Warnings: Flirting (and social) Gaz. Clueless Zim. Characters talking about things of a mature nature. Some very mild things of a mature nature. Generally a plotless relationship developing part. (Plot starts again in the next part, yay! ^_^)
Random History about the Author: I spent 5 years (5 years!!) of my life writing yaoi/slash fanfiction 90% of the time. Why did I switch to straight fiction? *shrugs* I just grew out of yaoi I guess... at least most of it. O_o Anyway, I've never written mature straight anything and posted it, let alone mature straight something with an alien. For the record: I tried, and it was very fun! :)
~~~
Part 4 - Fear
*GAME OVER*
The red letters flashed over the length of the living room, bathing the two occupants in an unearthly glow. For a moment neither one of them said anything. Gaz didn't speak because she was spending a moment being dumbfounded... Zim had finally managed to beat her after what? Eight straight hours of game play? That deserved a begrudging congratulations... most people would never beat her... ever.
With a faint wry smile on her face, she turned her head, opened her mouth...
... And Zim beat her to it.
"A ha! Victory for ZIM!" the alien proclaimed, leaping to his feet. He let out a laugh as he raised his fists high in the air. "I have defeated you!!" He chortled. "Meet the wrath of ZIM, pit-i-ful--"
Gaz closed her jaw and frowned slightly.
"HU-man!" Zim completed, following up his statement with ego-maniatic laughter.
'Okay that's enough of that', Gaz thought to herself. Her eyes narrowed. "Zim." She said. When he continued to laugh she gritted her teeth, reached out, and yanked on his pant leg.
Zim stopped laughing and looked down. "Eh?" He asked the girl, his fists still triumphantly raised in the air.
"That's annoying." Gaz pulled away and folded her arms across her chest. "And you'll wake up Dib and Dad," she added pointedly.
"Oh. Huhm." Zim cleared his throat and re-took his place next to Gaz.
There was silence for a couple of moments. Then: "You humans and your sleep," The alien scoffed, but there wasn't any malice in his voice.
Gaz said nothing, only peered at the blank TV screen, a thinking frown still pasted on her face.
"Again?" Zim asked hopefully after another a moment or so of silence wandered by.
"Mmm..." Gaz stretched and sighed, glancing at her watch was she did so. "'fraid not," She said finally. "It's two in the morning. And just because SOMEone doesn't need sleep, I do, and I've got to go to skool tomorrow." She glowered slightly at the thought of skool.
"Ah."
Gaz shut her eyes briefly, then opened them again. "Zim?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"Thank you." Gaz said, turning to look at the somewhat tiny alien.
The alien blinked. "For what?"
Gaz resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "For coming over tonight. I appreciated it."
After a pause, Zim thrust a fist into the air again. "It was nothing for ZIM..." he began.
Gaz glared. "Yes, yes, we *know* already." She snapped, cutting Zim's rant short. She didn't feel badly about yelling at Zim. After all she had been playing with him for eight hours straight, and after a while his ego got just a little annoying. But Gaz had to admit that she did enjoy the opportunity to just talk to him, and she had been able to get a good deal of that in as well. She had also found that she didn't offend Zim when she snapped at him for anything. He just took it as a gauge of when he needed to be quiet.
"Okay." Zim shut up.
See? She smiled slightly as she peered at the TV.
Silence fell between them, then lengthened uncomfortably. The alien began to fiddle with his gloves.
Gaz glanced at the alien out of the corner of her eye. 'He's so cute when he's uncertain of himself,' she thought to herself. 'Look at him. This is all so new to him... the whole communicating bit. ... Of course this is fairly new to you as well,' she reflected. '... but you definitely have the advantage.'
Her smile grew a slight bit. 'I wonder...?'
For a moment or so she considered. Finally she decided to hell with it. Reaching out she grasped the alien's gloved hand, pulling it away from the other glove it was picking at. "Zim..." There was a different tone to Gaz's voice this time when she spoke.
"Yes?" Zim looked up and was met with a pair of deep brown eyes. Gaz was smiling at him, which was surprising... he rarely ever saw the human girl smile at anything, let alone him. Though, to be perfectly honest, she had seemed to be doing that a lot to him recently.
She continued to smile and he blinked guilelessly back at her, suddenly very unsure and hesitant. His world seemed to freeze for a moment as she lifted a hand to his green colored cheek, stroking it gently once before leaning forwards and capturing his lips with her own.
His alien equivalent of a heart stopped, and then started up again, going about a hundred times faster than it had ever gone before. Startled, he jerked away with a little squeak. "W-what was that for?" He sputtered, running his gloved hand across his month.
Gaz pulled away. The happy expression on her face faded to turn to one of confusion and maybe just a little bit of hurt. 'Note to self', she thought. 'Kissing alien = Bad idea.' "I don't know." She muttered. Suddenly she turned away, looking down at her hands with a huge frown on her face. "I just had the urge to-- I... nevermind." She shook her head, then looked back up at him. Zim was pulled away from her, clutching the couch cushion behind him and looking rather alarmed as he stared at her through wide eyes.
'Oh man, look at him. You idiot Gaz!' The inner dialogue continued, sounding nearly relieved as she took in the alien's posture. It didn't take longer than a second for Gaz to realize that the look that Zim was giving her was not one of disgust, but rather one of fear. She nearly smiled upon realizing, very relieved.
"I'm sorry Zim," She apologized contritely, leaning up and patting his arm. He went to jerk it away then stopped, deliberately forcing his arm still. Gaz wasn't going to hurt him. Despite her past scariness, she hadn't done anything in the last few hours or really the last week or so to indicate that that was her intention at all. He even trusted her enough to let her take off his disguise earlier. She wasn't going to...
"I didn't mean you any harm." Gaz continued, confirming his thoughts. She gave him a long searching look, then sighed and pulled away. Her arms went back to being folded across her chest and her voice was somewhere between exasperated and sulky when she spoke. "Zim do you even know what I just did?" She asked.
Zim hesitated, then cleared his throat again. "Eh... er, yes, somewhat..." He replied, trying and not quite succeeding at forcing the nervousness from his voice.
Gaz looked up at him through her bangs, obviously awaiting an answer of some sort. Zim began to glance around apprehensively. When he thought about it, he had no idea *why* he was nervous... but for some reason his heart was still pounding and he *felt* fearful. 'I am ZIM!!' He thought to himself. 'This is ridiculous!' He added.
"Somewhat?" Gaz gave him a critical look. "Zim exactly what DO you know about kissing?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
Screw that. Zim was beginning to wish he had decided to go home to his base instead of coming here. He was beginning to sweat. The mating habits of an alien species was NOT something he felt comfortable talking about, even if he had just spent the last 5 years living among them.
This is Gaz, he reminded himself yet again. He knew he had said a lot of things he shouldn't have ever said to the human girl back at his base a week ago. When it had been evident that he was no longer going to die, he had even, briefly, considered doing away with her.
But Gaz hadn't done anything to indicate that she was untrustworthy during this week. He had been listening to her, more than she probably knew... listening for her to slip and tell her brother everything she had learnt. Instead she had kept everything he had told her in the strictest of confidences, to his immense relief. It was that that helped him want to open up to the human girl, tell her of glorious things and plans he had and all that mattered to him. And, above all it was sort of... NICE to have someone to talk to. After years of only GIR, Gaz was a refreshing change. For one, her responses always made sense. No matter how incredibly good he had gotten at deciphering GIR, there were still times when the robot confused him, or worse, scared him right out of his wits.
So what if she wants to talk about human affection? He thought. 'There are far worse things for her to want to talk about. You know... like... well.' He cut off his train of thought right then and there.
Swallowing his apprehension, he cleared his throat, yet again, and took a stab at what he knew. What he had learnt was either from the computer and skool or, more frequently, the TV. "I know it is part of the human mating process." He said finally, well aware that he was flushing a lovely shade of deep green and finding himself quite unable to do anything about it. "Kissing initiates it, and then there are several rather painful looking things that follow, including loss of clothing, dancing in awkward positions and finally some violent rubbing together and screaming." He blinked. "Or something to that effect." He bit his tongue on the comment of 'GIR would probably know better than I', as the little robot had spent much of the last five years, save the last month, watching earth TV. He looked at Gaz, knowing that he appeared more than a little confused and lost and hated himself for it.
Gaz's shoulders had begun to shake and one of her hands came up to cover her mouth. For a moment Zim was sure that she was hurt, and placed his hand on her shoulder, alarmed. "What is it?" He asked, uncharacteristically concerned. "Are you okay?"
Gaz shook her head wildly, and finally removed her hand from her mouth. She was laughing, very hard. "Oh, that was great!" She howled, wiping tears from her eyes. "'And then several rather painful things follow...'" She repeated in a high pitched approximation of Zim's voice, before throwing her head back and laughing some more. "Where did you learn about sex-- on a fetish show?" She gasped between chuckles.
Zim had retracted his hand and glared down at her with mild contempt. She was mocking him. He gritted his teeth. Well then, he didn't need to stay here any longer...
He was just about to climb to his feet and make to leave when Gaz recovered quite suddenly. A smile still quirked at the corner of her lips, but she turned solemn eyes up at him. "I'm sorry Zim," she apologized. "Your species probably reproduces much differently than ours." She really did smile, but this time it was genuine and not a smirk, her eyes twinkling as she peered up at him. "I should probably keep that in mind next time I decide to kiss an alien." She said ruefully.
Zim shrugged. At least she wasn't laughing at him any longer, which was good. And the kiss hadn't hurt. She wasn't Dib, she was Dib's sister. She didn't CARE enough to hurt him. He relaxed.
Gaz looked at him for a long moment. And then she backed off a slight bit. She cocked her head to the side, studying Zim.
"What about you?" She asked finally. It was a subject that sparked curiosity in her. She would have asked her brother, who more than likely knew all about the sexual habits of Irkens after so many years of faithful study; but it wasn't like her to show interest in any such things and a question like that would more than likely upset him somehow.
"Me?" Zim practically squeaked. He cleared his throat quickly.
"Yes. You know..." Gaz circled her hands in the air, then let out an exasperated sigh. It looked like she was going to have to elaborate. "Okay." She explained. "Tak. She was girl alien right?"
Zim nodded silently.
"And you..." Gaz pointed at him. "You're a boy alien..."
"Yes, yes," Zim replied, cycling his own hands through the air with his own mild amount of exasperation. "You-- oh." He got it. "Eh..."
The look on Gaz's face told him that now that he got it, she wanted to know.
Sighing, Zim leaned his head back and peered at the ceiling. He considered for a short bit, then decided that there wasn't any harm in telling the human about his kind. After all, unless Tak decided to show up here again, which seemed increasingly unlikely as the years rolled by, he wasn't ever going to see another member of his race again.
"I know nothing of sex among my kind," He said finally and honestly. "As far as I can tell, we don't have that."
Gaz's looked curious despite herself. "But how do you...?"
"I was born in an incubator," Zim began. "In a little pod next another little pod in a room full of little pods." He explained quickly. "As each little pod comes due we are cracked out of our chamber and given our PAKs" he indicated to the pack on his back "and sent off to work. Nothing more, nothing less." He used to hate thinking about this. It just reminded him of his complete and utter insignificance... of which he had been in denial about for over a century... since the day he was born in fact.
Gaz studied him. "So you were a test tube baby." She stated.
Zim nodded. "On a world full of test tube babies yes." He glanced up at the girl to discover that she was giving him a pitying look. "What?" He asked, a mite bit defensively.
Gaz shook her head slightly. "I..." She hesitated and frowned, then tried again. "But what about family? Parents? Even if you were a test tube baby you must have had some of those..."
Zim shook his head. "Not as far as I'm aware. I don't know where they get the DNA to make babies... I never asked or cared." He added, somewhat sheepishly. "But I imagine they just grow them like you humans grow your clones... through your blood and DNA." He smiled slightly. "Which, if you ask me, from what I've seen seems like a lot less of a painful of a procedure than human... sex." His lip curled.
He turned his head back to Gaz to discover that the girl was smiling at him again. Her eyes really were quite pretty when she wasn't squinting them and smiling as well, he decided. He hesitantly smiled back.
Continuing to smile, Gaz leaned up. "Well I have to say that was interesting, thank you." She said, and kissed him on the lips again, this time quickly and closed mouthed as not to frighten him. She chuckled once she had pulled away, noting once again, Zim's wide eyes and defensive posture. "That didn't hurt did it?" She asked innocently.
Zim shook his head soundlessly.
"Good," Gaz replied. And she then leaned over and did it again.
Upstairs, oblivious to the romance happening in his own living room, Dib slept. He had fallen asleep nearly an hour previous when Zim and Gaz had been still playing video games.... and that was more than likely a good thing.
Gaz didn't even want to think of the way her brother would react if he knew what she was during presently. Though, she thought, it really shouldn't matter to HIM what I do with myself, now should it?
'No,' she thought, 'It shouldn't. And it won't.'
Her mind wandered. 'You know, I would love to do this in front of him, just to see how he'd react... heh. That WOULD be funny.' She would have smirked a rather evil smirk, but her lips were occupied presently.
Gaz pulled away from Zim a final time. At least she pulled away enough that their faces where not touching in any way, shape, or form. She was still rather close. "Zim?" She asked.
"Yes?" Fake lavender eyes searched hers.
"Do you still?" Gaz asked seriously.
Zim was taken quite aback. "I..." He paused, trying to figure out what Gaz was referring to. Then he realized. She wanted to know if he still wanted to die. "No. I don't want to die anymore." He replied firmly, shaking his head. "I am ZIM!" He proclaimed in a soft voice, but the vibrant will was still there. "I will not be defeated so easily." He shook his fist melodramatically.
Gaz nodded decisively. "That's good." She replied. After a moment the smile returned.
Zim smiled back at her.
"Are you uncomfortable?" Gaz asked suddenly, indicating the fact that she was sitting extremely close to him.
Zim nodded 'yes'. Then shook his head 'no'.
Gaz arched an eyebrow at him.
"I like this much better than the meats." Zim said kindly after a moment. "This doesn't hurt at all." He paused, and considered for a moment. "It's all actually kind of pleasant, come to think of it...."
Gaz smiled and laughed and did something Zim wasn't expecting at all... she hugged him.
~~~
They talked for a while after that... about nothing else to do with mating habits or offspring of their respectively different species, but rather of all sorts of things; which ranged from the fauna on planet Irk to the diversity of human cultures. At three Gaz dozed off in the middle of one of Zim's sentences, sitting on the floor with her head in her arms on the couch cushion beside him.
For about an hour Zim sat beside her, soundlessly, and wondering exactly what he should do. Just like how Gaz had to spend a good couple of minutes teaching him about human affection by touch, (which overall had made him feel somewhat uncomfortable), he now needed her to tell him about the human protocols of what-to-do-when-your-friend-falls-asleep-next-to-you-on-the-couch-when-you-know-she-should-be-sleeping-in-a-human-bed-of-cloth. For the longest time he wondered if perhaps he should carry her up to her bed of cloths, or if he should let her continue to sleep beside him. He also wondered if he should just leave. He didn't know, so he just sat.
Gaz decided to solve his dilemma for him by waking up again sometime later. "Mmm... sorryI guess Ifeelasleep." She half slurred, half yawned. Blurry eyes blinked up at Zim. "Whattimeisit?" She mumbled.
A glance at the Professor Membrane clock on the wall told him it was quarter after four. He told the girl this.
Gaz didn't seem too incredibly concerned.
"Oh well." Shrugging, she got to her feet and stretched again. Zim winced as he heard several human bones snap and pop, but Gaz seemed unconcerned about this as well.
"You may as well stay here," She said after a moment. "We need to be up for skool in three hours." Wandering over to the holovid she indicated to a box that lay beneath it. "Here," She said. "There's plenty of games for you to play if you want." She paused. "Just don't break them... or I'll break you." With that she yawned again and shuffled away, leaving Zim alone with her gaming system, and made her way upstairs.
Zim waited until he heard the sound of her door close before he smiled deviously and darted over to the box beneath the holovid. Inspecting its contents, he rubbed his hands together, chuckling with evil glee. "Ex-cellent..." He pronounced. "Victory for ZIM!" With that he reached inside and proudly extracted one.
Yes... he was going to get in a LOT of practice... and then victory would finally and permanently be HIS...
At least when it came to Gaz's video games.