Days were no longer days, but weeks and weeks felt like months. The cliché idea that time seemed to slow down when you were waiting for something seemed to be true. It dragged by at first. As every second expanded itself to a million times more than it was supposed to be.
And Zim watched. He waited. Ruby red eyes dulled, the longer he stood and no response came from the large chamber that held the human boy. He'd figured all Dib needed was time to heal, to recover from such an incident. He had lost a lot of blood after all; the puddle that had surrounded the Dib was way bigger than any Zim had ever seen.
The weeks passed and the pale skin healed itself (with the help of the vitamins in the chamber) to smooth baby pink flesh. All the bruises had long since dispersed and according to the scans he'd done, the boy's ribs were done healing.
Yet, the Dib didn't wake.
6 months. It had been six months since the accident had left the boy unconscious and still he hadn't moved since. Horrible ideas swam through Zim's mind…what if the teenager was brain dead?
A quick scan said there were no hidden bleedings. No, mistake in his calculations. Why wasn't Dib awake? Where there had been arrogance and confidence in his own abilities, was beginning to slowly be replaced with panic.
Another week went by but, it was just another one where his human didn't stir.
Test tubes went soaring through the air to land in a terrible crash on the opposite side of the room, sizzling. Several hunks of metal followed. Zim growled, claws curling in on themselves in frustration.
"Wake up!" He shouted, kicking a trash bin that was sitting harmlessly in his way. It sailed to somewhere in the crooks of his lab, the objects inside scattering.
"WAKE UP!" His next target was the tube. A whole arsenal of clippers and tweezers and scissors banged against the tank, never making a crack in the glass but the sounds themselves sounded destructive. The noise was awful, causing Zim's antenna to twitch.
"You idiot! GET UP! MOVE! OPEN YOUR EYES!"
Dib was blank.
A noise was torn from the irken's throat. High, keening and lost in the depths of his lab. It had finally made itself known; the doubt, the fear. He'd felt the same nearly a year ago, on that hill before walking straight into the earth stink's arms. Only then it had been peppered with an underlying nervousness, anticipation, and warm twisty feelings that still made him confused.
This was…this was cold. Zim stormed over to the chamber that held his human and banged on the glass. "Dib! Zim commands you to awaken!" Nothing. "DIB! Wake up! MOVE, DO SOMETHING!" The barrier between them shook with the force of his rage, ruby eyes wide and slightly crazed. "Wake up, wake up, move." He chanted, begging, voice falling slowly from anger to hopelessness.
"Dib…"
Nothing. As he was used to. As it had been for many months. Nothing but, the sure, steady beating of Dib's vitals answered the irken. He slipped slowly to the floor, forehead against the glass. "Please…move…"
/000/
Snow dripped from their sopping clothes as they ran into the building, leaving dirty, wet footprints behind them on the linoleum. Dib was giggling rather madly, in Zim's opinion, pulling said irken along behind him.
"Slow down, Earth-Stink, we'll slip!" He complained, nearly doing so before righting himself to rush after his eh, ally.
The human acted as if his ears were clogged, which they probably were, completely ignoring the irken's concerns in favor of skidding through a large group of stiff scientists who glared at the boss's crazy kid and his green skinned foreign friend. Zim realized they were leaving a dirty water trail behind them. Eww.
Dib's grip tightened as they turned a corner, nearly ramming into a wall. The irken kept up easy enough, but his legs were smaller and he was taking two steps for Dib's every one."Are you," Pant. "Listening to me, Monkey?"
The human looked behind his shoulder for a half a second, a manic grin on his face. "No, not really. Why?"
"Where are you taking Zim?" Their feet made annoying squeaking noises on the clean floor, assuring that the next person to walk over it would slip and fall. Dib suddenly slammed to a stop in front of a locked door, sending Zim spiraling unceremoniously to the floor.
He lay face down on the linoleum for a moment, huffing dust away from his face; how had he gotten here again?
Dib's stifled laughter reached his covered antenna. "Sorry. Kinda." Another round of soft chuckles, not so stifled anymore.
Oh yes. There it was. "Get me up off this stupid floor, Dib-idiot." A hand grabbed his and yanked Zim to his feet. The irken was left facing a very smug human. And Zim wanted to be so pissed. He was. But, he was also just plain exasperated.
He'd come to expect this kind of stuff from the Dib and by stuff he meant smiling and laughing and running around like a moron and the strange touches that weren't threatening anymore but soothing.
Zim finally looked at the door they were standing outside of. It had a key card swipe and a DNA scan. "How do you expect to get in there?"
Dib just smiled and held up a laminated rectangle of plastic. The invader snatched it away and stared at the card of some scientist named Johnson, Lloyd.
"Eh?" He asked confused. "When did you get this?" The stinky human grabbed it back, letting their fingers touch for a few seconds before interesting it into the slot.
"When we ran through the scientists back there." Zim hated to admit it but that was…smooth.
He sniffed indignantly. "Well what about the DNA?" Dib, in response, plucked a strand of hair from his head and let the red light scan it. The door made a beeping sound before it whooshed open.
"I'm a clone remember?" Dib asked in his best doofus impersonation before striding in like he owned the place. Zim scowled and mimicked the earthian.
"Mime ma clone wemembe—" Dib reached out and yanked the irken inside just before the door shut with a warning beep. Zim stumbled and glared, fixing his wig atop his head. The entire room was well, in a word, huge. Well lit and white. It was large enough to hold several yellow containers, biohazard-ly marked, filled with Irk only knew what. And at the far end what appeared to be an observing window. A Typical earth lab.
"This is um," Zim waved a hand about, searching for the correct word. "rather pathetic. But, why are we here, Dib-Brain?" No response. Zim tapped a foot. "Dib-brain?" He turned on his heel and nearly stumbled backwards, his spooch beating too hard. The Dib was doing that thing again. Where he got all close and heavy lidded, eyes filled with something hot.
"Because you were shivering and we're soaked to the bone and I wanted to be alone with you. And my dad's lab was close. And I know this room is always deserted." Dib pulled off one of his own black gloves and let it fall the floor. Then the other.
The boy's skin was pinked and slightly wrinkly. Gross, Zim thought, but he didn't feel that disgusted which was a fact that he ignored.
"You're doing it again." Zim said, one eye narrowed, the other comically huge.
"I am?" The other asked, removing Zim's hat and wig where they landed with a splat sound on the floor. Zim was kind of glad to be rid of the offending items. Dib then unwound the alien's pink scarf where it joined the other items.
"Yes. The weird thing. With the low voice and dark eyes." The irken stood rather stiffly, just watching what the Dib did. The human stripped them both down to their first layers which were blessedly dry.
"I am, am I?" Yep. That husky voice and...and the darkening of the golden irises, to where Zim could hardly distinguish between the iris and the pupil, but they shone with the golden specks.
"Yes." Zim hissed, brow furrowed, hating how his squeedely spooch was speeding up. How it was suddenly harder to swallow than it had been a few minutes ago. How his skin was too tight and hot where he'd just been too cold. "Stop it." But, even to his antenna it was weak sounding.
Dib, to his credit, laid their foreheads together but did nothing else. "Do you really want me to stop?" Five fingers ran up and down Zim's arms, trying to warm him up with friction. "You know I will if you want me to." That had happened a few times. Near the beginning.
Oh. Irk. Stupid monkey brain with his annoying voice and amazingly warm hands. How could they be that hot? Hadn't they both been out in the snow? His disguised eyes were focused down at the hands that kept going up and down, up and down his uniform covered arms.
He could feel the boy's eyes on him, burrowing into him. Finally Zim met them. And they were close. Too close. He should step away. Away. STEP AWAY.
Zim shuffled closer, hating both of them. Well more Dib than himself. But, that wasn't new. Dib had obviously been expecting this response; after all this wasn't the first time they'd done this. And it was the same nearly every time. Only it never got old.
The human hummed low in the back of his throat, pleased as he wrapped Zim in his arms, bring their bodies together. Zim stubbornly bit down on his lip to stop a sigh; oh blessed heat. Dib's right hand moved behind the alien's neck, tilting his head up the six and a half inches it took for their lips to be at the same height.
When they met for the 25th time (Zim kept count), it wasn't new by any means but, the irken still felt that tingle in his lips, the feeling of taboo, shortness of breath.
There must be something wrong with this. It had to be against the law somewhere in the universe to feel like this. This on edge, this good, this wrapped up in an action.
Dib sighed into the kiss, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile. He slowly guided the irken who was still getting used to the whole custom. Only the last ten or so times had Zim actually started to respond. Before then he'd been content to let Dib kiss him; a peck here and there. But, nothing more.
The human boy nibbled on the alien's bottom lip which made any lasting tension in his body disappear. Zim tentatively responded, placing a small peck on Dib's top lip. His brows furrowed, taking this seriously. This was a earthian custom he was determined to become amazing at. The human smiled softly again, his fingers glancing across the base of an antenna. Zim shuddered, pressing back harder. Dib let his tongue swipe softly across his companion's bottom lip.
The irken's breath hitched up into his throat before mirrored the action with his own long, serpentine tongue. Dib made a noise then that made his antenna perk in confusion and curiosity. It sounded…satisfied. Good. The stupid boy shoul-shoul oh. Heat exploded in his center, dripping down to his toes and crawling up into his cheeks.
Zim dug his nails into Dib's back making a startled yelp escape him, which the alien absorbed into his own mouth.
Then it was kind of a blur from there; he's lifted onto his toes, pressed against the human, their mouths devouring each other, taking in each other's air and flavor. It's all tounge and teeth. And Zim is all feeling. He's overwhelmed with it. Destroyed and dissolved in the sensations of kissing the boy he'd once considered his enemy.
This was what the Academy had drilled out of us from hatching. This forbidden heat. He thinks distantly. And Zim is greedy for every drop of ecstasy he gleans. The human has him in his grip, pressing them against something solid. It's cold against the warmth of this.
There's faint clicking, and then a loud buzz.
Next they're falling and even though this is a memory, a dream that is on replay, Zim knows what happens next; their bodies go cold from the floor, then the loud whirling, the buzzing. It's so high pitched it makes his antenna try to hide themselves against his scalp.
Dib is panting, clutching his hands to his ears. Numbers. "10…9…8…7…" Golden eyes are flickering as they both try to understand what is happening. What had they done? Then the Irken sees the exact moment that the Dib comes to his conclusion because his face is transformed; from confusion and concentration to fear. Pure terror.
And Zim knows instinctively that Dib isn't scared for himself. "3…2…" The deep neutral voice says.
"Zim!" The human cries, reaching for him, throwing himself, as if that will help save them both, as if Zim needs his help. Foolish. Panic. The beeping. The rumble of chemicals and matter. This is a sealed off zone and they should've known. How pathetic.
His lips form the boys name, even though he knows it's stupid to do so. "DIB!" Why? Why is he reaching, jumping, hoping…wrapping the stupid human in his arms…
There's the inevitable blast that turns the air white, makes Zim's mind black.