AN: ZADR, one-sided DATR, false pretenses of ZATR, blood, violence, angst, and character death. This was inspired by the song never too late by three days grace and a pic I saw on deviant art...
nightmares come true
Tak smiled as Zim walked in the door. She was further in the back where Dib was bleeding on the floor. She grinned as she watched Zim take his shirt off and fling it on the couch because of the heat. He slipped his gloves off and threw them to join his shirt. The entire disguise soon followed his clothes. "Dib?" He called the name out softly to announce his homecoming and looked, to Tak's delight, quite puzzled at the lack of an answer. She grinned as he walked into the hallway and she met him there. He glared murderously at her and snarled through sharp teeth. "I'll kill you!"
He leaped at her and managed to graze her left side with his sharpened claws, dragging even his thumb claw through fabric and skin. She grinned wickedly and put a hand to her wound. "Now Zim, that's no way to treat a lady is it?" He spit in her face and she wiped it away cackling. "He wouldn't have me so I won't let him have you." He growled slowly and was about to lunge at her again but she swiped his legs out from under him.
"Turn on the light and see for yourself..Nightmares do come true." His antennae wilted. He was wasting time he could be using to save Dib's life. He got up slowly and pressed the button to turn the light on in the darkened room behind her. His antennae drooped completely before his bloody index claw made contact with the button. Slowly the lights came on and illuminated the broken bleeding human that Zim so loved laying there on the floor with blood pooling slightly around his right arm and leg, the other leg was broken badly and Dib's eyes could barely focus on Zim or anything else.
Zim's eyes watered and he carefully cradled his lover in his arms, stroking the boy's cheek. "Dib?" his voice cracked with the unshed tears as Dib reached up to grab a hold of the alien's arm and looked into those ruby eyes with unfocused honey ones. Tak stood behind them cackling with a broadcasting screen hovering over her should. "Is it not an image worth beholding?" There were streaks of blood on the walls shaped like fingers and palms had been dragged across them. Zim finally let the tears fall as his lip quivered. Dib's final words struck a chord in Zim. They only cemented the thought that there was no saving him. Tak had the floating screen sending the images to the massive and everywhere on Irk. If Zim wasn't hated before now he really would know despair and feel the hate of his own people.
"It'll be alright Zim. I love you and it's not too late, it's never too late.." Zim nodded at Dib's words. He knew exactly what needed to do. He would avenge his beloved. He kissed Dib softly between the eyes and turned his tear stained face toward the screen numbly. A nasty smile spread slowly across his face as he saw the screen was sending a video feed. "Is it broadcasting Tak?" She grinned horribly. "Yes too all of Irk and the armada too." He smiled wider. "Good I want them to see this.." With that he pulled her into a deep kiss. It caught her by surprise and had her eyes wide open before she relaxed into it. When he pulled away she smiled up at him and began twirling one of his antennae fondly. "Maybe there is hope for you after all Zim."
He smiled and shook his head. "What is hope but a false pretense that there is kindness in a cold systematic unbiased universe? A place where natural selection is law and anything can happen? I'm not sure I want anything to do with this unstable thing called hope. I'd rather be numb. And I am thanks to you..." The entire time he spoke he had been releasing a single spider leg from his pak and once he finished he rammed it through her chest. "I hope they enjoy the show because I know I am."
She gasped and then another spider leg impaled her next to the other and then spread apart tearing the female irken in half. She screamed horrendously until there was a loud wet ripping crunch and her body came apart showering him in her pink blood. He then turned to the screen still broadcasting with a huge malicious smile. "Any other irken to set foot on this planet aside from me will die the same way and I'll let you all watch that too. Have a nice day my tallest." the last was spat with more venom than a thousand of the most poisonous vipers of any planet and he cut the transmission. "Love conquers all." And with that he took Dib's cold body down to the lab to prepare it for burial. He knew the funeral would be private since no one else would come to mourn Membrane's poor insane son. Just him Gaz and the professor himself. No one else. He would miss Dib terribly but he would never renege on their agreement or truce. He would defend earth in Dib's place and no one would threaten it without answering to Zim. And if need be the entire armada would face his wrath. A single tear rolled down his cheek once more and he sat there for hours in the cold sterile lab crying and clinging to the body of the boy he had so loved.