A/N: This was actually a story I did for one of my drawings on deviantART. (You would know this is you FOLLOWED ME ON IT.) The drawing and this story are actually based on the episode "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom."

This is rated K+ for very light language and ZADR (Zim and Dib Romance). Enjoy! :3

Dib gulped. His hands started shaking. There he stood, before the door to the room he both loved and hated. Somewhat absently, he reached up his hand and punched the secret code into the digital keyboard. A green light above the door blinked, and the door slowly slid open. Taking a deep breath and wiping away the small beads of sweat from around his goggles, he walked into the room, turning to close the door behind him, trapping him within the navy blue room.

Dib held onto the door handle, trembling. He was afraid, afraid to turn around and see. Slowly, he let his hands fall to his side. He straightened his back, took a few deep breaths and turned to face the other side of the near empty room.

There stood a large, glass tube, connected to the wall by an assortment of wires and tubes. Within the tube was some sort of green liquid Dib knew nothing about. But that wasn't what Dib was paying attention to.

Also inside the tube was a all too familiar Irken Invader. His left arm had been stretched and was now connected to the top of the tube, along with another four tubes. The largest was attached to the alien's face, where his right eye would've been. Another one was snaked around the large tube and was connected to the alien's snake-like tongue. The last two were latched onto different parts of his head. His antennas had shrunk over the years to ridiculously small sizes.

He had his back turned to Dib, well aware of who had entered his room. Dib fiddled around with his blue gloves before sighing. He looked at the alien through his goggles.

"Hey, Zim."

Zim visibly twitched from inside the tube at the human's voice. Dib sighed again and stroked his arm, unsure. It bothered him that this was so alike the fake future Zim had shown him as a child. There were a few small differences, however, and one very large difference Dib hated.

When he saw the Irken locked up like this, he didn't feel pride or self-confidence; he felt guilt, heartbroken and self-hatred.

"You must be aware by now of what's going to happen," he said.

"No, I do not. Tell me," came Zim's voice. It was dry, lacking curiosity or interest in the topic they were discussing. Dib raised an eyebrow. The scientists said to Dib that they had told Zim.

"You know what I mean, Zim. Don't play around."

"I do not. Tell me." His voice sounded more like a demand now. Dib quickly caught onto what Zim was planning. He started trembling again. "Zim, please... I don't want to say it," he whispered.

The alien growled, using his single hand to swerve himself around in the tube. His single, red eye glared at Dib who stared back in shock. The sight of the large tube inside Zim's eye socket was enough to make Dib's stomach lurch. He observed that Zim's other eye had a number of creases and lines around it, indicating that the Irken was exhausted

"TELL ME," he demanded harshly. The human gulped and looked down at his feet. Zim was being cruel, putting him in this position. Taking a deep breath, he answered, no louder than a whisper:

"They're... they're going to r...remove your PAK, Zim. And... dissect it. And the dissection..." he paused to try and push the image out of his head, "is going to take more than ten minutes..."

Zim huffed, turning around to face the opposite side of the tube. "Why did you come here, Dib?"

Dib looked back up, trying to avoid looking at Zim's PAK. Zim had stopped adding the endings to Dib's name ever since he had gotten locked up here over twenty years ago. It broke Dib's heart. Hesitant at first, he took a few steps toward the alien. "Because... I missed you, Zim."

Zim froze, surprised by the words. However, he quickly snapped out of it. "You're lying," he hissed, turning his head to glare at Dib out of his good eye. "Why would a you, a beloved and famous HYU-man, ever miss me?" He turned to glare at the wall again. "You came here to gloat and you know it."

The human felt anger boil inside him. "That's not true, Zim!"

"You're voice is annoying."

"You know very well that I didn't plan on this happening!"

"Be quiet, HYU-man," Zim hissed, warning Dib but he failed to catch it.

"And do you honestly think I'd let the one I love die without me interfering with it?"

"SILENCE!" Zim screamed, whirling himself around to glare daggers at Dib. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! Look at me, Dib!" He pounded his fist against his chest. "I'm already dead! I gave you everything I had, I gave into my emotions and started to finally love you like you loved me, and do you know what happened? You were careless enough to let your stupid father find out I wasn't a HYU-man! Zim betrayed his own race and went against everything he believed in to be with you and Zim gets locked up in this dump, working as a meat puppet for you HYU-mans to experiment with!" Growling, Zim tugged at one of the tubes on his head.

"Now look at you, Dib," he hissed, glaring at Dib once again. "You sacrificed nothing. Your father hailed you as a hero and you were apologized to by everyone who called you insane. You've lived these past twenty Earth years in luxury. Face it, this is exactly like that virtual future I put you in long ago. And this is the part when you gloat over my final defeat. You don't love me anymore." There was a large pang of sadness in Zim's chest, but he tried to cover it with his harsh criticisms.

Dib gaped at Zim, surprised with his sudden outburst. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Zim hadn't completely lied. Zim did become a test subject for his father and other scientists and Dib did become a world-renown paranormal investigator. However, the last part had been nothing more than a dirty lie, and the made Dib furious. Taking a few more steps, Dib stopped when he was an arm's length away from the tube, and glared back at the alien.

"Listen, Zim," he barked, causing Zim to jump from his tone, "you may have forgotten this, but for the first eighteen years of you being in the hellhole, I've been trying to get you out! I wasn't allowed to see you all the time, but damnit, I was trying! From bribery to lawsuits, from negotiations to break-ins, I tried everything! And you know why I was forced to stop?"

"Yeah, because you stopped loving Zim!"

"No! Because of that!" he growled, pointing to one of the tubes on his head. Zim hesitantly pointed to the second largest one on the back of his head, with the claws digging into his green skin. "This?"

"You don't know this, Zim, but that tube is connected to your brain! Without you in here, you'd be nothing more than a vegetable, incapable of anything!"

Zim's eyes widened. "I..I didn't know that..."

"OF COURSE you didn't! They decided to not tell you anything that was going on! And then, FINALLY, they decided that they might as well let you know when you were going to die!" Dib let out a loud, frustrated growl and punched the tube with his fist, causing it to tip back and forth. Zim yelped and clung to one of the tubes, keeping his eye tightly shut until the tube stopped moving. Zim gingerly opened his eye to make sure he was alright.

"But it's too late now."

Zim looked down to see Dib, his fist still outstretched and pressed against the glass. His lightening-shaped hair fell in front of his face, indicating to Zim that he was upset, and was pressed slightly against the tube as well. A sharp, sad feeling stabbed at his squeedily spooch.

"I gave up too easily. I could have saved you, at least," Dib continued, sounding defeated. He lifted his head to look at Zim before letting it hang. He unclenched the fist against the glass and just pressed his gloved palm against it. "I'm sorry for putting you through all of this, Zim. I'm sorry that you have to die. But if it makes anything better..." he paused to push back the tears stinging in his eyes.

"...I never stopped loving you, Zim."

Zim gazed at the human. If he hadn't just witnessed the human's outbreak, he would've instantly accused Dib of lying to him. But he spoke with sincerity, and Zim couldn't help but feel guilty for yelling at him. Letting go of the tubes, he let himself fall back into his original hanging position, eye-level with Dib. "I never stopped loving you either," he murmured.

Dib whipped his head up in time to see Zim place his hand gently on the glass, opposing Dib's much larger hand. "And..." Zim looked into Dib's eyes, his own filled with both sadness and longing, and let a small smile form on his face. "...I've missed you, too, Dib-thing."

Dib felt his heart break into a million pieces at Zim's words. He bit his lip, trying to keep the tears from coming out, but they fell, slipping out from under Dib's goggles and running down his cheeks. His legs finally caved and he fell to his knees, he head pressed against the tube and his hand in the same place, now clutching at the glass. He choked out three words and began sobbing uncontrollably:

"I'm so sorry..."

The End

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please rate and review! ^.^