honest, he is a bit of a dipstick sometimes. I'm not sure, but I think he has like…ADHD or Asperger's or something. Considering Keef, though…well, y'know…"

"…Actually, that sounds more like you."

"HEY!"

She paused a moment or two more, after that, before retracting her hand. Maybe, she wouldn't block him just yet.

PigGirlG4m3r: Go away.

PigGirlG4m3r: Now.

She waited.

SpCyJAcKiE01: hey

SpCyJAcKiE01: u a fan of vampire piggy hunter?

PigGirlG4m3r: Yes.

There it was. Bingo.

SpCyJAcKiE01: ive d G-Slave180 sys n d latest gme in th series

SpCyJAcKiE01: u do onl9 play?

PigGirlG4m3r: Sometimes. It depends.

SpCyJAcKiE01: co-op?

PigGirlG4m3r: Very, very occasionally.

SpCyJAcKiE01: so ur nterestd ryt?

PigGirlG4m3r: Don't hold your breath.

PigGirlG4m3r: Just help me kick ULTR4m45t3r1GG1N513's ass, and then we'll talk.

She actually grinned, her fingers itching to go. Hand-eye-coordination was her specialty, after all. "Oh, it's fucking on."

She hopped up from her seat and paced out the door, surprising Dib enough to startle him out of his reverie. "Does this mean you done at my desktop?"

"Sort of. Close my messages and die."

His eyebrows shot up, and his voice cracked as he whined. "But I just got my laptop out!"

FIN...?

A/N: Short companion piece to "Player II", typed up within at least a hour and a half, with no extensive editing process. Just pure "grind it out". And yeah, basically a sequel that comes years and years later, I know. But, meh. Anyway though, these two are, like, one of my very favorite secret crack!OTPs, and I hardly ever show it. It fits really well in my eyes, aside from the fact that it's two different shows, but some of the themes are the same. In another way it also makes me cackle at the incidental irony, since Gaz is essentially investing interest in a guy who's got her dad's scientific vision and her brother's personality (and bad habits).

It's true what they say, I guess. You really do end up dating your father/brother(s), whether you like it or not. ;3