The minutes passed by in a slow, slow crawl and Dib knew what he wanted. He needed to save his people. And there was no way in hell that he was changing his mind. He knew that Zim had betrayed him but, the alien was an idiot and had not been thinking. It wasn't the first time his idiocy had gotten them in trouble.
This might be the last time. By all means, this was not over. The pain of being betrayed went to his very bones. And tomorrow, for a long, long time, he would carry that with him. But for now…
With a sigh, he turned over, the blankets and fabrics sliding around his legs. Dib reached out and touched Zim's stomach, sliding upwards, chest and neck till he touched his face, cupping the Irken's cheek meaningfully.
Zim hadn't been asleep, but he had let his mind wander into the far corner of his consciousness. When he felt those familiar hands trailing up his person, he jolted, his mind reeling back into place with a sharp intake of air. When his hand rested on his cheek, Zim's eyes fluttered shut, and he felt himself relax under the warmth of the human's gentle caress. Had he fallen asleep, after all? Was this a dream? He turned his head, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at his partner, wanting a sense of clarification.
Dib breathed calmly, scooting closer until they were only inches away rather than feet and his thumb stroked Zim's cheekbone, sweeping under his eye before he whispered. "Whatever happens, happens. But, I…we are one and I love you."
Zim rolled to his side so that he could press their upper halves together. His arms hooking under Dib's in a greedy grasp, Zim didn't care if he was pushing it too soon after what had happened. Dib was back to him, it seemed like, and Zim refused to let him go again. His head nestled into his chest, listening for that heartbeat that had lulled him to sleep countless times before.
"What am I going to do when you're gone?" He whispered into the fabric of Dib's shirt, his antennae pressed flat to his head, and his fingers burying themselves in the human's clothes. His voice was strained, and he hated himself for how weak he sounded.
Dib swallowed and shook his head, wrapping his arms fully around the Irken, pulling them as close together as possible, intertwining their legs. "I-I don't know…you lived before me. You can live after me." He nuzzled his lips against the side of Zim's head, trailing small kisses along antenna and forehead.
Zim shook his head, lifting head to face Dib, peering into his tired eyes. He brought his hands up over the boy's shoulder blades, trailing the groove of his spine up to the base of his neck. Everything was so warm, how did he not realize how cold he was earlier? He made contact with the fine hair that lay behind his ears, petting and stroking softly as he gladly received the kisses bestowed upon him.
"It's not that simple." He protested in a breathy whisper.
"Heh." Dib breathed shakily, lifting the alien's chin and pressing a needy kiss against his lips before pulling away by a millimeter. "I wish it was. I wish…" For a billion things. Things that made no difference because it was no use. "I don't know, Zim…break in and erase me…" He knew it was a stupid suggestion. Knew it was impossible. He pressed their foreheads together.
"I would still bare your name on my shoulder." Zim reminded, giving a humorless chuckle. He sighed and planted a soft kiss on Dib's chin before trailing his lips across his jaw, taking in the feel of the human's warm skin. "This isn't enough." He protested after a while. "I was promised eighty years, at least."
Dib's throat clenched, his chest tightened and the tears wanted to squeeze from his eyes but, he couldn't let them. He couldn't go to pieces again. Not now. Or he would never pick himself up again. "I know…I'm sorry." He grabbed Zim's hands and twined their finger tips together, capturing the Irken's lips again, kissing him desperately, biting, licking, wanting everything, everything they were and what they might've been. He could picture it easily too.
Spending the rest of his life in space with Zim. They would travel all over the Universe. See everything they could. Maybe find a planet one day that was habitable. Small. But, beautiful and call it home. They would spend the days laughing, sitting in silence because they already knew everything that needed to be said. There were no worries.
Nothing but the stars and late nights, staying up and just tracing their marks made for each other. Kisses and sex. Would they live forever or die in a fiery explosion? Would it be adventure or just being together? Either one would be okay. Because it would be them, together. In their odd form.
How cruel. How cruel was fate to have thrown them together? It seemed too perfect. To begin with his humanity and Zim being an Irken, only to work together, to create animosity. To bind them by blood and technology. And have him fall in love along the way. It was as though despite the distance, despite the one in a million chance, Zim had found him. It was like if it hadn't happened this way, it would've happened in some other way and in a thousand other universes it happened.
A part of his heart carved out and replaced with part of Zim's. Fitting each other in such an odd way. Like three fingers inside of five. Like laughing together in an alley way, on some alien planet. Like different kinds of eyes colliding and just…feeling something off about this strange new being before him.
Dib whimpered and fought to breathe, releasing Zim's hands to begin shucking their clothing, caressing jade skin that glimmered with a thousand stars. Opening his eyes to see into twin nebulae that darkened with purpose and desire.
Zim smiled a bit at the familiar vulnerability they shared, closing the gap between their bodies now that they were unclothed. His hands trailed over every nook and cranny of the boy's skin, stopping to trace the makings on his shoulder. It had healed nicely, just as Zim predicted it would. Zim's name stared back at him in Dib's skin, reminding anybody who the human belongs to. He leaned in close and kissed the scars, following the lines with his lips until they lead him to his collar bone. No matter what happened in the near future, Dib was his, just as he was Dib's. They belonged together and no distance or war could ever change that. He looked up at Dib, gazing into those darkening golden orbs and felt his own fall heavy-lidded.
So despite the looming danger, the goodbye that would happen whether they wanted it to or not, Dib let himself go, pulling his mate to him and abandoning the worries, losing himself in the feel of desperate kisses, sweat dripping, pants in his ears and claws in his skin. Dib had felt so cold, he'd been frozen and the ice was melting with each second. He pressed his lips to the alien's own scars, relearned again and again each crevice and edge to Zim's body.
"I love you…" He murmured, the buzzing in his ears growing louder.
Each kiss sent a new wave of fog over Zim's mind, and he held onto Dib to keep at least some grasp of what was real. The only thing that seemed to break the clouds in his head was Dib's voice, bringing him back down with him. He stared up into the ceiling of the ship, past the human's shoulder as he rocked up and down in a steady motion. They hadn't needed to speak the words that they knew were there, before. Hearing them seemed to solidify what Zim didn't even know needed to be confirmed in the first place. He closed his eyes and turned his head so that he was breathing right against Dib's ear.
"I love you." He felt as though a weight had come off his chest, letting Dib seep in through the cracks in his skin that it had created. It felt good, so good that he repeated the words. Just letting them roll off his tongue in their deliciously foreign way.
They moved together as one, speaking in tangent. A whole cascade of feelings rolled down his back, goosebumps spreading. A dark, heavy sensation was winding up in his gut. It was familiar and sought after, just as he sought to wring the same results from Zim. And he heard the words pour from the irken and even though he'd heard them in passing, in casual things, casual days but, this was serious. It cemented those words forever in his mind and he knew if he died they would be ringing in his ears the way they were now.
All at once, he came undone, the pieces of their lives falling apart. He was cracked, broken and fixed by a serpentine tongue in his ear. Dib could see a million mirrored pieces of the past, present and the future all at once before it came crashing down to the floor in a flood of reality. The cold air, oxygen and his heart beating wildly in his chest.
Zim fought to breathe as the sensation shook him from the inside out, constricting his muscles until he quaked. When he was released, he felt the blood rush to his head, making him dizzy, but he knew it wasn't just the act of what they had just done that was the culprit. Everything was all too real all of a sudden; maybe it was the words they shared.
But Zim was suddenly all too aware of the time they'd have to spend apart, and potentially the last time they'd get to see each other at all. He brought a hand up to his forehead, wiping the sweat off his brow as he tried desperately not to think about it. Everything was perfect in this moment, and this was where he belonged. He needed to stop trying to ruin it.
He looked to Dib, who looked as tired as Zim was beginning to feel. He didn't need to say anything as he moved into the human's arms, letting himself hide from everything else, especially the future.
Panting, Dib pulled the blankets up over them to protect from the chill of space, before wrapping his arms solidly around Zim, under his PAK and keeping them skin against skin as he gained his breath back. The urge to black out was strong, to forget about what would be real in the morning. So, he hid his face in the crook of his mate's neck. It was damp, warm and the pulse of a alien heart lulled him to sleep like a lullaby. Without speaking, his lips moved against Zim's skin, 'I love you'.
Zim sighed softly and tangled his hands in Dib's hair, resting his cheek against the top of his head. The cold that surrounded them didn't dare pierce the protective bubble of warmth they had built up for themselves.
With his legs wrapped around the human's waist, Zim made sure that he was going to be there when they awoke. He kissed Dib's head, his thumb sweeping across his fine hair as he drifted off. He knew what Dib was speaking against his skin even if he didn't hear it, and gladly repeated the phrase for him, letting the words linger as they fell asleep.