There's Something Inside Your Head (Invader ZiM AU)

Ghost In A Shell

Heat. Lots of heat. Flowing all through out, attacking him in his sleep... the feeling of pain, changing him, taking him... was it a nightmare? A spell? Possibly... pain, pain! Bad pain... not nice. There were colors... crimson... gray... joy? Joy... lots of it, yes... but a bit... off-putting. Very...

Free.

Dib woke up the next morning sweating hard, just seconds before his alarm went off. This confused him, to say the least, since he always slept through his alarm (as for the sweating, he figured it was just teenage boy/nightmare stuff). Whatever, the gods were nice today. Time to get to skool.
Dib leapt out of bed, quickly collecting his skool things and, since he slept in his shirt and jeans, just pulled on his trench coat and some red boots. He ran downstairs to get breakfast, and ended up being on time for the bus. Something was... definitely off. Well, everything was perfect, but it was off. And it was like this for the rest of the day...
On the bus, he realized that he was still wearing that Membracelet. That must be it..! That's been making him do things correctly!
...but can he act and talk correctly..?
To answer that question, he turned to a kid right next to him. "H-hi, I like.. aliens.." he awkwardly grinned. When he was met with an odd look, he let out a sigh and rested his forehead on the back of the seat in front of him.
He was a bit disappointed the rest of the day, and even until advanced chem.

Dib tapped on the bracelet. "This was one big accident..." he huffed.

"Yeeeees, I heard my name?" Carrie leaned over the front of his desk, coming to sit down. "You're here early."

"Oh, uh... I said 'one big accident'."

She stared at him. "Dib. Why do you think my first name is Whoopsie?"

Dib froze. "Oh shit." He sat back up. "Anyway, it wasn't about anything important, I just- well- I, uh.."

"WAIT. Shut up a second.." she got really close, staring at him. "Your hair. How did it do that."

"M-my.. huh??" Dib's eyebrows came together.

"It like... grew out, all the way to your neck in like... a night. I like it. I like the fluffy. I'm gonna touch it." She proceeded to touch it. "But how?"

"But, it didn't.." he pulled out his phone, looking at himself through the camera. "Oh, man!" Carrie was right; his hair had grown out fully, and looked very fluffy. Not only that, but some fight scars were gone, his shirt changed to be his little ghost shirt, and he looked a bit more... healthy. "Woah..."

"Did your dad genetically modify you or somethin'? Or did you get a SQUIP?"

"Huh?"

She shook her head, sitting down. "We're gonna watch musicals together one day.."

"Oh, that would be nice." Dib smiled, realizing he felt a bit more confident than he thought. As if, he could do anything he wanted—within reason, of course... he'd never break a law he didn't have to. "Hey, speaking of doing nice things... I wanted to ask something."

The girl swung her legs as she sat. "Oh?"

Dib took a breath, stopping his shaking hands. "...I wanted to know if you'd like t—" a crumbled up paper ball hit the back of his head, causing him to pause in annoyance. "Hey—!" He flipped around, staring in the exact direction the paper came from. "Keef!"

"Oh, sorry, Dib! I didn't think it would go that far!" The kid in the back of the class called.

Dib sighed. "It's fine... just. Please don't do that..."

"Huh, you handled that well," Carrie said.

"Huh?"

"Usually you get pretty pissed when someone hits your big head!" She fluffed his hair again.

"My head isn't—!" He sighed again. "Fine... oh, uh. Carrie?"

"Yeah?" She put her hand down.

"Will you go to prom with me?" Dib finally said it. He did it! And he wasn't sweating or shaking! The bracelet worked after all..!

Carrie stared at him, then smiled. "Yeah, of course! I just can't believe it took you this long to ask..."

"Wait, and I can't say this enough, huh?"

"I mean, I thought I was making it obvious that I liked you. You definitely were; I just wanted to give you the chance to say somethin'..."

Dib's mind raced. "Yeah— yeah! Okay! You like me? That's amazing! I've never had a relationship before? Uh, yeah, so we'll go to the prom then! As a date! It'll be nice!" He tried to calm himself down a bit. "Real nice..."

"Real nice." Carrie smiled and took his hand.

The promposal was a success!

Dib felt amazing the rest of the day; he was confident, joyful, nice, and even avoided a couple shoves from bigger people! When he got home, he was proud to report that his experiment was a success...
...but he didn't exactly remember making it home.
He walked up to the front door of his house, then... bam. Blackout. The next thing he knew, he was standing back in his room with the innards of his backpack spread across his bedroom. His head and muscles ached, and he had some mud on his boots. It was a bit odd, but, honestly, not the first time something like that's happened—maybe he took something (he did have a bottle of... something in his hand), or maybe memory loss was a side affect of the bracelet. Nothing too bad!
And then his dream.

Dib went to sleep that night, still very happy. His dreams? Not so much... there was more of that pain... heat... crimson... it was all very unsettling.

"Oh, you're a shell of what you once were. It's sad, really—you did that to yourself," an eerily familiar voice could be heard: his own.

"What?" Dib—looking as he did earlier that day—looked around for where it was coming from.

"I'm just saying! What's with the whole 'nice' thing..? You really think that's your 'best self'?" Out from nothingness stepped Dib. However, his trench coat had more pockets and was a bit torn, a yellow version of his usual face shirt, and knee-high bulky buckle boots. His hair had a shaved pattern around his ears and the back, and there were many scars on his face. "I'm here, too—I had a lot of fun today!"

Dib—the fluffy Dib—stumbled back. "What the—what are you? Who are you?"

"I'm Dib!"

"No... I'm Dib!"

The other Dib just laughed. "Well, I'm the Dib that takes charge. I think about my choices and don't care for the outcomes, but I know I'm in control if something happens..." he gasped. "Pilot. What's what you may call me."

Dib shook his head. "Well, I'm just Dib."

"No!" Pilot growled a bit. "Nono, you're not all. A bit unfair, isn't it? You float around, thinking you can do things... you don't do them well! You're no fun..." he gasped again, pointing to Dib's ghost shirt. "...Ghost. That's who you are."

Ghost shook his head. "Whatever; this isn't real! This is a nightmare! I'm going to wake up soon, and I'll know it's just from whatever the hell I drank last night!"

"Oh! I'm glad you recognize that. You're right—this is a nightmare. All in your head. It's great, really... imagine there being two separate versions of you. HA! I mean, there can only be one Dib at a time, right?"

Ghost awkwardly laughed a bit. "Yeah... yeah! All a nightmare."

"A dead man's dream..." Pilot sighed. "Well, good luck waking up."