Desperate

He stood there in front of me, nothing but crazed, lonely, desperation in his eyes. Once vibrant green skin had paled more than I thought possible. Now he just looked plain sickly. Bright ruby eyes had faded and lost all of their wide-eyed wonder and spark. Antennas were drooped so low, they grazed his shoulders when he made the slightest movement.

Zim had no doubt walked all the way here out of his disguise. But no one turned their head at the "crazy foreign kid disguised as an alien". How backwards they had it…. And they would never know.

I didn't know for sure why Zim was here. But I did know why he looked so… wrong. Like an abandoned puppy that had been kicked out of a moving vehicle. This time he hadn't been able to hit the ground running.

Two weeks ago I had watched his Tallest, his specie's leaders, tell him he was a 'defect'. An outcast, a waste of space, an idiot, an annoyance. Not an Irken. As I watched through my hidden cameras, I had seen him smile a little. Laughing it off like it was some sort of over-used joke. I had also watched that smile fade once he realized the truth. It wasn't a joke, it never was. When the call ended there was nothing but static, and I watched on as he frantically tried to get the signal back. More static.

In the days that passed I had watched him constantly. Watched him go mad. I sat at my desk with a soda as I saw his little robot dog destroyed in a failed final attempt to prove to his Tallest he wasn't as worthless as they deemed him. I stared on as, days later, his computer shut down from too many virtually exhausting attempts at getting hold of a non-existent transmission signal. That left him with nothing but an empty shell to live in and useless weapons to remind him of the days when he was the 'best Invader'. After all that, I watched him stare. Stare at the TV, stare at the ceiling, stare at anything that caught his interest even if for only mere seconds. I think I was smiling.

He hadn't seemed so pale or deathly ill then. But now that he was in the bright sun, I was afraid he wouldn't be able to say what he wanted to me before he fell over dead. And my smile had faded like him.

"What do you want, Zim." I couldn't even muster up the usual malice I put into his name. It came out more of a whisper than a command, too. He just looked too… pathetic. And I was only human.

He stared down at his boots for a while, shaking like every breath was a great effort, before looking up and forcing his eyes to meet mine. More long seconds passed before he straightened up into what looked like a proud soldier's pose. I could still see the pain in it.

When he opened his mouth, I was almost expecting his normal "Almighty Zim" stuff. But no, his tone was so defeated. And he told me everything. Everything that I already knew. The farther he got into it, the quieter his voice got and the more tired he looked. All the effort he put into his breathy words was killing him.

"Why are you telling me this Zim? Why should I care?" I saw him flinch with my words and immediately wanted to take them back.

"Expose me, Dib," no insult "At least one of us can be happy". The last half was barely a whisper that I had to strain to hear.

Zim wanted it over with. He wanted his 'useless' life to end. And I should have said yes, I should have jumped at the chance to expose my greatest enemy as the alien no one else could see. I should have kicked him, punched him, beaten him for all the scars and bruises he had left on my body. I should have made him suffer. But I couldn't.

"Zim, I-"

"Wait! Before you bring to Zim his death… I… I have feelings for you. Feelings for you other than hatred. It is how they found out that Zim is a… defect."

Feelings for me? Zim liked me? My eyes widened. That meant it was all my fault. I knew they weren't supposed to feel that. Zim had always been a little more emotional than the others I had seen through small glimpses on his transmission or in real life. There was always a little more… well, not affection, really. There was just more to him. More than the others. But still, for him to like me was just madness. Now I was the reason he wanted to die.

"Zim." He glanced back up at me, eyes having fallen away during his confession. Maybe it was something he saw in my expression, but for just a second, his old spark was back. His antennas rose a bit to listen to my next words. The words that would condemn him. For just that second, he had hope. But then it was torn away from him and he clenched his eyes shut from the physical pain that ripped through him. I knew that feeling so well… To gain a moment of hope just to have it yanked away.

"Zim" I started again. And his eyes clenched tighter, teeth gritting in anticipation. He was just so sure that my next words would be his death sentence.

Maybe I really was crazy, just like all my classmates and family had said. Maybe I had lost it long ago. But when I pressed my lips to his, there was one thing I knew for sure.

No matter how long it took, no matter the effort, I was going to see that spark back in him. I would work my hardest to find that old Zim again if it took everything I had in me. I wanted Zim. My Zim.