[A/N I tried to keep this short, or else show what wasn't really imperative to the story, but that didn't work. So i'm sorry it's so wordy. I tried to keep them more-or-less IC, save for being actual friends, i guess.]
He wasn't sure how to say this. What would sound convincing enough without sounding needy? Did it even have to sound convincing? Would it matter afterward? It's his arch-rival he's dealing with, and knowing how smug the both of them were… it probably mattered.
But he had completely neglected thinking about whether he should right now. He had thought about it for a very very long time, debating whether what he wanted to say was completely him or just some kind of projected human guilt that he had allowed himself to give in to. If it was, why did it affect so many of them? And how could it extend itself to infect him, the incredible Irken invader? That must mean that there's SOMETHING to it, even if it was just him adapting to what was probably a permanent stay on Earth. He felt other humanoid emotions, that he could tell for sure; so many of them already shared that way with that dumb boy; so maybe it was real. Probably.
"GIR MADE MORE CUPCAKES FOR YOU. COME GET THEM." He read it over a couple times and hit 'send' before he had a chance to reconsider. There was very little time to turn back now.
He lay on the couch waiting. He thought of him again and again, as he usually did when he wasn't otherwise preoccupied. He thought back to the movies that he'd seen where a boy tells a girl that he loves her; his secret favorites being the ones where one of them was an alien, of course. Hopefully his boy would appreciate that kind of thing enough to understand where Zim was getting ideas from; but also know that there weren't many depiction of those humans falling in love with aliens that actually wanted to rule the planet.
Also that it was probably gay. Zim didn't care himself: he knows that he's an Irken and that no human society could convince him otherwise. But his favorite human disguise is technically one of their "males," which is also what his crush is (he was pretty sure), which would mean that they would be considered "gay" if they were an item. From the research that he'd done, he found out that there are lots and lots of gay humans, and even humans that liked more than just "the same" or "the opposite" gender and would even have relationships with several people at once. That last bit didn't mean anything to Zim: IF there was a human that he'd ever even consider being 'romantic' with, it would probably just be that one. But what he did find is that these "queer people" were apparently less common than whatever was considered "normal," and that they were sometimes looked down upon, both when in a relationship and individually.
He considered the boy as an individual: he hadn't any proof that he was "queer," but the reseach said that not everyone needed that. He considered the relationships (or rather, lack thereof) that the guy had in the past and the times that he expressed having wanted one. It was all such a complicated thing that humans had developed for something so circumstantial, but Zim would figure that a human as 'abnormal' as him was was probably 'abnormal' in those ways as well. Or that, if he wasn't, that he'd understand why Zim found it a hard concept to completely understand.
But all of that was considered far before his current mindset. Now, now he just had to think about how he was going to suggest such a thing to Dib. He thought of the different ways that he was going to say it, and he thought about the different ways that Dib would respond. He pushed most of the negative reactions out of his mind. He figured that, if in the ridiculous case that Dib WASN'T completely going to mess himself upon hearing Zim's confession, that he would definitely be able to handle the rejection… or deny it all completely. "HAHA, FOOL! AS IF THE WONDERFULLY MAGNIFICENT ZIM WOULD EVER HAVE FEELINGS FOR A PITTIFUL HUMAN!!!" … that'd be good enough.
He could hear his insides squelch. He felt his skin twitch. He could feel the minutes fall off of the clock as he waited. His chest trembled as he lifted his phone to look at the text he received a few moments after sending his. "okay" It was getting closer; it was coming time; and he could barely stand it any longer.
Zim sat up on the couch. He breathed in to relax and turned his head toward the kitchen. There weren't any cupcakes. There wasn't a robot in there making cupcakes. Zim blinked.
"GIR! Come to the kitchen and make me some cupcakes! I need cupcakes immediately!!!" He couldn't deny that twinge of panic it caused.
"I'M BUILDING A SANDCASTLE!" Where did GIR get sand???
Zim's antennae and eyelid twitched. It was almost too late for that. He weighed how upset Dib would be if there wasn't actually cupcakes available when he arrived. "GIR! THAT'S AN ORDER! MAKE A BATCH OF CUPCAKES, NOW!!!"
The doorbell rang. Zim stood alert. His antennae were sticking straight up and his limbs were stiff. His skin grew clammy as he stared at the door. His mind raced with no one discernable thing in particular.
He opened the door, already looking high above his own height so he could look Dib in the face for as long as possible. Zim felt hours drag pass over the whole of him in the moment it took him to cough out a greeting. "Dib-Thing! Thank you for coming by again so soon after last time!"
Dib blinked. "Dude, you invited me here…?" He pointed to his phone.
"Yes, yes, Zim is aware of how fond you are of his magnificent hideout." He waved his hand and stepped aside to allow Dib to come inside. "It is quite cozy, i must admit."
Dib noticed something. "You said that there was cupcakes here, but i don't smell anything. Are they from yesterday?"
Zim's intestines sunk. "Ah yes… the 'cupcakes…'" he said it as if he put fingered quotation marks around the word. This would concern any average Dib, and it did.
"Wha-- are there no cupcakes?" It didn't sound like he minded that. "Were you lying to me?" That sounded like he was kind of hurt. "I thought we were having fun yesterday." He frowned.
It pained Zim more than he expected it to. He didn't know how to get out of that. "Uuhhh.. um, no. There are no cupcakes Dib-Monkey." He was sorry that he overlooked that. "Zim diiidd…" he fidgeted, "ask you oveeerr…" he glanced all around the place, "to tell you something."
Dib grew attentive. "Oh. Why didn't you say that?" Zim blinked. Dib stepped past him. "So, did you want to talk here, or--"
Zim perked up. "Oh!" He took a moment to think. "Actually, let's go to the lab." Zim scurried away toward the lab, and Dib followed after him.
He'd never admit to it, he'd never even consider giving any kind of a hint to it. But when he got the chance or the tug at his proverbial heart to sneak away from the stress of the world and the ideas beyond it, Zim'd sometimes crawl away to his hollograph chamber to relax. His reasoning to take Dib here right now was to have an easier place for him to speak and for Dib to accept his feelings.
Most recent times; or rather, more often in recent times than previously, but still from years ago; Zim would boot up a hologram of a place he found to be what he'd consider 'romantic' and spend time with a hollogram of Dib (albeit a tad taller). Zim actually probably did that more often than anyone would consider "normal." It was embarrassing for him to think back on, but it made him happy in those moments. Zim had purposefully made his artificial Dibs (both hollograph and robot) to be a little taller than he'd grown out to really be, since he realized that humans would consider that kind of affiliation for details to be a romantic preference: if he were talking to normal humans, anyway. He was secretly very glad that Dib had indeed grew taller than his own father, whose height Zim had already been overly-fond of. He thought it made him sexier in more ways than one.
"Um, one sec." Zim made extra certain that he carefully reprogrammed the hollograph to show something without one of those fake boyfriends in it. "I hope you like this one." He booted up a wide alien clearing with a sky filled with more stars than would be droplets in a glass of water. The hazy glow of a ringed planet lit up the room enough to keep it confortable.
"Oh wow!" Dib looked all around him, drinking in all of the beauty that he could from the scene. He looked over at Zim's small figure. "Is this a real place???" In Zim's perception, his smile seemed to shine the brightest of all that was, or could be, here.
Zim felt awkward at the question, unsure how to respond to it. The best he could come up with, to try and give his dear companion an answer that was satisfactory enough for his friend, was shrug. "Uhm. I dunno. Maybe?"
"Huh." Dib continued to look around as he sank into the bench that was there. Zim trained his eyes on him as he stepped closer, noting all of the unique centimeters of skin that kissed his jaw from the different distances and angles that he saw. Zim sat down next to him, still staring.
Dib turned his vision toward his friend, his stomach twisting in his own mixture of nerves and calm. He knew that settings like this were only ever for something very intimate, but wasn't sure that Zim was completely aware of that. "So," he breathed out, "what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
Zim swallowed. There was absolutely no time to turn back now. They looked at each other for a moment. It felt hard to breathe. "Dib, i want you to know something."
Zim tried his hardest to keep eye contact. Dib did his best to remain calm and keep his head, even though it desperately wanted to fly away with the stars. "Zim's had a lot of fun with the Dib these past few years. I'm really happy that we can be friends after all of the HORRIBLE things Zim has done." He tried to keep cool, but his mind sucker punched itself with the memories of those things and how unforgivable some of them must be. He tried hard to swallow the doubt down. Dib couldn't remember one bad thing that Zim had done, as his brain was clouded with more important thoughts by that point.
But Zim became distracted. Some of the things he did truly seemed unforgivable, especially all the times he did things to intentionally hurt only Dib. His mind flooded with things that had happened and things that he had only just fantasized about doing to him. He shouldn't be here right now. He doesn't deserve this boy's friendship. Zim looked away, embarrassed and shameful of it all. Dib kept his eyes on his companion.
Zim breathed in and tried to think about the times that were good, where they were friends by the end despite what happened. It could be like that, couldn't it? He wasn't too far gone, right?
He looked back at Dib, who was softly smiling at him. "It's okay. Take your time." Dib felt like his heartbeat was audible as he said this, but Zim managed to drown out everything and all doubt around him when he saw his sweet Dib smile.
Zim's heart skipped and he took the leap. "Dib i lo-- i'm in love with you."
Dib broke. He breathed out all of the pent up air and didn't bother resisting the smile that abducted his face or the tears that commanded his eyes. He chuckled.
Zim continued without pause. " I have been for years now, but i knew i couldn't tell you until you were older. You were a child until yesterday, and Zim knows that--"
"Can i kiss you?" Dib interrupted. He took the liberty to place his hands upon Zim's arms to hold him, grinning widely and trying to blink his eyes dry.
Zim was stunned. Air peeped out as his voice evaded him, but he nodded his head excitedly at the proposition.
Dib pulled Zim close to him. They could both feel the smiles still on their faces as their lips began to connect. Dib sucked harder than Zim did, almost completely uncertain as to how actual romantic kissing was supposed to work. It was just supposed to feel good, right? Their teeth would have knocked hard if there weren't still lips in the way, but by the next connection between them, the barrier had gave way.
The two tilted their heads until their lips fit together happily. Zim kissed softly, trying to drink Dib in and calm him down some so that they could better taste each other. He traced the tip of his alien tongue against Dib's, which halfway haulted the boy in surprise. Dib began to explore it, trying to swallow the giggles that the tickling caused. Zim lapped up his smiles, enamored by the physical feel of happiness on his crush's face. He slipped into it, and brushed his arms against Dib's chest and shoulders, holding him close around the boy's sturdy neck. Dib reciprocated, clinging Zim close to him by wrapping his arms tightly around the alien's midsection.
They kissed a bit longer, Zim feeling somewhat hesitant because he hadn't got to finish saying what he intended. They separated their lips, Zim looking up at Dib with almost an innocent look in his eyes. "Dib, i…" he wasn't sure how to continue.
"Zim!" Dib chuckled out almost breathlessly. "I've loved you for so long! I thought you were the only one i'd ever be in love with for so many years now, it was almost embarrassing!" He giggled and blushed and then grew sheepish.
Zim felt the warm dawn of acceptance grow against his face. He smiled sincerely, happiness beginning to seep out of his eyes. "Oh Dib-Friend." Wordless breathes escaped him as his smile grew. They held eye contact for a few moments more, trying hard to look past their tears.
They connected again. They became tangled in each other's arms, sipping their lips and tongues together happily. Zim pressed himself close to Dib, hoping he'd feel his appreciation in the gesture. Dib held him up, not wanting to let his little prize ever get away from him again. They took a moment to look at each other, so overcome with joy that their smiles were unable to express it. They kissed, and they kissed. They brushed cheeks and foreheads; they squeezed each other and sighed into their shoulders. Their tongues played tag and their lips begged to stay together…
And they didn't notice their little friend getting nearer, despite his loud singing. "Oooohh, funny happy times!" He began giggling uncontrolably.
Their heads whipped around to see the little robot tilting a plate of cupcakes above his head. "GIR!!!" Zim's voice was louder than Dib's, and his anger was palpable in the air following the shout. Zim scrambled over Dib and the bench and started to chase GIR around the room.
"You don't need these sugar snaaacks!!" GIR knew how to teaze Zim by this point. Dib followed the two with his eyes, giggling and wiping his face with his sleeve as he did. He was beyond glad that he was able to spend that time with his short green boyfriend, fantisizing about what they would all do once GIR calmed down.
[A/N This is bad, ngl. Hopefully i'll get my own shit together and actually write about my ORIGINAL STUFF for once instead of fluttering over this gay stuff that nobody cares about anymore. Unfortunately years away from being able to do anything with my characters means that i halfway forgot what their personalities are like. Oopsie doopsie.
P.S. Wow, looks like i wrote another chapter! Cringorama.
Okay, i'm sorry. I'll leave you alone now.]