All around him was dark and, for some odd reason, painful too. His thoughts were scattered, he couldn't remember clearly what he had been doing before passing out. Because he had to have passed out, hadn't he? Otherwise why would his mind feel so numb? His best guess was that he had fallen and hit his head. That would have explained everything, the pain included. However, the main question remained. Why had he fainted in the first place? That wasn't something exactly that happened to him on regular basis. On the contrary, it had almost never happened, unless one counted the times when someone had knocked him out on purpose. And he didn't remember pissing Gaz off more than he usually did, so she couldn't have decided to beat him unconscious in retaliation. His sister could be awful when she wished to be, which was pretty often, but she was never too cruel without a real reason.
Dib blinked, trying to clear his blurred sight. He was sitting somewhere, on something he didn't recognise as anything from his room or house. Not his bed, not his chair, not the couch, not the kitchen furniture. And yet, at the same time, there was incredibly something familiar in the shape of the seat, even if he couldn't place what exactly. One more reason to find out was going on and quickly. Usually, whenever he had that half sense of recognition, it was a bad omen.
Taking in a deep breath, he attempted to move forward, keeping his movements slow out of caution. Since his eyes weren't working properly, he had no way of telling where he was. So, better to be safe than sorry. Soon enough, though, he found that he couldn't really shift from the position he had been forced into because there were ropes, metallic ones, tying his whole torso to the seat. His amber orbs widened, in both shock and incredulity, but the feelings were quickly replaced by dread. There was only one person who could have pulled such a trick on him and, whenever he did, the results were never pleasant. Not for Dib, at least.
The teen opened his mouth, not sure if it was to demand to be released, to call out his nemesis's name to express his frustration or to just splutter out all the curses that had come to his mind, but he was interrupted by a very well-known voice before he could have spelled out just one single syllable.
"You're finally awake, worm child. Zim was starting to think that I would have been forced to wait for you the whole night."
"Hey! Don't blame me, space scum!" Dib protested, struggling a bit more against the restrains. He knew that it was useless, but that wasn't the point. Not trying to break free would have meant admitting that the Irken was in full control of the situation. Which was true, but knowing it and openly acknowledging it with facts were two very different things. "I didn't ask to be knocked out and…?!"
Once again he couldn't finish his sentence, his words turning into a surprise gasp. This time, though, it wasn't the alien's voice to stop him, but something piercing through the skin of his neck. He let out a low hiss, his mouth curling down in a scowl, but his expression relaxed slightly, without losing its hostility, when his sight began to clear, allowing him to finally have a look at his surroundings. Whatever Zim had just injected him had to have rid his system of the drug that his rival had most likely used to knock him unconscious. He couldn't be sure, also because you could never be when the Invader was involved, but it seemed the more reasonable explanation to his situation and physical symptoms.
Dib didn't waste too much time on those thoughts, which wouldn't have helped him out of whatever Zim was planning, and instead he chose to have a careful look around, his mind already formulating possible escape plans. Yet, for the third time in a row, he was forced to pause, overwhelmed by a brief but intense wave of surprise. He had expected to find himself somewhere in the Invader's lab, but what his no longer blind gaze fell upon wasn't the reddish dim darkness of underground levels of the Irken's base or the odd machineries that filled those creepy rooms. Instead, his amber eyes found themselves swimming among the familiar sight of the stars, which were shining as bright and enticing as ever against the blackness of space.
The teen blinked once again, as to make sure that his brain wasn't deceiving him, but the image didn't change or fade into something else and he quickly realised that he was tied up to the seat of Zim's Voot. The spaceship seemed to be orbiting around a planet. Could it be...Venus? It surely looked like it and the fact that he could still see the Earth at distance seemed to corroborate his guess. However, none of those elements were enough to help him imagining why he was there, especially considering that there weren't any alien instruments of torture in sight. Perhaps it was true that, in the last three years and something, the two of them had become slightly less hostile towards each other, but he doubted that his nemesis would have taken him on a trip in space just because he had wished to. The idea was simply ridiculous…Was it?
Slowly, he moved his gaze on his rival. The Invader was standing less than a couple of steps away from him, leaning against the glass, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't wearing his disguise, not that there was any reason for him to, and his expression was anything but happy. However, the scowl wasn't what truly caught Dib's attention. The alien looked tense, almost...nervous. It was subtle, a mere hint of tension in his shoulders and an added stiffness in his posture that usually weren't there, but he and the Irken had been fighting for years now and they had got to know each other pretty intimately, whether they liked to admit it or not.
"What…What are you doing?" He was eventually forced to question, completely at loss. Zim could act weirdly at times, very weirdly, especially from a human point of view, but that, whatever it was, was too much, even for his crazy arch enemy who wasn't completely such anymore. Wariness joined the puzzlement in his chest and he found himself frowning even more deeply. "Why are we…here? What are you planning?!"
Zim opened his mouth, magenta eyes narrowing for a few seconds, as if he had been about to spit out some sharp reply, but then he simply sealed his lips again, stiffening even more, and did the last thing Dib had expected to see. He turned his head away, antennae dropping slightly, and the skin under his eyes slowly flushed with a light shade of purple.
The human couldn't do anything but starting for a long moment. He had to be seeing things because there was no way that Zim was blushing. He hadn't even known that Irkens could do such a thing. He had seen his nemesis's expression covered in humiliation a few times and he had even caught him being embarrassed in a couple of occasions, but his skin had never changed colour. And that seriously made him wonder, not without a small rush of renewed dread, what could have caused such reaction.
"Zim…?" He called out again, his voice much less steady than it had been when he had demanded answers just a few moments before. He didn't know what to expect, but he knew that it was most likely some bad when the Invader was involved. There was a part of him that didn't actually want the other to reply to his questions, but he was also aware that it was inevitable, unless he would have rather for the two of them to be stuck there forever. Moreover, he was sure that, even if he had stated aloud that he didn't wish to hear it, the alien would have spat his plan out at some point, no matter how flustered he could appear. He always did.
Zim let out a sound that was half way between a hiss and a growl. It was filled with hostility, but the truth was that he wasn't angry at Dib, for once. His rage was mostly aimed at himself, even if he was having a hard time admitting it. That plan had been his idea and it was an incredibly foolish one. He should have never allowed his mind to linger on it, let alone turn it into a real scheme. However, since GIR had made that comment, a few days previously, the thought had got stuck in his brain and there had been no way to remove it.
He uncrossed his arms and lowered them by his sides, fists clenching and unclenching in the vain attempt to unload the nervous energy coursing in his system, still not daring to meet the teen's inquisitive gaze. He wasn't ready to answer the questions he had been asked, despite the fact that doing it was the main point of the two of them being where they currently were. And, his traitorous mind added in a whisper, he had been the one to bring them there in the first place. His SIR Unit might have indirectly come up with the concept, but that was no excuse. He knew well that he shouldn't listen to GIR as much as he did, especially when the robot had that kind of dangerous ideas, but he had fallen for it again, perhaps because he himself had been waiting for a pretext to take that step for a while, and now there was no going back. He could have lied and pretended to have been working on some evil plan, but he wouldn't have looked credible. He could tell it by the frown on his rival's face.
"Zim is…" He tried, quickly changing his mind and letting his voice trail off. That wouldn't have worked. He needed to be more assertive or he would have just obtained to make an even bigger fool of himself. He was already facing a huge risk, considering that there was no telling whether or not his plan would have had a positive ending. He wanted to keep every shed that was left of his dignity, if he could have helped it.
"How you always fail to recognise your own people's hideous ways is puzzling to me," he amended, mentally nodding to himself. That was much better, much more like him, despite the fact that insulting Dib, even just indirectly, wasn't exactly the smartest move to achieve what he was aiming for. "You're really clueless, aren't you? You're lucky that Zim isn't here to antagonise you tonight, human. Otherwise you would have already been crushed by my might fist!" He raised said fist for emphasis, but then his posture turned closed off again. "What date is it tomorrow? Or rather, today, since it's already past midnight in your filthy city."
Dib almost rolled his eyes at his nemesis's claims. If he hadn't been so utterly unsettled by the current absurd circumstances, he would have gladly spat out an offensive comment back, maybe mentioning how clearly it wasn't that he didn't recognise his customes, but that it was Zim who couldn't understand them properly and continuously applied them wrongly. Or reminding the alien how many times he had failed to crush him in the past few years, despite his threats and promises. However, in that very moment, his priority was to find out what he had got himself into, because he sure as hell didn't trust the Irken's statement about how they weren't facing each other as enemies that night. Aside from the claim being unlikely in itself, his past experiences had taught him to be wary of any not openly belligerent action his nemesis took.
"Keep dreaming, alien scum," he chose to mutter under his breath, still unwilling to let the subtle insults go without at least a small comeback. Then he focused on the last question he had been addressed. Why was the space idiot asking about what day it was now? Was it some kind of deadline or anniversary he had failed to notice? It was always so hard to tell considering how random Zim was. "It's the 14th of February. Why do you even…"
His voice got stuck in his throat before he could finish the sentence, his mind suddenly being slapped with the possible implications of his own answer and, as a consequence, of his nemesis's odd attitude and requests. No, it couldn't be that. It was true that, in the last couple of years, he and the Irken had started to do other things together, aside from harming and spitting insults at each other all the time, but their relationship couldn't have been defined as friendly. Let alone as something more.
His gaze travelled back towards the alien, almost expecting to find a mocking smirk that would have told him that it was all a bad joke, but Zim was still stubbornly avoiding looking in his direction and the violet hue on his skin seemed to have deepened. It wasn't a trick. It couldn't be, not when his nemesis was starting to look like he would have preferred being vivisected than standing where he was in that moment. It wasn't a joke and Dib had no idea of how to feel about the whole ordeal. On one hand, he just wanted to laugh out loud, because "absurd" didn't even start to describe the situation, but on the other he could feel his own skin starting to tingle.
He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath in the attempt to calm down the sudden restlessness that had blossomed in his chest, making his heartbeat spike up. It was such a bad idea. They were still at war, fighting on opposite sides. They were still at each other's throat more often than not. However, he would have lied if he had stated that they hadn't also grown more and more absorbed in each other, in ways that went well past his whole "know your enemy" strategy. Well past the depth of any obsession he had ever had in his life. Having Zim there, antagonising him, or even just spending twisted in that odd relationship of theirs had become even more important than his second, main aim, namely exposing the alien for what he was. Of course, he was and would have always been hellbent on defending Earth, and nothing could have changed it, but he would have been more content if he could have both kept his planet safe and forced the Invader to stick around. Not that he would have ever confessed such a thing, not even to himself.
"So, are you telling me that…this is your idea of a date?"
The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could even realise that he was speaking, breaking the trail of his thoughts, a hint of hysterical amusement colouring his tone. Damn. If that was some odd dream, he wanted to be told. If that had been the case, though, he couldn't have said if he would have wished to wake up too or not and that awareness disturbed him to no end, for more reasons than he cared to admit.
Zim's magenta orbs finally whipped in the human's direction, anger burning past the embarrassment. He wouldn't have allowed any mockery to be addressed at him, not when he was already feeling so uncertain and when his face was burning so hotly that he couldn't bring himself to ignore it, no matter how hard he was trying. Back when he was still preparing the basics of his scheme, the thought that things could have gone as he wanted them to had touched him, but he had refused to take it into consideration. Rejection was an option he wouldn't have tolerated.
His teeth sank in the side of his cheek, almost deep enough to draw blood. Of course, he had chosen not to consider that scenario. It was a ridiculous one. Why would have Dib decided to refuse his incredibly generous offer? They were enemies, but that wasn't all there was to their bond. The teen sought and found validation and endless, stimulating challenges in him and the Invader himself couldn't deny that he appreciated the fact that his rival fully recognised his abilities and potential. They were each other's worthiest adversary. It was just fitting for them to spend that stupid Earthen holiday together and to explore all the implications that the aftermath of the experience would have brought them. After all, even if he wasn't ready to admit it, not even to himself, in a world that seemed to repulse everything they were and did, they were pretty much all they had.
"What is that supposed to mean?!" He hissed out, forcing himself not to look away even if the impulse to do it was almost too strong to be resisted. "Zim did everything as it should be done! I surprised you and I brought you to one of your favourite places!" He threw his hands in the air, opening his arms to point at the stars shining all around them. "And I did my researches, worm child. That planet there," he pointed a claw towards Venus, "is a perfect symbol for your filthy, senseless holiday. Just as I know that an absurd activity as stargazing is considered something appropriate to share in this…occasion."
He crossed his arms once again, his postured closing off even more, and he squinted at the human defiantly, almost daring him to contradict his statements, even though, deep down, that was the last thing he wished for his nemesis to do.
Dib remained quiet during the outburst, once again torn between irritation, the urge to laugh and the need to scream in terror. Zim had a point, in his twisted way, even if the Irken had, as per usual taken a few details a bit too literally. For once, however, he didn't feel like arguing, even if those misinterpretations could have been an incredibly good pretext to mock the other. There was a much bigger question that hadn't been answered yet. Namely why the Invader had come up with such a scheme in the first place and what he was trying to achieve. It was, at the same time, so not like him and something perverse enough to fit him. Not to mention that alien's weird behaviour didn't help his confusion.
"You didn't surprise me, Zim. You kidnapped me. There's a huge difference there. Just in case you didn't know," he ended up muttering under his breath, tugging once more at the ropes as to underline his point. "And you usually do not tie your date up. Unless they ask you to."
The last sentence was supposed to be a joke, but, instead of loosening the atmosphere, it made it worse because one of the alien's antennae raised in evident confusion and Dib himself suddenly felt even more awkward. Bad move. Not only he didn't know how to properly use that kind of humour, but trying it out with an alien who knew nothing of how human romance worked surely couldn't have helped in any case.
"What, uh, what I mean…Are you going to untie me or not?" He tried to amend, swallowing his own discomfort and shifting as much as he was allowed to. He had the impression that the restrains were getting tighter and tighter the longer he stayed confined by them, even if it was most likely just a trick that nervousness was playing on his unsettled mind, and he was starting to feel like they were smothering him, making it hard to breath. "I promise that I won't try to…attack you or whatever. Just…I'm getting really uncomfortable here."
Zim's squinting eye narrowed even more, wariness touching his expression, but, after a split moment of hesitation, he covered the small distance that separated them and reached out for something set behind the seat. He didn't like the idea of freeing the human, because it meant losing a great advantage he had had on his rival until that moment. The space of the Voot was quite narrow, even more now that they both had grown, the teen of course more than he had, and that would have made fighting tricky, even for someone with his training. The fact that Dib still hadn't given him a straight answer or somehow allowed him to guess the teen's feelings on the whole ordeal made the Irken more nervous than he cared to admit. On the other hand, though, he couldn't deny that the human was hideously right about such treatment being not appropriate for their current situation. Not to mention that insisting on keeping his nemesis trapped would have meant admitting how insecure of himself and of his plans he truly was.
A click echoed in the heavy silence that had fallen upon them and the metallic ropes rushed away, disappearing in the blink of an eye, as if they had never been there. Dib carefully reached out for his arms, rubbing the numbness away from his muscles. He didn't dare to move from his seat, though, easily guessing that such action could have been interpreted as hostile. He wasn't looking forward to a fight in such a close space either and, while the mere idea of talking things out with the alien was a little disturbing, he was mostly willing to give it a try. Not that he was expecting for it to work out smoothly. Zim was hardly the easiest person to talk to. The few times they had been more or less forced to team up had proven him how stubborn on not listening the Irken could be, together with showing, surprisingly, that they could make a great team too.
Discarding that last thought, Dib did his best to focus back on the Invader. He didn't need more disconcerting, contradicting facts to unnerve him when he was trying to find a sense in a situation that didn't make sense. Or rather, that shouldn't have.
"Will you tell me what this is all about?" He made himself ask, trying to keep his voice as steady and neutral as possible. He quickly raised a hand, silencing the Irken who had already opened his mouth to protest. "And don't give me that idiocy about me not understanding my own customs again. I know what…this attempt of yours is supposed to be. What I want to know is why you even thought to do this. With me, of all people."
Not without reluctance, Zim found himself forced to seal his lips and to glance away again, even if it implicitly meant admitting that he had lost that part of their exchange. He couldn't exactly evade such a direct question about his motives, not without making it clear to them both that he was refusing to answer and not without forcing them into a much more heated discussion. And, knowing the two of them, the verbal fight would have surely turned into the physical one they were trying to avoid due to their current location. He was serious starting to regret having taken Dib to space. Instead of making everything easier, it had turned out to be very inconvenient and, perhaps, he should have thought better about ensuring a few escape routes for himself, just in case, so that he could have fled with his pride still more or less intact.
He gritted his teeth, forcing his eyes back on his nemesis's figure. He refused to retreat. Or to even just step back a bit with his plans. He had come that far, against any common sense, and he would have kept going till his aim would have been achieved. Even if he wasn't exactly sure of what said aim was. He was an Irken Invader. He had faced worse than some obscure, contorted, alien ritual. No matter how terrifying it might have looked.
"How am I supposed not to accuse you of not understanding your own culture when you clearly do not, Dib-stink?" He scoffed, raising his chin and straightening his spine in the attempt to make himself feel taller. A boost of confidence, fake or not, couldn't have hurt. "How you can assume that Zim would have ever chosen someone else, considering what this love-pig ritual of yours entails? My hideous experience with Tak," his expression contorted in displeasure as he spelled the name of the other Irken, "has taught me that your romance thingie is mostly about pain and suffering. Those movies GIR is so fond of have confirmed such belief. Not that I needed confirmations."
He eyed the teen's expression for a moment, to check what kind of reactions his speech was gaining. Dib had crossed his arms on his chest in turn and for the most he looked unimpressed, lips twitching with blossoming impatience. Not exactly what he had been hoping to see. He had better get to the point before the worm child decided to interrupt him and to make a fool out of him again.
"Now, what do we do, if not making each other miserable and hurting?" The hue of certainty in his voice became sincerer as he spoke that sentence. There was no way that the human would have been able to deny his logic. Or have any reason to do it. After all, that statement was a sum up of most part their shared reality. "You, filthy thing, are Zim's nemesis. This doesn't mean that you are worth of me, of course, because I am and I will always be a superior being. However, it gets you vaguely close to be the best choice at hand as Zim's love-pig."
He finished his speech with a curt nod, closing his eyes, his face halfway between stubbornness and defiance. The victory of that dispute was his. It had to be. Maybe some of his reasoning was too high and complicated and he didn't expect Dib to understand everything that the word "nemesis" could mean to an Irken, but he had no doubt that the teen had somehow come to feel the same. He could see it in his eyes, every time they fought and challenged each other, and he had witnessed it even in some of those rare occasions when they had been on the same side. His rival might have not been able to grasp the all depths of the term, and Zim didn't want him to, not really, not yet, but it didn't change that it was exactly what defined all the shades of their contorted relationship.
Dib could only blink for a couple of seconds after Zim was done with his speech. His mind had taken a bit to process the words, because the logic behind them seemed so abstruse that his brain had initially refused to process it. Once it did, the teen's first thought was wondering what kind of movies GIR watched, if the Invader had found in them such an inaccurate definition of love. He couldn't deny that, at least for what his indirect experience had showed him, not all romantic relationships, and platonic ones alike, were peaches and cream. However, firmly believing that they were nothing but a hell of pain and misery was a whole different story.
"You…You did all this because you think that us being…" His voice trailed off for a moment. How had Gaz called them that one time? Ah, yes. He almost rolled his eyes again. His sister always managed to find the worst and yet painfully truest words. "…Obsessively co-dependent is a sign that we should date?"
Once again, he wasn't sure if he should have been horribly amused or if he should have tried to run, even if he was literally stuck in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps being imploded by void of space might have turned out to be better than struggling to reach the end of that conversation. It was tempting, but he also doubted that Zim would have let him go so easily, considering all the troubles he had gone through to bring him there. Not to mention that he didn't want to risk regretting his choice in the last seconds of his mostly miserable life. Now, that would have been tragic.
It was Zim's turn to blink in slight confusion. The Irken couldn't yet place his rival's reaction and the fact was starting to utterly unnerve him. He fidgeted on his spot, wariness returning at full force in his expression. "…Yes?" He replied, hating how questioning and uncertain his voice had sounded and how his antennae had fallen flat against his skull. All the confidence that had touched his tone not much before had already evaporated, replaced by a steadily growing paranoia.
That was the last straw for Dib. Seeing the alien vulnerable, almost on the point of crumbling, had always gifted him a sick sense of satisfaction that, coupled with the dazing surrealism of the circumstances he had found himself in, caused the bubble of emotions that had been building in his chest since he had woken up tied to the seat to explode. His head fell back and he burst out into laughter, having to grip at the armrest not to tumble down on the floor of the Voot. The situation wasn't that hilarious, if he had to be honest, but it couldn't help himself. Perhaps it was the tension melting, or maybe it was just his mind rebelling against that latest blast of insanity and to lose it for good. It was incredibly hard to tell, especially considering that his lungs were already starting to burn for the lack of oxygen.
"You…You really are a space disaster," he panted out, trying and mostly failing to calm the shaking of his body. There wasn't any real malice in his voice, he realised, just the incredulous amusement that was threatening to smother him. "Only you…Only you…" He shook his head, sucking in a deep breath. "I really shouldn't be surprised."
Zim let out a low growl in answer to those words. At first, the human's sudden reaction had startled him, since having the other laughing in his face was the last thing he had expected, perhaps wrongly, to witness. However, it hadn't taken him long to recover, the shock quickly being replaced by renewed hostility. How dared the foolish creature to mock him in such fashion, to insult the unique gift he was offering him? How stupid could Dib be? Maybe he should have truly stuck to build scheme to destroy his nemesis and not getting side-tracked by the fantasy of reaching a new stage in a bond that Dib, in his human limits, couldn't properly understand.
That latter consideration had filled his mouth with bitterness. The truth was that anger hadn't been the only emotion to struck him. There was something else stabbing his chest, a kind of hurt that was mostly foreign to him. He might have refused to consider the chance of being turned out, but he had also assumed, in the depth of his mind, that, if that unlikely option had happened, it wouldn't have mattered. Invaders needed no one, after all. But then why was he once again remembering the draining emptiness that had reigned over his days and inside of him that one time Dib had chosen to abandoned their rivalry to work with his father?
"Laugh while you still can, Dib-beast," he hissed, managing to cover with fury every trace of that deep, stinging ache. He wasn't going to show weakness, especially not now that he had been basically shot down. His skin was burning, most likely just as purple as it had been before, but now what was colouring was no longer uneasy embarrassment, but pure boiling humiliation. "Mark my words. Zim will make sure to turn your misplaced amusement into the worst pain that your big, empty head can imagine!"
He made to turn away, needing a moment to collect himself before he could go back spitting threats and venom, but an unexpected grip on his arm prevented him to move. His head whipped back in his nemesis's direction, the slightest hint of puzzlement touching his heated gaze, but he wasn't given the proper time to react because he found himself being suddenly pulled towards the seat.
"Come on, don't be touchy now. I called your worse," Dib pointed out, exploiting the alien's surprise to drag him closer. He didn't want to risk offering his rival the chance to lash out, because that would have surely turned out ugly for him. Besides, he hadn't really meant any harm with his laugh. Well, at least he hadn't meant as much harm as he usually did. "It's just…I know that I should be used to your…Uh, eccentricity by now, but you always manage to catch me off guard, space boy." He huffed out a breath, rolling his eyes a bit. "I can't tell if it's a good or a bad thing."
He cleared his throat, his fingers twitching around the Irken's elbow, as his expression sobered up under the other's squinting, still displeased glare. "I'm not going to apologise for having laughed in your face because…That explanation of yours was hilarious. The way you can misunderstand the simplest things…" He chose not to finish the sentence, deciding that it wasn't a good idea. No need to provoke the alien even more. He wasn't going to push his luck again, after his burst of hilarity. "But that doesn't mean that, uh, that I'm…rejecting the idea. Or you. It's…complicated? Especially if what you described is the only kind of stuff you associate with me being your…love-pig."
It was incredibly hard not to snort as he repeated the term, but he bit his tongue and did his best to stay serious. Or as much serious as one could be in a situation that was making their head spinning for far too many reasons. Turning it into a full-fledged fight wasn't an option, though, because it wouldn't have solved anything. He had to try his best hand at it and hope that his efforts would have brought him some results.
"That's not exactly what humans mean when they think about dating and romantic relationships," he resumed, slowly. He had no idea of how to go around the matter. He might have known a bit more than Zim did, but that didn't make him less clueless about how to deal with that plot twist. "I know that you have problems processing even just the concept of "friendship", so I can't even imagine how hard this might be for you, but…From what you said, it doesn't sound like you were describing an actual change in our relationship. So why giving it a…different status?"
The Invader bared his pinkish teeth, tugging at the hand that was holding him, but not hard enough to force Dib to release him. He wanted to let the human know that he wasn't appreciating the contact, but he would have left to him the decision of whether or not to have the common sense to back away. If he had to be honest, he was hoping that his nemesis would have chosen not to, because that way he would have had a pretext to stay close and hit him if the other had angered him again.
"How dare you to accuse me of not understanding, when you, foolish creature, are the one who keeps making the wrong assumptions!" He shot back, sounding and feeling slightly offended. His nemesis's words seemed to carry the implicit accusation that he had failed to grasp the basics of human mating rituals. The teen wasn't completely wrong on that, even if of course Zim would have denied it even under torture, but he wasn't completely right either. He was aware that there were other, odder…aspects to the whole ordeal, aspects that agreed less with his Irken mentality, but that he couldn't just ignore. Not to mention that he found it deeply insulting that Dib thought that he was that incompetent with doing his researches.
"Do you truly think that Zim would have gone through all these troubles just to give our rivalry a new name?" He went on, his voice turning slightly high-pitched. Deep down he was glad for the irritation that was coursing in his veins, because it was the only thing preventing his skin from flaring up as it had just a few minutes before. "That I would have…risked putting me in a position of disadvantage…and it has not happened, so don't you dare to assume otherwise…for no reason? I'm aware that you Earth monkeys have the most idiotic ideas, but, as you love to yell in everyone's faces, I'm not one of you. So, think again."
He pulled his arm again, harder this time, and he almost smirked when he felt Dib's grip loosening, but the spark of satisfaction didn't last because the human's fingers quickly tightened back, preventing him to break free. The alien's lips curled in a scowl and his magenta orbs raised to meet the teen's amber ones once again. There was a spark of heated determination in them, but also another kind emotion he couldn't identify, a much less steady and less hard one. His frown instantly deepened. Why was he having so many troubles reading his rival while the other seemed to be able to hit all the right spots, even unintentionally?
"You didn't answer my question," Dib finally stated, breaking the tense silence that had fallen back between them. "Not really. I mean, fine, you said that you have "reasons" to want to change…this thing." He vaguely gestured the space that separated them. "So, what are these reasons you're willingly to take risks for? Prove me that this isn't just another bunch of your nonsense."
Anyone could have agreed that provoking the being that was looking on the verge of turning him into a pile of dead, minced meat was hardly the best tactic, but he knew Zim well enough to be aware that such a approach was the only way to tear the truth out of his nemesis's throat. When he got worked up, the Irken had the bad habit, a blessing for Dib actually, to start ranting out everything he should have kept quiet about. Usually it was worth the risk because it meant finding out how to sabotage the Invader's mad plans for world domination, but in that moment what was pushing the human to act that recklessly was a completely different kind of motivation.
He swallowed slightly, forcing himself to keep his gaze on his rival's wary expression. He had felt the faintest spark of hope as the alien's outraged speech had rolled down on him and, against all common sense, he had chosen not to ignore it. He had never considered that his and Zim's relationship could have taken that particular turn, but he would have lied if he had claimed not to see the twisted logic behind it. As pathetic, and deeply unhealthy too, as it might have sounded, the harsh reality of facts was that he didn't have anyone in his life. Anyone but his absent father, his antisocial sister and that space dumbass who was his arch enemy and, at the very same time, the closest thing to a friend he had ever had.
As his tongue briefly brushed them, he realised that his lips were awfully dry, just as his throat was slowly becoming. The miserable state of his social life wasn't even the worst part, though. In all honesty, it was also to be said that his bond with the Irken didn't stop there, to an almost friendship that both refused to be and couldn't help existing. He had become obsessed with the alien since day one, a feeling that had become mutual in no time, and, not much after, it had begun to morph into something else. That one time had been enough to prove to them both how deep their co-dependency bad become. He had been forced to acknowledge how utterly empty and mostly meaningless his life was without the Invader disturbing and challenging him and Zim himself had been pushed to realise how quickly his precious mission could lose value and appeal without the one thing that kept it motivating and interesting. Namely, Dib himself. All that considered, was the idea of them falling even deeper into each other really as absurd as he had initially thought? Was it so irrational to think that they might have come to the point of longing for it to happen?
"I should have you swallowing back what you just said and choking on your idiotic words," Zim hissed out, cutting through the human's tormented thoughts. His tone was aggressive, but in truth he was feeling as disturbed as his rival and his efforts to hide were failing more and more as the seconds pass. His magenta orbs were avoiding his speaker once again, looking almost haunted, and the purple hue was slowly blossoming back on his skin, not as deep as it had been, almost as if it too was too wary to fully show itself.
"However that would…not fit my amazing scheme," he finished, reluctance colouring his voice as his shoulders tensed even more, destroying yet again the small attempt he made at conveying a confidence he wasn't currently feeling. "So listen carefully, worm child, because Zim will not repeat himself."
He paused, trying to tell himself that it was to let his threat sink in better, but the truth was that he had no real idea of where to start from. Perhaps he should have planned the whole situation a bit more carefully, instead of assuming that, after his declaration, everything would have naturally slipped into place. That was an expectation he often had and that, for some obscure reason he had yet to figure out, always failed to become a reality. Someone had to be fault, but it couldn't be him, since his logic and brilliant abilities were flawless. For the most, at least.
He shook his head slightly, clicking his tongue against his teeth, as to bring himself back to focus on his current issue. His antennae raised slightly, swaying nervously for a few moments before falling backwards once again. "What I said about the reasons why you are the only barely decent and possible choice for me still stand. But," he raised a finger to underline that single syllable, "they aren't the only ones. While it is true that you are for the most an incredibly annoying…quill in Zim's superior neck, you have also proven yourself to be an almost satisfying adversary. For a human being, at least."
The more he spoke, the more he felt like he was the one choking on his words, his pride and instinct rebelling, horrified by the fact that he was low-key complimenting the being he should have hated more than anything else in the whole universe. And whom he did hate, more strongly than he had ever despised anyone, so much that it couldn't be just hatred anymore. No one had ever got so deeply under skin, so far past his well-groomed defences. Just as he had never allowed himself to get so close, so…dependant on anyone. It almost felt wrong, out of place, and it was more terrifying than he cared to admit. And yet there he was, him, a proud soldier of the Empire, feeling more vulnerable than ever and hoping to get something he shouldn't have even desired from the inferior being he had to blame for all his recent failures.
"Not to mention that…you can be useful, at times." He almost tripped on his own voice as he coaxed himself to go on speaking, his throat threatening to close. However, he fought back the discomfort, refusing to give up. "Of course, none of our temporary alliances would have worked out if it hadn't been for my amazingness, but…Zim is feeling magnanimous enough to concede that you have some…merits, if that is the right word to describe, that should be recognised. Once in a lifetime and never again."
For the umpteenth time that night, he felt his traitorous body betraying him, all his uneasiness and embarrassment going to deepen the purple heat on his face. "What I am trying to say, Dib-thing, just to spell it out in a way that even your simple mind can't misunderstand, is that I have decided to let us share another…alternative shade of our relationship." He frowned slightly, doing his best to look threatening despite the blush he couldn't seem to get rid of. "And mind my words. What Zim is offering is a unique privilege. I will not force you to accept it and I certantly don't expect your inferior human mind to understand the real honour of it, but know that a refusal will be your loss. Yours and yours only. And such a chance will never again touch your pitiful existence. So, choose your next words carefully, Dib. Also because it would take me nothing to tie you up again and not untie you for a very long time."
The shadow of a smirk touched his lips as he spoke the threat, even if it gained him just an eyeroll from his rival. He didn't really care if the human believed those last words of his or not. He had spoken them mostly for his own sake, more than for Dib's. They were an attempt, a not so effective, not to think about the lie that had preceded them. Yes, he truly believed that his nemesis would have thrown away the amazing chance to have something no one else had ever had, but it wasn't true that the teen would have been the only one to lose something if he had turned it down. After all, he was the one who had put his head on the line and he would have been the one forced to deal with the ugly consequences of a rejection, while his enemy would have been gifted with yet another precious advantage he could have used against him in their war.
He clenched his jaw tightly, the tension in his body raising to the point of becoming painful for efforts of keeping his expression blank. He would have liked to look smug and challenging, but he had quickly been forced to internally admit that there was no way for him to paint those emotions on his face at the moment. However, that didn't mean that he would have allowed his true feelings to touch his gaze either, if he could have helped it.
When the alien had basically told him to shut up and listen, Dib had been tempted to interrupt him just out of spite. It was how it had always worked between them, since the very start of their rivalry. For once, though, he had bit his tongue and kept quiet, shoving down that petty, childish impulse, just as he had ignored the death threat that had preceded the order. And, as per usual, disregarding the second had been much easier than holding back the first. Another clear exemplification of what had become of his life and priorities.
Sour amusement had flooded inside him at that consideration and he would have grinned, just as bitterly, if he hadn't been afraid, not without a good reason, that the Irken could have taken it as yet another attack to his person. Zim's paranoia seemed to know no limits. He had met quite a few conspiracy theorists during his unofficial career as a paranormal investigator and the Invader was a thousand times worse than them all put together.
That trail of thoughts, though, hadn't lingered for long. Soon his mind had been redirected back to the present by the Irken's words, but not for the reasons he had expected. He still hadn't been able to stop himself from mentally grumbling about what a hypocrite his rival was, considering that Zim always complained, and loudly, that he spoke too much. And yet there the alien was, ranting his ears off with a speech that would have been impossible to understand if he hadn't already been so used to his nemesis's perverse speech patterns. However, no huff or eyeroll came from him. He couldn't even feel annoyed about it, no matter if he wanted to and if he would have normally been, because the implications of the other's words sank in, too fast and too hard, before he had a chance to consider a reaction.
For a few, long moments, all he could do was staring, taking in the words that were being spelled in the air around him. His head had quickly become dazed, as if he had suddenly found him thrown inside some crazy Wonderland-styled dream. His mortal enemy was complimenting him. Validating him. Giving voice to facts they both had been careful to never openly acknowledge. And he was offering him the last thing he would have ever expected to hear from the alien. The last thing he would have ever thought of getting, from anyone.
His breath caught in his throat, his chest constricting. All he had come to anticipate to get from others were scorn, distrust, disbelief, hatred and pain, both physical and emotional. And Zim hadn't been an exception in that sense, quite the contrary. He had lost the count of the times his ribs had been bruised by the Invader and he had a whole galaxy of stars marked on his skin by Zim's hand. And yet, somehow, there had also always been something special in the one-minded focus that characterised the Irken's hate for him, something that had always made him feel special. Seen. Accepted. Understood. And now, if it wasn't a trick, which he strongly doubted considering that everything in his nemesis, from the reluctance in his expression, to the flush on his cheeks, to the extreme tension of his posture, screamed unwilling sincerity, if it wasn't just an incredibly realistic delusion he was experiencing, he might have got the other side of that something too. The bright light in the endless darkness, the rare softness in the stinging harshness, the warmth of a star in the cold void of space.
The knot in his chest melted away, as abruptly as it had formed, and he found that he could properly breathe again. The oxygen rushing in his lungs had never felt so good, just as did the unexpected relief that flooded his whole body, bubbling under his skin with an emotion that was terrifyingly similar to happiness.
"Now, I'd really be a fool if I turned such a good offer down, wouldn't I?" He managed to say, feeling his cheeks heating up as his voice shook, overwhelmed by that sudden wave of giddiness. "Not even my "big" head is that dumb, don't you agree?"
He pulled Zim's arm again, mostly to give himself something to do before he could start to babble nonsense like an idiot, dragging the Irken even closer to him. A chuckle escaped his lips when his rival let out a hiss of protest and his amber eyes sparkled with soft hilarity, showing that he wasn't worried at all about the reaction he had gained. The alien could play tough as much as he wanted, but now he knew exactly that he wasn't as annoyed as he tried to appear.
He marvelled a bit at how light the Invader was, especially compared to how easily Zim could shove him around during their fights, even now that Dib was over a foot taller than him. He would have expected at least twice the weight that ended up on his thighs as he unceremoniously lifted the Irken and shoved it in his lap. However, the lack of pressure was entirely made up by how solid and warm Zim felt against him as he, carefully, wrapped his arms around the other's thin middle. It would have been unwise for him to assume that his nemesis wouldn't have tried to hurt him for having manhandled him just because they were sort of together now. His breath almost hitched again. Together. On Valentine's day. The whole idea was at the same time so clichéd and impossible that was making his head ache a bit.
"What do you think you're doing, stinky beast?!" Zim screeched, caught off guard as the floor suddenly disappeared from under his feet. He let out an irritated growl, not liking how easily he had been moved around and placed exactly where Dib wanted him, but he didn't struggle to get away. At least, not hard enough to truly force the human to let him go. "I might have gifted you this wonderful opportunity, but this doesn't mean that I will put up with being treated like one of the members of your inferior species!" He elbowed the teen in the ribs, as to underline his point, but at the same time he leant into his nemesis's chest, shifting to get more comfortable in his new spot and making it clear that, in spite of everything, he wasn't going to leave it any time soon. "There will be rules! Don't fool yourself into thinking that I will go easy on you."
"I don't expect anything less from you, space boy," Dib shot back, his voice openly playful for the first time in ages. Then he closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. He could already feel his guard dropping, almost as if his mind had been craving for the chance to be allowed to feel vulnerable and yet safe in someone's presence. It still seemed like a dangerous choice, considering that said someone was Zim, but his emotional side had clearly stopped responding to his read. "Don't take me wrong. I…I can even start saying how glad I am that you had this…crazy idea, but…Damn. How are we even going to make this work? You want to conquer my planet, the one I've sworn to defend, and turned it into a dump or a huge factory or whatever. And we're supposed to be…enemies."
This time it was Zim to roll his eyes, right before he shifted again, turning to be able to face the teen, his legs hanging between the armrest of the seat and his rival's thigh. "This is exactly why I am your future overlord and you will eventually lose our war," he claimed, in an almost theatrical manner. Then his eyes narrowed, determination colouring their magenta surface, and he gripped at human's chin firmly. "Zim will figure it out for you. Do you trust me to do it, Dib?"
Dib opened his mouth, but for a moment nothing came out. He should have been terrified, even mad at himself for having let that, whatever it was, happen. If he had been sound of mind he would have turned down that madness, no matter what his personal feelings were, but instead the thought hadn't crossed his mind when he had realised what he was being offered. And even now that it had, the one he had taken still didn't seem the wrong choice, against any common sense. Just it didn't feel wrong to choose to trust a being that had known almost nothing but war, blood and violence to make something so delicate and unique to work out. He truly had to have lost his mind. And yet, in spite of everything, his lips curled in a small grin as his answer slipped out of his mouth as a quiet whisper. "Yeah, I guess I do, Zim."
The Invader's expression turned extremely satisfied at the reply, which was clearly what he had wanted to hear, but the teen could have sworn that he had seen him smiling for a moment, bright and sincerely and almost softly. However, he didn't have the chance to confirm what he had just witnessed because, out of the blue, the quiet atmosphere of the cockpit was disrupted by an overexcited, far too loud yell.
"Huuuuuuuug!"
And before any of them could do or say anything, GIR came out of nowhere and somehow managed to plaster himself on both their faces. There was something leaking out of his mouth, something that smelt sickeningly sweet, but Dib decided that it couldn't be anything too harmful seeing that Zim was just annoyed by the overenthusiastic interruption and not alarmed in any way by the substance dripping on the sleeve of his uniform.
"GIR!" The Irken exclaimed, trying and mostly failing to push the SIR Unit off them. "I told you to wait till I had called for you! Or have you forgotten?! We had a plan! You had a role!"
"Awww but maaaaaster!" The robot whined, his mouth curling down before he started to giggle and hugged them ever more tightly. "I wanted to be in the huggy thingie! Mary is part of the family now! Ask Minimoose!"
"Nyah!" Came the ready answer from somewhere behind them.
"I really need to have a word with you both," the Irken grumbled under his breath as GIR finally released them and stop threatening to smother them to death. However, he didn't feel as irritated as he had thought he would have been. There was an odd warmth in his chest, the same that had replaced the tension and the uncertainty that had been eating him from the inside until Dib had accepted his offer, and it made everything much easier to bear, even the things that would have normally irked him.
"Let them be," the human chuckled, turning to shoot a look at the smaller robot. There was a heart-shaped box of chocolates hanging from his neck, bright red wrapping paper and golden ribbon and all. And, from the look of it, it had to be an expensive one too. And not to mention the rose that was gracefully tied to the front of it.
Shaking his head, he turned to glance back at Zim, lips twitching upwards. "You really thought of everything, didn't you?" He teased, even if deep down he felt incredibly flattered. Usually his nemesis was extremely messy with his researches, because he almost never cared to go enough in-depth with them. The fact that he had, for that occasion, showed how much attention and energies he had to have put in that scheme of his. No one had ever spent so much time, efforts and will on him before. "And I guess those are my "welcome to the family" gifts?"
The Invader shot him a dirty look. The human thought that he could be so smug and get away with it just because they had updated the status of their relationship? He was so, so wrong and he would have proven it to him very soon. Not in that moment, though, also because, even if he would have never admitted it, the grin that was lighting up Dib's eyes made his spooch twirl in a weirdly pleasant manner.
"Of course I did! I am an Irken Invader, I am ZIM! I always think my plans through!" He affirmed and stabbed the teen in the ribs with a finger to make sure that he wouldn't have tried to contradict him. Then he turned his head away, the purple hue coming back to his cheeks. "But Zim is glad that you liked what I arranged for us. Not that I had doubts. I worked on it, after all." He saw Dib opening his mouth with the corner of his eyes, most likely spit out either some more gentle mocking or some stupid human romantic thing, and so he reached out to grab Minimoose, once again hell-bent on taking away from him nemesis the chance to talk back. Whichever of the two the other had been about to say, he didn't want to hear them. His face was already too hot for his liking. "Now, stuff your face with these and let us enjoy some Dib-voice free silence."
Dib huffed, catching the chocolates that had been almost shoved in his face, careful not to damage the flower. "Hey, should I remind you that you did most of the talking?" He pointed out, but he raised the hand with the box in a pacifying gesture when he saw the Irken's antennae shooting up in building annoyance. His other arm tightened a bit around Zim's waist. "But fine, I'll be quiet and stuff my face."
"Can I stuff me too?" GIR stepped in, clearly excited at the prospect of ingesting more sugar. "Pretty pleeeeeeease?"
Zim hissed at how high-pitched the last had been and opened his mouth to point out that the robot had already ingested a literal ton of cotton candy before they had gone to kidnap the teen, but his SIR Unit had decided that he didn't care for an answer and had thrown himself at Dib, trying to rip the paper away from the box the latter had started to carefully unwrap. The human was forced to let the Invader go, not without reluctance. An extra end was very necessarily needed to deal with the far too cheerful robot and that didn't give him many alternatives. As for the alien, while could help feeling disappointed by the loss of warm, he found himself thinking that he was glad that, for once, he wasn't the only one to suffer for GIR's shenanigans. A smirk curled his thin lips. Maybe he should have let Dib handle them more often. It was quite amusing to watch.
"Nyah?" Minimoose's voice called from next to his head.
Zim glanced at his side, a pensive expression touching his face, before he nodded. "Yes, yes. GIR wasn't so wrong about the…" He shot a look at his nemesis to make sure that he was still too busy to listen to him. "About the family thing. But don't tell the foolish beast. It would get to his head."
The small robot seemed to snicker for a moment at the recommendation and then inclined himself on one side. "Nyah?"
The alien's antennae fell backward slightly, defensively. "Didn't you hear what I say before?" He muttered out, tensing slightly. "I will figure it out. And yes, I am aware that it won't be easy, but…"
His voice trailed off as his magenta orbs moved to watch Dib, who had apparently given up on resisting GIR's demands and had started to feed the robot some of the contents of the box, even if he didn't look very happy about having to share. Zim's shoulders relaxed once again and the smug grin came back, with an added, more honest hue.
"But I never fail my task, no matter what it might entail," he finished, his fingers curling around the teen's knee. The latter turned to shoot him the briefest look, flashing him a small exasperated grin before focusing back on trying to prevent the SIR Unit from eating everything, box and rose included. The Invader huffed out a breath and nudged gently Minimoose. "And, whatever it will take, it will be worth it. Zim has no doubts on that."
╔ IZ ╗
"Whaaa? That's it?" Liz exclaimed, incredulous and a bit disappointed. In her lap, GIR giggled around the waffle he was consuming, even if it was hard to tell if he was laughing at her reaction or at whatever thought might have touched his contorted mind. "I always thought that you two had like…got together after some awful battle with the Resisty or something! That's…so lame!"
"Oh, come on. It's not lame. It's just not…as epic as you chose to picture it," Dib tried to correct, but he found himself rubbing the back of his head in slight embarrassment under the skeptical gaze of his ten-years-old daughter. "Not everything happens like in the movies Skoodge and I have shown you. Real life is a bit more…boring at times. Even if that's hardly the word I'd use to describe ours, don't you agree, Liz?"
"You aren't helping our case, Dib-thing," Zim claimed unhelpfully from where he was resting his arms on the human's shoulders, chin digging in his hair. He particularly liked that position, because when his nemesis was seated he was the taller one and he always liked to enjoy it as much as possible. "And I told you that showing her that human garbage wasn't a good idea."
"Oh, because taking her to that weird "amusement park", if we can even call it like that, and offering her to vivisect aliens was a good idea?!" Dib shot back, trying to turn to face the Irken, but the latter pushed him down, preventing him from standing up. He really hated how strong the former Invader was, much more than anyone would have expected, considering his thin frame and not so marked height. "What kind of education do you want her to have?"
"She's half Irken, stinky beast!" Zim readily shot back, sounding like that was enough to explain everything. And, in his eyes, it did. He couldn't have cared less about the fact that his mate didn't agree at all.
That, not unexpectedly, caused Dib to throw his hands in the air. "And she is half human, you space monster! So what?! Why should I allow you to teach her your awful alien stuff if you don't let me show her the good parts of human culture? We already live in a war zone! Isn't that "educationally Irken" enough for you?"
"There they go again," Liz muttered under her breath, picking up GIR and what was left of the waffles and heading for the door of the room. She would have gone to look for Uncle Skoodge, because anything was better than watching her parents putting up what she had far too soon understood being their weird kind of foreplay.
She made a face at the thought. "They're disgusting, aren't they?" She commented, rolling her eyes as she stepped in the corridor.
"They are in luuuurve!" GIR corrected, dragging the last word for a few seconds and spitting out small pieces of waffles in the process.
The young girl looked at him unimpressed for a moment and then grimace again. "Meh. Same thing. Still gross."
With a shrug, she chose to abandon those thoughts and kept on carrying the gurgling SIR Unit. If she had to be honest, which she wasn't too often, she wasn't that grossed out by her parents' weird habits. The life they lived was anything but easy, always on the verge of war, with a bounty hanging on their heads. A conspicuous one too, especially Zim's. The Tallest hadn't been happy about having a Defective standing up against them and actually managing to achieve some important victories against the same Empire that should have easily been able to annihilate him.
She turned her head on one side, large amber orbs scanning the landscape set just a few metres away from her. The large glass wall of the promenade of the space station clearly showed the light of the constellations, their stars so similar and yet so different from the ones she had been born, or rather, created under. She really missed Earth, despite having just very few memories of it, and she dreamt of going back, even if she knew that it would have taken quite some time before the chance to travel back would have presented itself.
She bit back a deep sigh. Her parents had been quite blunt in explaining the situation, not trying to sugarcoat it too much, even if Dib had tried to make it easier to digest. They had to stay away, because otherwise it would have meant bringing the war to that side of the galaxy too, putting at risk what had quickly become a safe heaven of some sort for the civilians and the refugees who had fled there from within the territories of the Empire. That was something they couldn't afford, not when those people had nowhere else to go to stay under the Irken radar. She understood and she was ready to wait for the right time, even if from time to time homesickness made her sad.
"Want more waffles, GIR?" She asked, moving her gaze away from the depths of space and speeding up her steps once again. One day, and that day would have surely come, the war would have ended and she would have gone back. After all, her birth was already the proof that miracles existed, especially considering whom her parents were and what they had been for each other before becoming what they were now. There was no reason to believe that another miracle couldn't happen in the foreseeable future.
This was written for a Valentine's Day exchange for the amazing CatsandAnxiety/kittykathalo! Please, check out her works on both Tumblr (kittykathalo) and on Instagram (catsandanxiety). Her art is a blessing for the eyes and the soul!. Also, Liz it's her ZaDr smeet and she has a very cute/fun blog for her! I recommend to check it out (lizthesmeet on Tumblr).
I hope you guys enjoyed it! Happy late V-day, if you celebrate it ^^ (I personally don't)
Questions and comments are welcome and encouraged! Feedback is gold for inspiration!