Chapter Text
One day Zim steals Dib’s phone to play mobile games and realizes that almost a month has gone by. His Elite Roman Lycanthrope General has just won a major strategic victory, and he’s rejoicing in the showers of loot when a message flashes across the screen. It’s a reminder from Dib’s calendar application: August 24, 20XX.
Zim stares at the display, momentarily unable to think. There’s less than a week until the 30 days are up.
Dib opens the closet door. Zim shrieks and drops the phone.
“Stop using my phone to play games, Miz.”
“What games? I wasn’t playing games! I was… uninstalling Roomba Butler’s games!” Zim fumbles for the phone, waves it under Dib’s nose before snatching it back. “See? I’ll just delete this.” It pains him to sacrifice his progress in Werewolves of London 43 AD, but being an Invader means sometimes making tough choices.
Dib seems unconvinced, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Uh-huh. Well, when you’re finished, we’re making pancakes.”
Zim perks up. “Ooh! Remember to put beans of jelly in mine.”
“That’s gross. You’re so gross.” Dib screws up his face in exaggerated distaste.
“No, it’s delicious, like me. YOU’RE gross.”
Dib shoots him an indecipherable look. “I don’t think I have enough evidence to assess that.”
“How could you lack for evidence? Surely you have inhabited your hideous physical form for, ehh,” Zim runs a quick calculation, “at least twenty-seven Earth years. That’s more than enough time to gather proof of your own grossness.”
“I meant about you being delicious.”
“Ah.” Zim stiffens. “Ehrm.”
Dib is looking down at him with half-lidded eyes. Zim feels his skin flush, an automatic response that his species should have eliminated by now. Dib’s flat, ugly tongue darts out to wet his lips, a tad too slowly not to be deliberate, and Zim’s skin flushes harder. Stupid skin.
“Kidding.” Dib smiles faintly and uncrosses his arms. “Anyway, I have to go back and supervise. Don’t spend too long in here, or your disgusting jellybean pancakes will get cold.”
“Maybe that’s how I like them!” Zim calls after him.
“Sure.”
Zim stares at the phone, mind blank. From the kitchen, he can hear GIR operating his mixer arm, the whirring merely growing louder with Dib’s protests. Great, now they’ll have to break out the ceiling mop again.
The Dib has been growing… bolder, lately. Though there have been no kisses nor declarations of romantic intent—both of which, Zim’s sources assert, are essential to human lovepig arrangements—a new strain of tension has infected their interactions. Dib seems to look at Zim longer, touch him more often, stand closer to him when they’re in the same room.
A couple of nights ago, Zim awoke to find Dib watching him, his eyes nearly black in the darkness and his soft pitiful hand outstretched toward Zim’s. He had stayed up for a while after that, pretending to sleep while he listened to Dib’s breathing even out. The next morning, he had jumped when Dib clapped him on the shoulder, shuddered and held still when Dib reached past him for the coffee pot. The press of Dib’s front against his back had felt at once comforting and unbearable.
It’s all very revolting, of course. But Zim can’t help longing for something to happen, whether it’s a resolution to the tension or the Dib-pig’s demise (although dwelling on the latter brings him no joy, not like it once did). He can’t fail this mission.
There are only six days left, and Zim has to make them count. It’s time to escalate.
“GIR, I specifically said rose petals— ”
“Wheeeheeeheeeee!” GIR rolls around in the leaves, stems, and thorns strewn over the freshly made bed. Zim suspects that he ate the blossoms.
“Argh!” Zim throws his hands up and goes to steal the neighbor’s flowers.
A while later, Zim and GIR survey the scene. The bedding has been re-washed, adorned anew with the clippings Zim had salvaged from Miss Pingle’s sad little garden. His spooch is still quivering from his encounter with her new alarm system, and he can’t help but sneak wary looks over his shoulder. Since GIR intercepted her wine subscription delivery a week ago, Miss Pingle has gotten serious about home security.
The lights are out in the rest of the apartment and the blinds are closed, lending a moody dimness to the bedroom. Scented candles, unlit for now, adorn the dresser and floor. The most champagne-like among the stolen wines sits atop the cardboard-box nightstand, attended by two plastic cups decorated with heart stickers (GIR insisted). There is chocolate, somewhere.
Zim fiddles with a music player. The bedroom fills with the poignant stylings of Glanchkin “Tank” Frumbley, a contemporary easy listening artist who has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity after his ballad “Love Me With Your Lovin’, Love” was featured on the season finale of whatever spinoff of Floopsy Boops Shmoopsy they’re on now.
Love me with your lovin’, love, Tank croons. Tenderize me with your meat mallet. Staple my lovin’ paper with the stapler of your love...
Perfect. The IDEAL conditions for romance. All that’s missing is the Dib.
There are another three hours until Dib’s shift ends, and a half-hour after that until he’s supposed to get home. He said he’d bring dinner, so that’s not a concern. Zim busies himself with shooing GIR out of the bedroom, cleaning the rest of the apartment, and fight-negotiating with the local crows.
They claim he shorted them on payment for the latest batch of eyeballs. Ridiculous! Those eyeballs were subpar, and Zim paid the crows accordingly. The only additional expenditures he plans to make are crow-chastising-spray blasts.
The crows take poorly to chastisement. The ensuing fracas carries Zim through the afternoon and almost to sunset. Evening’s approach finds half the crows fled, preening their wounds or whatever injured crows do, and the other half engaged in tense mediation with Zim. However, settlement will have to wait till morning. The crows do not bargain after dark.
Zim goes back inside the apartment. GIR is at the sink, washing dishes or maybe shoes. The bedroom is undisturbed, the music player still cycling through Tank’s greatest hits. Dib should be leaving work around now. Zim repairs to the bathroom to get ready, his insides buzzing with anticipation. Hopefully there will be enough time.
The half-hour passes. No Dib.
Another half-hour passes. GIR falls asleep in the sink, gnawing at a shoe. Still no Dib.
Another half-hour. Zim is beginning to consider taking the Voot out when the landline rings. And rings. And rings.
“Yes?” he answers, after the ringing becomes too persistent to ignore.
It’s Dib. “Miz! Thank god I got ahold of you. My car broke down and my phone was out of battery, so I had to use the phone at this random store. The only number I could remember was Torque’s—Torque Smackey, from skool—and I don’t have auto insurance but he came out to tow me, and THEN his truck ran out of gas and he had to call his buddy and—”
“Slow down. What’s going on?”
Dib tells him again, allowing pauses for breath this time. “Long story short, they’re coming over for pizza in ten minutes. Do we still have that wine that Roomba Butler, uh, found?”
Once he’s off the phone, Zim takes down the bedroom setup in a few efficient moves. Tank’s more melancholy tunes provide a fitting backdrop. Zim isn’t sure if the current song is called “Stop, The Sky Wept Softly” or “Rusted Bicycle of Love.” Regardless, in this moment, it reflects his mood perfectly.
The visit from Torque Smackey and his buddy leaves Dib with a hangover and Zim with a persistent headache. Dib has a morning shift; Zim takes spiteful pleasure in watching him lurch around the apartment. But he makes the good coffee and puts it in a travel mug for Dib’s bus ride, because… because it will make his eventual betrayal that much sweeter, okay? Okay???
“Thanks,” says Dib absently, when Zim shoves the mug at him. Though he’s halfway out the door, he leans back in to drop a hasty kiss on Zim’s head. Then he realizes what he’s done. He and Zim both freeze, staring at each other.
Dib is the first to break the stare. He steps forward, forcing Zim to scuttle back, and sets the mug on the floor.
“Hey, come here and let me kiss you properly.”
Zim can only stand there, shaking, while Dib kneels down and cups his face in both overly large hands. His hair brushes Zim’s forehead. He strokes his thumb over Zim’s cheek. Then his lips are on Zim’s, chapped and soft and—utterly repulsive, of course. Humans’ mouths are so wet.
Zim is still shaking when Dib pulls back.
Dib searches his face. “You okay?”
Zim can speak. He CAN. “I’m—you stink. Stinking beast.” Dib really does. The trace of wine is disgusting. Zim is glad he didn’t drink any last night.
“Sorry,” says Dib with a smile in his voice. For one agonizing moment, Zim thinks he’s going to kiss him again, but Dib just picks up his mug and stands up.
“I’ll see you later,” Dib promises nonsensically. Then, after his eyes land on the clock: “Oh fuck, I’m late!”
Zim watches from the window as Dib runs after the bus, unseasonable coat flapping, mug probably slopping coffee all over the sidewalk. It’s odd. He would have expected Dib’s saliva to burn, but all he can feel is the phantom pressure of Dib’s thumb on his cheek.
So that was “kissing.” Hardly a challenge. With the first kiss out of the way, Zim feels confident to escalate even further. It’s time for Phase 2: Seduction.
Although sexual reproduction fell out of favor with the Empire millennia before Zim’s existence, he is no stranger to the practice of sex as recreation. Not in a hands-on way yet, mind you, but he gets the concept. Kind of. He could improvise an encounter if he had to.
(He has no idea what he’s doing.)
Zim pulls up an Internet browser and gets to work.