Chapter Text
A half-dozen years had made Dib different, though not as different as he’d like, he realized as he coldly reviewed his appearance in the mirror. Even with hair that straggled down over his ears and a chin covered in sandpaper-fine stubble, he couldn’t shake his father’s silhouette in his angular features. He had come to terms with the resemblance, which granted him some inborn skill in science that would hopefully lend itself to a degree in chemistry at Central College. That was the plan, anyways.
His graduation gift to himself was a vertical labret, a ring sitting peacefully through the middle of his bottom lip. He turned the silver loop with his tongue, recalling the thrill of the bright stab of pain of the needle. He turned his head and counted the ten loops and studs in his ears, too. It wasn’t just about the feeling of the needle, of course, but the desire to reflect in how he adorned himself the way how... he’d always felt. Different.
He looked down at the shared sink, and Gaz’s hair products on her side of the counter. He figured he’d miss her at some point, when it was time to turn in for bed and she wasn’t there to return his “goodnight” with a distracted grunt, but at the moment, it all felt rather numb.
Chemistry was a good choice, father had assured him, when he’d deigned to offer Dib a few fleeting minutes of scrutiny. Pharmacy was a career that had been popular since the literal stone ages; ever since there was an opportunity to dull or warp reality, there had been people looking to buy it, his father had explained from through a computer screen. Dib had agreed, nodding solemnly into his plate, pushing his fork through deflated mounds of scrambled eggs.
And it wasn’t that he didn’t want to go to college. He’d spent enough time in this city, and the occasional high-adrenaline flights into nearby space weren’t enough to unclog its stilted presence in his head and chest. It was... stuffy. He wanted the fresh air of the capitol, where no one knew his name or cared for his family or wondered why he was the way that he was.
He left the bathroom and went down into the kitchen, where hovered Gaz, a spectre in striped polyester. She poked him in the back as he passed.
“So,” she muttered, “you’re going, I guess.”
Dib shrugged. “Yeah. Tomorrow morning.”
Gaz pursed her lips, nodded. She gave a slow blink, dark-smudged lids fluttering languidly. “Well. See ya.”
Dib nodded back. Normally he would be charmed by his sister’s practiced nonchalance, but this time, his stomach felt too weak to reply.
He looked back on the house. The belongings he would take to the dorms fit in a singular suitcase, along with his backpack, already readied by the stairs. His projects, half-done, would wait on his desk, or under it, or beside it, until he returned to continue them. His father and sister would go on like nothing had changed. He was ready. Nothing held him to this place but his own two feet.
Nothing but one final loose end.
He closed the door and made for the sidewalk, the cracks in the cement gathering beneath his feet like a net scrunching and curling under water. He kept a steady pace all the way down the street.
Zim’s house, with its steel facade and crumbling plastic yard, hadn’t changed, while the creature within utterly stagnated in the miserable stasis of public education. Things got awkward as his classmates aged, and Zim remained a diminutive little gremlin of no more than four feet, his screamed proclamations and insults losing their impact the bigger his classmates grew. In high school, he took on the sympathy of the oblivious, who saw him less as an odd exchange student with a skin condition, and more an underfed, under-loved little outcast whose feet barely touched the floor under his chair. No one noticed the alien part, obviously, to Dib’s rage, then disgust, and then eventually dismayed acceptance.
He walked up to the door, ignoring the security drones that sprung instantly to life on the lawn, and the rumble of mechanics under the pavers that made up the walk. A camera traced his movements as he stood, waiting on the stoop.
“Lemme in, Zim,” he called out, tapping his foot, sticking hands into the pockets of his jackets.
“Why would I?” Came a static cry from the speaker box beside the doorframe.
“Because,” Dib barked back, “I’m going to Capitol City tonight. It’s over.”
The door was already opening before he finished, and Zim was standing behind it, disguise on, and looking up at his visitor.
“Why in the Empire would you come all this way to tell me such a thing, you irritating little Earth-pig?” Blathered Zim, pointing a skinny finger at Dib’s middle.
Dib glared back. Retorts died on his tongue, or before that, in his parietal lobe, withering their way across his nerves.
“Capitol City… You must plan to turn me over to your government’s incompetent authorities there. Is that it? Will you attempt to turn in Zim?” He put a fist to his hip, basking in his grandiosity, even as Dib towered above him.
“Knock it off,” Dib answered, stepping over the threshold.
He was tired of his game. The cat-and-mouse had gotten old about around the time puberty struck and gave him a fresh sense of misanthropy. Everyone sucked and he was the only one who was right was a mantra that all teenagers knew, but for Dib, it was true.
Once the door was closed, Zim pulled out his contact lenses and shed the wig, dropping them both in a flume, which in a blast of air, whisked them away. He stood at his decidedly less-than-menacing miniscule stature, looking up at Dib suspiciously.
“Well?” Zim asked, “what will you try to halt the mighty Zim’s plot to overthrow this filthy planet? A grainy photograph? A nonsense story about brain worms and bigfeet?”
Dib sighed and shook his head, waving Zim back with a hand at his shoulder. He went deeper into the foyer without being impeded.
Zim narrowed eyes at him, lips drawing into a tight purse. “Ah-hah. You have nothing. Why would I ever think otherwise? You are no closer to exposing my plans here than you ever were, when you were a worthless little worm-child, scrambling about in your dirty—”
“For fuck’s sake, Zim!” Dib shouted, stomping his foot, and stopping the alien’s ranting.
It was all just so... pointless. Neither one of them was ever going to win this game; public indifference had made sure of that. Reality was never so neat. Things didn’t finish explosively, they petered out when interest was gone, and people moved on to the next latest outrage. It was so stupid.
“How... how dare you,” Zim stammered, loosing two legs from his PAK, which poked out and made purchase on the floor behind him, lifting him. He rose until he met Dib’s eyes and could loose a caustic, magenta glare thereupon. “How dare you speak to me in such a way! I could—I could destroy you in the time it takes for you to utter another single, puny word in your pathetic human-speak!”
Why were they still fighting? It was half a lifetime of symmetrical scheming that went nowhere, ears willfully shut, a world to whom Dib was as silent as a dying refugee. Why had the alien come here, of the million miles of untouched terra, had he landed practically on Dib’s doorstep? Why was he the most stubborn, clueless, defiant creature in the known universe?
And why was this—this stupid, pointless, infuriating relationship the only connection that Dib had that lasted, and, if Dib dug deep down into the rotten recesses of his heart to realize, the only thing keeping him tethered here?
“What would you do?” Dib asked, voice dropping low, his having changed while Zim’s implanted translator kept the same infuriating tone. “What would you actually do if I turned you in to the authorities, right now?”
Zim shook his head. “I do not fear your threats. Whatever... agents of ineptitude that you send after me will see that I am a perfectly normal, human—”
“Stop,” Dib barked, shaking his head. “Just stop.”
Zim was useless at self-reflection, but he was master of hubris. He grew bigger, not in size but in enormity of his ego, when he was routed. And Dib had him backed into a corner simply by refusing to go along with his delusions.
“Worthless human,” spat Zim, and jabbed a finger into Dib’s chest. The moment it touched, Dib jolted and slapped his hand back.
“Don’t you ever get tired of failing all the time, Zim?” Asked Dib, stepping forward. When he did, Zim stepped back, his PAK guiding him to the wall, into where Dib shortly backed him. A spindly leg touched down on the wall, setting up leverage like a jackrabbit preparing to leap. “You’re never going to actually take over the earth. The armada is never coming. Why don’t you just leave, already? Like I am?”
Zim’s massive eyes grew wide, then, his jaw falling slack. “What? Leaving?”
Dib pushed his lip-ring with his tongue, considering the wall behind Zim for a moment, its neglected polymer plaster cracking wanly, the line reaching all the way up to the ceiling.
“W...of course you’re leaving, you fear Zim," said Zim with a wave of a skinny hand, flicking the gloved fingers. “You could not stand another moment in Zim’s shadow. And now, with you gone, I shall finally complete my great mission.”
Dib rolled his eyes, dropped his head between his shoulders. Might as well be talking to the wall behind him rather than the alien himself.
Zim poked him in the chest. “Speechless, hmm? Of course. Th—”
He squawked as Dib shoved him back at the shoulder, and he hit the wall. The metal tendrils of where his PAK was installed jostled in his back and Zim flinched, looking up at his nemesis with disgust.
“You dare touch me!” He cried.
Dib slammed his palms into the wall beside his head. Zim gasped, his red eyes giving a lucid shimmer.
“You never learn, Zim,” said Dib. He sealed Zim to the wall, wherefrom he could easily flee, riding his PAK to the ceiling and scuttling away like a spider, but he did not, instead remaining frozen between the bars made of Dib’s arms. “It’s been years, and you’re still doing the same things. Yelling into a void after leaders who couldn’t care less if you died.”
Zim gave a chuckle. “Speak for yourself, pea-brained boy. You might as well be a stranger to your own father.”
Dib felt his chest clench, his fingers pinching into the wall. Cold flowed through his middle, liquid and unstoppable, sliding over his joints.
“Ignored by your own family, poor little Dib,” mocked Zim. “Is that why you’re leaving? Couldn’t take the rejection any longer?”
Dib felt his breathing start to speed. It was like talking to a brain made of glass, so clear but diamond-stubborn. Why had he come here, knowing that mocking and anger was all that awaited him? Could’ve slipped out at first light tomorrow, left the invader to his pointless schemes, alone, cowering in the depths of his massive lab like a grub in the soil.
“Of course, he would flee from the superior Zim. You knew you could not defeat me,” continued Zim, grin wide across his uncanny face. “Run along, little Dib. Don’t let the door hit you—”
He was cut off this time by Dib’s lips landing against his.
Dib silenced him with his mouth, pressing hard into scaly, pale-green lips, pushing open the slit with a tilt and thrust of the chin. The alien yelped, the sound closed in his throat, untouched by the translator, coming through unfiltered, raw. Dib drew back, and Zim gasped.
“Wh...what are you doing, you... you...” he gasped out, hands stiff at his sides. His PAK legs dug into the wall, clenching deeper into the polymer, breaking wider cracks. He didn’t flee, didn’t move.
“Go home,” Dib whispered, taking in Zim’s scandalized face, sallow cheeks turning dark green as fluid rushed forth, his tongue slack between parted lips. “Just go.”
As long as he was here, so too would Dib be stuck.
Zim snarled. “Never.”
Dib put his hands on the alien’s shoulders, pushed him into the wall, and dove in again.
He had no plans to turn Zim in. The evidence he had: journals, hours of footage, recordings, samples, were all piled into a box under his bed like a shameful secret stash.
He kissed Zim desperately, pouring into it, grunting when a tongue snaked out and surprised him. It wound around his own, slick and tough, prehensile, tugging at his flesh. His heart rate spiked; he put a hand on Zim’s chest, tented fingers against the fabric, pulled.
“What are you doing?” Zim slurred, pulling back from the kiss and grabbing Dib’s fingers. The slender black lines curled uselessly around Dib’s hand, their differences in heft undeniable. That said, Zim could blast him to shreds with the base’s defenses, or rip open his guts with tools emergent from the PAK, if he wanted to.
Dib lifted his tunic, spread a hand across his bare chest. The skin prickled there, sensitive and unguarded. The water in Dib’s spit didn’t harm him, so Zim must’ve coated his skin thoroughly with protective film, but left his chest untouched. His breast pumped with breath, the swell too low, lower than on a human, and the pump of the heart, or whatever passed for it, too was mismatched at the side of his chest.
Dib put both hands to it, feeling down the column of his chest, the pale green growing dark and twitching under his palms. Two beats, one on each side of the abdomen, bumped under his hands.
“Why do you touch there?” Zim asked with a slight whimper, “s-stupid human.”
Dib put lips to his neck, recognizing the tasteless lacquer there now. Zim’s allergy to water meant that he was covered in a barrier all over. Almost all over, he noted as he moved his hands lower.
He sunk a hand into Zim’s leggings, down the front, feeling blindly at the mystery held there. His private parts were not wholly unfamiliar, but strange enough to remind Dib clearly that the creature he was touching was not human.
Good. Dib hated humans.
“Does it feel good to your species, Zim?” Dib goaded, “being touched down here?”
He dug his fingers sharply into the slimy thing he felt blindly around. Zim yelped and grabbed his shoulder, digging fingers into his jacket.
“Your touch is...” he chewed, “poison to me, earthling.”
“Then push me off,” Dib said, loosening his grip, taking it for an answer when Zim didn’t so much as shiver.
“Show me your disgusting grown body,” Zim said, voice cracking, as he pulled at Dib’s collar. Dib stepped back to pull out of his coat, and one arm out of his t-shirt, from there, Zim peeled away the rest with a tentacle from his PAK.
“Earth boy,” Zim whispered, “the toxins I have concocted could render you helpless and squirmy in seconds.” He stroked a gloved finger down Dib’s chest. He’d filled out, still skinny, but with a firm layer around his pecs. “How disgusting a human body is.”
Dib breathed as Zim touched his chest, a flash in red eyes as the alien observed the shivers he drew.
Maybe this was far enough.
“I should’ve ripped you to shreds while you slept as a child, pathetic, weak,” Zim murmured, almost fondly, but it spurred Dib to shove him back at the chest.
Zim yelped as he hit the wall again, the plaster suffering yet another blow and splitting helplessly wide, revealing the steel and polymer guts of the house. Tubes and wires overlapped each other, building the alien skeleton of the house.
Dib undid his fly, sighing in relief as he was freed, he then stuck his hand down Zim’s leggings and worked them down to his ankles and off of one, pulling off one boot with it. Zim grabbed his arms to try and get him off, still declining to turn the PAK, or any other mechanical minion to Dib’s destruction. He whimpered as Dib reached down, feeling between his legs until he found something to stick a finger into.
Zim gasped, eyes shooting wide and hands to Dib's neck, clenching around his collarbones. “Th-that’s—! You...”
Dib sunk the finger inside, scoping out the walls of the slippery hole, noting how heated innards followed the intruding appendage. He joined it with a second, both growing slick and warmed.
He pulled out after a moment of testing the width and stretch. He grabbed Zim’s naked legs, which wriggled and kicked out until he guided them over his waist, and when they slotted in place, Zim froze, red eyes like saucers as he traced Dib’s expression.
“You can’t be... you...” he breathed, then let out a howl as Dib entered him.
It was a tight fit, but fit just the same, and Dib pushed himself forward while Zim choked out half-spilled cries into his chest. He clung at Dib’s shoulders, hands sliding down to his ribs and gripping weakly as he panted through the intrusion into his guts. Dib breathed out, sunk in farther, then stilled, letting Zim get accustomed to their position.
“You... puny human,” Zim gasped out finally, giving a jolt as Dib shifted him higher with hands on his waist, “you think this... means anything?”
Dib gritted his teeth, brow tensing. He drew Zim closer, gripping his hips, and thrusted punishingly up into him. The alien screamed and threw his head back, and Dib started a relentless pace.
Zim cried non-stop in his ear, sounds of pleasure mingled in the pain and disdain, his legs jostled by each thrust up into his body. He screamed and drew long as pleasure spiked through his body, limbs jerking as he growled and groaned like a beast. Words that could not be translated slipped from his throat, half-formed.
Dib watched every inch of him, the curve of his abdomen as it clenched and loosened, the press of teeth into his scaly lip, the squeeze of his eyes, letting out a slow line of rose-tinted fluid.
Dib felt himself getting close. He gripped the smaller body to him, locking hands around his waist as he moved inside it. He started to move faster, more sloppily, and Zim evidently felt the change, his eyes growing abruptly wide.
“Wait,” he gasped, “if you... you’ll... Dib, I'm...”
The human ignored him as he sped towards his peak, reaching it with a cry and final hard push, spilling inside, driving his seed deep. Zim whimpered and trembled in his arms as he evidently reached his finish as well, his body wracked with tremors and his chest prickled with goosebumps. He whined with pain as Dib pulled out, trailing white down his thigh.
The water in his ejaculate would inflame Zim’s allergy, Dib realized as the alien acted as if burned, gripping his belly with one gloved hand. Dib released him, and Zim hovered above his PAK legs for a moment, curling over his wounded middle.
“Shit,” Dib hissed, “I’m—”
“Inferior human scum,” Zim bit out with utter contempt, cradling his middle with both hands. “You... fool. You disgusting pig!”
Dib stared, slack-jawed at what he’d done. Had he really... hurt Zim? If so, why didn’t he fight back? Could he not? Or was he so darkly angry about something else?
He pulled on his shirt and gathered up his coat, quickly zipping as he started to flee. He casted one last glance over the incensed alien, who stood on tripod and cradled his midsection, immodest for his naked lower half, and the thumb-marks pressed into the skin of his sides. Had Dib really squeezed that hard?
“Flee, miserable Earth-creature,” cried Zim, then, pink ooze dripping from his eyes and mouth. His gaze was toxic, narrow red slits trained on his mortal enemy. “Run away, go. If I see you here again, I’ll shoot on sight!”
Dib felt his stomach heat up. “I’m not coming back, Zim!” He shouted back in rage. “No one is! You’ll waste away here alone!” He turned away and fled the house without another moment to hesitate.