A/N: Well, I finally finished this... Sorry for possible mistakes, it all was created at night, and I feel soooo tired... R&R please!!
First was his arm. He remembered it clearly, so clearly he could smell that strange-colored blood that came out of the Irken's body.
At first, they decided to cut off only his wrist, but then the operation went wrong, and they had to cut it up to the elbow. It was because of Zim squirming - the narcosis they gave him suddenly wasn't enough, and he woke up in the middle of operation. Dib was the one with the scalpel - making careful cuts in alien's body. Zim looked at him with half closed eyes, dim from drug sleep, and hissed from pain.
- You stupid human... I'll kill you... I promise I'll kill you, be sure...
Then he arched back, moaning through jammed teeth as he witnesses what was left from his arm. Dib's hand trembled, elegant scalpel blade digging into Zim's skin, as the invader tried to hold back desperate screams.
Dib stepped back to let his assistants tie Zim to the surgeon table with belts.
- I'll kill you, human beast! I'll make you suffer your every minute!! And then I'll kill you, with my bare hands!...
He told his assistant to end the operation without him, and escaped the surgery. He could hear Zim shouting something, screaming for him as he walked to his office. And even sitting at his table, Dib could hear his unnaturally high voice, as he cried out - painfully, desperately - "I'll kill you, Dib!"
---
Then he visited Zim at his laboratory, after the operation. Alien was sitting in the end of the room, tied up in a straitjacket. Dib walked to him and sat down besides. Zim opened his eyes.
- What did you do to my arm?
- We cut it off.
- I see!! - he shouted in Dib's face, - why did you do that, you horrible human monsters?!
- To do some probing.
- I'll cut your both arms, human. It's only the matter of time, - spitted out Irken. Dib smacked him in the face. He fell on the floor, coughing painfully. Dib grabbed the invader by his antennas and lifted him from the ground. Zim hissed shortly.
- You lost this war, Zim, - Dib made himself laugh - Prepare to suffer the consequences!
- We'll see who will be the one to suffer, Dib-worm, - Zim only stared at his enemy, helpless in his tiding suit.
Dib couldn't sleep well anymore after that gaze.
---
Then was his eye - it was easy to get out. As long as they damaged the head blood-vessels they had to connect Zim with a machine to keep him alive. Dib came to check the machine one evening, and, when he was doing it, he heard Zim saying:
- Turn this thing off, human.
- I can't. You'll die then, - Dib told him.
- Ohh. What a pity, - said the Irken soldier. Dib watched Zim brushing his left hand - remains of his left hand - and shuddered.
But it was already too late to stop.
---
One night he couldn't sleep again, and he got himself drunk. Horribly drunk. It all was too much for him to bear silently and cold-blooded, he felt that he just can't take it anymore.
He broke into his laboratory where he kept Zim. The Irken was sitting in his corner, near the machines that stuck its wires in his body. Dib walked to him and fell on his knees in front of Zim. Invader opened his tired eye and smirked:
- What's the matter with you, Dib-stink?
Dib touched Zim's cheek with his fingers.
- I'm sorry...
The alien smacked his hand off, but Dib leaned to him with his whole body instead. He embraced Zim, feeling Irken's claws digging into his body - that hurt, but not as much as it should have - and whispered, nearly whined:
- I'm sorry, Zim, I'm so sorry... God, I didn't want this, Zim, I'm so sorry...
- Get your hands off me! - screamed Zim, hitting Dib in the stomach, - Don't dare to touch me! Don't you dare!...
Dib leaned down and covered his lipless mouth in a short kiss.
- Zim... Zim, oh God, I'm sorry... Did it hurt? Did it hurt that badly? - he shushed between kisses, caressing Zim's face with his lips - Gosh, Zim, love you... I'm so sorry, I had to... God...
Zim was shocked he didn't even move in the first minute. Dib brushed his lips against Irken's cheek and sobbed, then embraced him even more tightly then he already did and kissed him on the mouth again - long, wet kiss, lover's one. Zim pushed him away, breaking the contact, but still in Dib's hands, and wiped his mouth.
- That actually hurt too, you know! Stupid, filthy humans, you're pitiful, all of you.
Dib slowly let Zim from his embrace and stood up.
- I'm sorry...
They didn't look at each other any more. Dib turned and walked away with uncertain steps. He could hear the Irken curse him quietly as he closed the lab's door.
---
He placed cameras all over the lab - to watch Zim day and night. There were cameras above him and cameras around him, cameras focused on the monitors and cameras focused on his face - as long as he couldn't move too much. Dib had a very busy graph in the day time, but he could spend the whole night peeking on Zim. And so he did. He eventually got used to this ritual, and it became a usual routine - he, sitting in front of the monitors with a cup of black coffee and gazing, gazing, afraid even to blink and miss a precious moment of watching.
Zim didn't do anything interesting - reading a magazine they brought him, or staring at the floor, or standing up heavily and watching his monitors. A couple of times he even tried to re-program his life-keeping machines, but was quickly stopped by Dib's assistants. Sometimes he talked to himself in Irken language, sometimes in English - his murmurs usually were too muffled and quiet to understand, but the ones Dib could hear clearly were cursing. And sometimes - rarely, so very rarely - Zim stared right into the camera. Somehow Dib felt that invader looked straight at him at those moments. He touched the screen with his fingers - touched Zim's thin face - and sighed, so quietly he was afraid to be heard.
Doctors said that he has insomnia and must take pills and get at least 6 hours of sleep. Of course Dib ignored them - he already sacrificed too much to pay attention to such a triviality as a usual insomnia.
---
Once, after an especially hard week, Dib decided to take a short weekend - two days without job. He sent all of his assistants out, and the main building of his office seemed absolutely empty. He went down to the lab and spent all his little holiday there, with Zim.
He sat in front of him - that time Zim wasn't tied up, they thought he can't do anything serious with only one hand – and simply looked at him first. Zim looked at him in answer, then cocked his head – wires from his empty eye-hole swung smoothly in the air – and said:
- Again came to stare at me, Dib-monkey? Hope you're enjoying yourself. No, stop! Hope you're NOT enjoying yourself at all!
Dib watched as Zim clenched fingers of his single whole hand in a fist.
- I just came to check the monitors, - said Dib – he prepared this phrase in case Zim will ask.
They sat silently. First invader avoided his glance, but then he threw his hateful gaze, that almost really hurt Dib, into the human. Dib turned away.
About an hour later, he slowly lifted his hand and touched Zim's face – traced the back of his palm gently from Irken's cheek to his neck. Invader jerked his head away belatedly, but Dib reached for him again. He took the alien by the back of his head and attracted him closer – again to touch his mouth with lips. He tasted bitterly.
- Why are you doing this, Dib-worm?! Stop touching me like that! – Dib got slapped in the face and moved away. Zim spitted and coughed, as if he tasted something disgusting, - You're sick, human.
- Well… I thought you knew it from the very beginning, Zim, - said Dib, and invader fixed him with a hard stare.
- Oh I did.
For the rest of Dib's little holiday they didn't say a word to each other. But Dib didn't really wish to, so it was fine.
---
Then they did another operation on him later – opened his skull to stuck electrodes in his brain. Dib again was doing the whole operation by himself – he couldn't entrust Zim to someone else. After that operation Zim's state became too unstable to keep him in the ordinary conditions, and Dib had to put him into the special container capsule. More machines were built to support life in his damaged body. Dib couldn't touch him anymore – he became a part of history, history of victories and lies, and life that ended when it seemed to at last begin.
Dib watched him every evening, as usual, performing this little intimate ritual. Zim sometimes watched him too, from behind the glass of his aquarium. Dib could see his own reflection in Irken's tired eye.
Zim read a lot. Dib liked that expression on his face while he looked through another magazine – a face of wearied intelligent. Zim didn't move much – wired up, with electrodes bulging from all over his body, he was captured, in all possible meanings of this word. Dib didn't like to think about how he actually feels about the whole thing, so he just stared at the monitors or the alien himself, trying desperately to distract from this world and think of nothing in particular.
---
- Zim…
- What? You again?!
- I wanted to ask… did you ever want me to turn off these machines?
- What… hey, didn't you say that they're what keep me alive? I would die if you do that, wouldn't I?
- Yes.
- So you're asking me – did I ever want to kill myself?! How you even dare to ask, pathetic organism?!! I'm waiting for the armada.
- Yeah. I shouldn't have asked.
---
… And then was that! BANG, a blinding flash of light! – and it's over. Everything. First Dib even thought that he's dead. But no – when he opened his eyes, he saw a bright room full of strange equipment and machines, and he was sitting in it's center. He touched his face, looked at his hands – he was a boy again. Nothing happened. It was all just a dream.
He wanted to laugh, hysterically and happily, and at the same time he wanted to cry – hysterically and depressed, but he did nothing. A smiled crept on his face. Nothing happened.
He heard Zim's voice from above, telling something about muffins, victory and pathetic humans, and then laughing. He suddenly felt so strange – like if a relief and disappointment mixed and turned into something that couldn't be explained with words. He wanted to see Zim – first time in so many years! It was something he wanted so much, like never before.
When he stepped out from the alien's lab he could hear a quiet phrase that managed to escape Zim's mouth and be caught by the microphones:
- You're sick, human.
And Dib answered, like he answered years upon years ago:
- Well… I thought you knew it from the very beginning, Zim.
He could have sworn that he heard Zim, but he felt like he misheard, and invader never tell him that. It all felt like a part of a huge dream that looked so unbelievably true.