Work Text:
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I'm not sick but I'm not well,
and I'm so hot 'cause I'm in Hell.
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Zim clutches the red solo cup in his claws, careful not to puncture the laughably flimsy plastic. The yellowish liquid inside sloshes dangerously and for once he is grateful that his wig muddles the acrid smell that comes off of it.
He had not wanted to come to this gross human celebration, it was stinky and crowded and he hated having to see his classmates any more than was strictly necessary.
But, in a way, being seen was the point of tonight.
‘What kind of inhuman loser doesn’t kiss someone at New Years? That's like, social suicide.’
This piece of gossipy nonsense overheard during the feeding break was the only reason Zim had bothered showing up, uninvited mind you, to this party. Not that he needed an invite; Zim knows he has a standing invitation to all the poorly planned events of his supposed peers, obviously.
The comment had gotten under his skin and festered like radioactive termites until he had convinced himself that he simply had to show up to this solar rotation celebration and complete the kissing ritual, lest he throw suspicion on himself and his mission.
Because while Zim is certainly in-human, he draws the line at being a loser.
But speaking of losers.
A grin breaks out on his face as he spots the Dib-thing and his horrid sister unit through the sliding glass doors that separates the living room from the backyard of Torque Smacky’s disgusting familial home.
Dib, as always, looks miserable and whiny, upset to be anywhere that isn’t a haunted forest or the bowels of Zim’s base. Zim revels in the fact that he knows for certain that Dib was not invited to this party and would never have gotten past the security-jock bouncing the door had Gaz not threatened his way in.
Nevermind that Zim had employed a clever sleeping dart to secure his entry to the party; that was just for funsies.
His PAK chimes softly alerting him that the ‘ball drop’ was swiftly approaching and the time to launch his ingenious plan was nigh.
With a shrug Zim dumps the liquid in his cup into the soil of a nearby house plant and ignores it as it shrivels up and dies with remarkable speed.
Humans and their recreational poisons.
“Gaz, this is such a waste of time. We could be out watching the geminid meteor shower right now or doing anything else other than being at this stupid party.” Zim can hear Dib’s complaining even from across the room.
“Can it Dib, nobody wants to look at rocks with you.” This is one of the rare times he’s seen Gaz willingly without her game system and she is clearly looking for something in the backyard. Zim would guess it’s somewhere she could ditch her brother and have little chance he would return. Too bad the pool is tarped over.
“This is so lame Gaz-”
“Like you’re one to talk about what's lame.”
Zim slows his pursuit to watch Dib throw his hands in the air and gesture to the throng of teenagers engaging what Zim could only describe as brutal Altesian military hazing rituals. “Why do you want to be here? This party bites.” Zim notes that while the Dib-thing had grown obnoxiously tall in the last few cycles, Gaz has not. She looks like she enjoys Dib skulking over her just as much as Zim did.
Which is to say not at all.
Gaz kicks her brother in the shin. “Stop looming. Some of us are trying to be normal teenagers, not space freaks.” Dib hops stupidly on one foot trying to relieve the pain in his shin, and that makes it easy for his sister to push him over onto the slatted wooden bench that Zim just so happens to be standing by.
He snickers at his nemesis’ continued misfortune.
Whatever it is that Gaz has been looking for in the crowd she seems to find. “Great, Zim, can you babysit him? He’s a total downer and it’s embarrassing to be seen breathing next to him.” She shoves her solo cup into Dib’s hands. “Don’t blow this for me.” She threatens her brother and spares a glare for Zim as well.
Zim is a mighty Irken soldier, an elite amongst elites, but even he feels a shiver run up his main PAK line from the force of her glare. He waves a flippant hand shooing her away. “Yes, yes, Zim will make sure that your brother does not collapse the entire party with the weight of his rancid vibes.”
Dib glares from his forced seat. “We should have never let you get clik-clok.” He looks back toward Gaz imploringly but she’s already halfway across the yard, slinking into a group of girls who look like they all shop at the same short, dark, and gloomy boutique.
Zim primly hops on the wooden bench as Dib seethes and curses under his breath. “It’s not like you to follow orders.” He spits.
Zim simply shrugs; they are both aware that crossing the younger Membrane sibling was never a good idea. “This is just a strategic agreement.”
They can at least agree on that, which annoys him. Dib sulks and nurses his solo cup of battery acid. “What are you even doing here? If you’ve got some kind of evil plan going that you expect me to stop then you’re out of luck, I’m on chaperone duty.”
They both purposefully skirt around calling it a world domination plan. It’s been apparent for some time now that Zim has shifted his plans from world domination to ‘Annoy Dib specifically.’ Neither have said anything about it out loud, as if talking about it will make it real, or worse throw the delicate balance of quasi enemies-quasi friends they have out of whack.
So instead, Zim throws his head back and cackles as gratingly as he can. “No plan tonight, I’m just here to celebrate another pitiful rotation of this dirt ball like a normal human.” When he senses Dib is about to butt in, Zim smirks and goes for the kill. “Besides, I’m on babysitting duty.”
Dib narrows his eyes but smartly doesn’t respond to the bait. He takes a sip from his cup and winces immediately, choking on the disgusting concoction. One of their classmates points and laughs openly, calling for ‘ Membrane to not be such a lightweight ’.
“You can’t like drinking this!” He yells back between coughs. “This tastes like lighter fluid!” Zim ‘helpfully’ punches Dib in the back, solely to ‘assist’ in his coughing fit. Like a good human friend might. He’s thoughtful that way.
More party guests are joining them outside now, presumably to see the fireworks show that his PAK helpfully informs him is only two minutes away from beginning. Good. Witnesses.
His plan is all coming together, but of course it is, he made it after all.
Dib stops hacking to death and fixes Zim with a look that is more pathetic than intimidating. “You’re the actual worst, even if you weren’t evil alien scum. Just you personally. The worst.”
Zim tsks at him but preens nonetheless. “Sweet words will gain you no favor with your future overlord, but it’s funny to watch you try.”
Dib makes a face of distress and glares at Zim with those bright, stupid, eyes of his. Zim hates most things about the Dib-creature but he hates his eyes most of all. Hates that he wears those dumb vision correctors and how big and round they make his pupils look, even when he’s glaring at Zim. He hates how they make his spooch churn weirdly, like he’s eaten a flock of chocolate butterflies clusters.
He should probably get that checked out.
“No really, what’s your plan here Zim? Is there a bomb going off when the ball drops? An evil super robot hacking the world’s computers at midnight? That moose of yours absorbing the fireworks energy to rain back down on us? Harnessing the power of new years for some kind of doomsday device?”
With each new outlandish suggestion he presses closer and closer, looming again. Zim hates that those are all pretty good ideas as far as evil plans go, all a bit more relevant to his actual mission rather than the personal one he was here for tonight.
Dib would make a halfway decent invader if he applied himself. And wasn’t a human. And wasn’t obsessed with saving a dumb planet that didn’t even appreciate him. He had good evil ideas when we didn’t let his pesky moral code or whatever cloud his mind.
Zim does not voice any of his traitorous musings and instead pushes Dib, still looming, back with a boot to the chest. “You’re paranoid, human.” He hisses, enjoying the way he’s made Dib lean back against the arm of the stupid bench they're sitting on. “New Years isn’t even a real cosmological event, just a way for your kind to make their pathetically short lives seem meaningful. Zim just likes watching fireworks.”
Dib obviously doesn’t believe him, so at least he’s not completely brain dead. He allows his boot to be swatted away. “You’ve always got a plan, even if it is a stupid one. I don’t buy for a single second that you came to a New Years party for what? Fun? No, that's crazy. There must be something going on that you’re trying to-”
Sometime in the middle of Dib’s ramblings Zim’s eyes glaze over and he zones him out completely; letting the torrent of verbal jumble wash over him. Dib’s mostly grown out of his child voice box and into his adult one, he thinks that's how humans work but isn’t interested enough to confirm it , so his voice isn’t super unpleasant to listen to like it was when he was still in his larval stage.
It’s something that he’s been noticing a lot lately. He’s always known that Dib never shuts up, has suffered hearing his nasal whine nearly every day since his mission started, but he’s not used to liking that nasal whine. If you ignore the fact that he’s usually screeching about stopping one of Zim’s brilliant plans, it’s almost nice, it makes his antenna wiggle.
He should probably get that checked out too.
Instead, Zim watches Dib in motion. He gestures wildly with the arm holding his red cup, making points to an invisible audience. Zim notices that he’s consumed enough of the vile liquid that it doesn’t splash out on them. His other arm leans on the bench, hand just next to Zim’s hip, the skin covering his fingers clenches and loosens rhythmically. The tiny skin speckles that cover him twist and contract as he moves, like little brown dwarf stars blinking in and out of existence.
Hmm, another spooch churn, that's weird.
Blissfully unaware of his nemesis’ musings, Dib keeps prattling on. “Besides, there's not even enough oxygen to fuel something like-”
Though he’s sitting, Dib’s still taller than Zim. Much taller than him. He hadn’t been exaggerating about Dib looming over everyone, skulking down hallways with his shoulders to his ears like he’s ashamed to take up space.
An Irken of his height would never act like that; they would make others feel the importance of their height, would exude power and authority. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be subject to ridicule from their peers, certainly not from someone of Zim’s stature.
If he squints one eye and doesn’t look out the other he can almost, almost , imagine Dib carrying himself with the authority and dignity that his stature should confer, confident and powerful instead of whatever else it was that he had going on. What a shame; all that height and no backbone to make it mean anything. Unless, of course, it was Zim he was standing up to.
Huh, there's that spooch thing again.
“-guess it could be some sorta of power generator but that wouldn’t do much to help your plan along-”
Zim crosses his legs and rests his chin in his claws, almost smiling. Oh Dib, so blissfully stupid, his big head filled with cotton floss instead of brains. Where would he be without Zim to keep him on his toes, in his place? The silly creature would be lost without him. It would be endearing if Zim could feel such a thing, which obviously he can’t.
His spooch flips wildly, probably in agreement. Yeah, let’s go with that.
Zim is so busy not admiring Dib’s inane speech about what could or could not be his plan, that he misses the chime of his PAK alarm going off; it is only the voices of the other party goers starting to count down to midnight that shakes him from his temporary insanity.
“10…9…8…”
“Only inhuman losers don’t kiss someone at New Years.”
Zim panics and pushes himself to his knees so quickly that it startles Dib out of whatever asinine point he was trying to make. He tries to back up, but he only succeeds in further jamming himself into the armrest of this cursedly uncomfortable bench.
“7...6…5…”
He grabs a claw full of Dib’s disgusting t-shirt and yanks him down to his level. It’s unfair that Dib is still taller than him even with Zim pressing up on his knees and Dib’s back curling to accommodate him.
It makes his insides burn with how annoying it is. Yup, that's definitely why.
“4…3…2…”
“Uh, Zim, what are you doing?” Dib looks confused, but not scared. He looks out of the corner of his eye for the briefcase of gadgets that have never, and will never, work on Zim. Stupid boy, thinking he was safe from Zim’s plans even at a party.
Zim braces himself for how horrifically gross and nauseating this will be by running his other claw along Dib’s cheek, maneuvering him so they are directly eye to eye. “Shut your idiot fool mouth up.” He hisses and drags the aforementioned idiot fool mouth down to meet his.
“1… Happy New Year!”
Hmmm. Well. This was. Hmmm.
He’s been on earth for nearly 6 deca-pheob now, he’s seen kissing performed in advertisements, on television, and, ever since the 9th grade, in school hallways. It looked primitive and messy, so much spittle and squelching noises. Zim is a paragon of his species, he’d assumed he’d never have cause to try the human mating ritual himself.
Kissing Dib might be backwards and barbaric, but it’s not messy at least. Dib’s lips are soft and spongy against his. Both of their mouths are closed and he mostly feels warm and a bit of friction. Hmmm, Zim thinks back to the kissing rituals he’s seen and thinks there's something more he should be doing.
Letting go of Dib’s shirt, Zim braces his claws against his shoulder, much gentler than he has to, and presses more firmly into the kiss. Surprisingly, Dib’s mouth opens and yields to him immediately. Now, instead of crushing their maws together like Prethian Slaporsdoodles might, their lips are tucked between one another, a deliberate pull and pressure that he’s never felt before.
Faintly, Zim hears Dib’s cup dropping to the floor, but the sound is muffled by his wig, the fireworks going off, and an annoying buzzing sound that he has no idea where is coming from.
Tragically it is a little messier but it’s also the first time Dib has ever yielded anything to Zim so he’s willing to overlook it. The hot slide of it makes his PAK short-circuit and his spooch spiral out of control. He feels the thrum Dib’s blood pulse between his lips and instinctively sucks, wanting to be closer to that too-fast beat.
It occurs to Zim, when Dib makes a pathetic little sound and slides his mouth against his harder, wetter, that this was probably the human’s first kiss. He relishes in knowing that he has taken something from his nemesis that he can never get back. Dib will never be able to do this again without remembering that Zim had been here first; had tasted him before all others.
Truly he is the best invader that Irk has ever produced.
Dib tentatively places a hand on his upper back, fingers spanning from the top of his PAK to neck. His PAK flares up at the same time his organic spine shivers. The buzzing sound intensifies, like he can feel it in his spooch. It’s a weird feeling.
He wants more.
Zim doesn’t have to breathe and could do this until the sun explodes above them but Dib unfortunately does have to breathe and pulls away to clammer for air. What a smeet.
Weirdly, Zim finds that at some point during the kiss he had closed his eyes and is reluctant to open them. What is going on with his body shell lately?
“....What is that buzzing?” Is what Dib, stupidly, says to him once he’s given his brain-meats the oxygen it needs. Zim is not particularly proud that his own brain-meats seem to be malfunctioning as well, because he mostly stares half-lidded at Dib like a moron, stealing looks at the mouth he had just been attached to. That he’s thinking of re-attaching himself to. Maybe forever.
“What buzzing?” An equally stupid response to a stupid question. Dib tilts his head and Zim unconsciously mirrors the action. Cautiously, he trails the hand that had been petting his neck down the curve of his PAK and over his side to splay broadly over his hip.
Immediately a loud and incredibly embarrassing chirp rips through Zim, his small body vibrating with the force of it. Hypothesis confirmed: Zim is the source of the buzzing sound, or at least his body shell is.
It’s concerning enough that it breaks Zim out of whatever post kissing stupidity-haze he is in. The screech he lets out would be ear shattering if his classmates were not already so used to hearing it everyday since the 4th grade.
Zim flings himself away from the offending hand, only to be caught in the snare that is the other armrest of the bench. He panics and belts, “ZIM HAS COMPLETED THE NEW YEAR'S KISS RITUAL LIKE A NORMAL EARTH TEENAGER.”
It would be a great recovery if anyone were paying any attention to him. Half of the guests have already zoned him out and the other half are watching the fireworks overhead.
To his dismay, only a few are even kissing.
He’s beginning to think that the gossip about needing to kiss at New Years was exaggerated, that, maybe, he should have done more research before diving in lips first.
“Was that your dumb plan?” Dib asks. He’s back to looming again, the last dregs of the fireworks display illuminate overhead washing him in bright, flickering, light. It is not helping matters at all. Zim’s squeedily spooch flips wildly which only makes the chirping in his abdomen intensify. “To sneak into this party and what? Make out with me at midnight?” He says it like it’s too insane to even imagine, let alone say out loud.
And yet…
Well of course it sounds stupid when you say it like that; voice all rough from being slobbered over and face flush with hormones and blood. Another horrifying chirp rips out of him and Zim is about 3 tics away from blowing his cover himself; if it means he can use his PAK legs to escape this party.
Years of fighting each other must have honed Dib’s ability to sense when he is about to bolt because he narrows his eyes and grabs Zim’s wrist to halt the escape. “Don’t even think about it.” His butt plops back onto the horrid bench. For some completely incomprehensible reason, Dib’s tone causes another high pitched chirp to escape his mouth. Zim nods jerkily, eyes wide.
Then, realizing he was almost compliant for the first time in his entire life, Zim hisses at Dib until he lets go of his wrist.
It’s too weird. Even for them.
Maybe the cootie fables from middle school were real after all. Zim feels like his center of gravity is off: he wants to push Dib away and retch but he also kind of wants to crawl under Dib’s skin and never leave.
He feels his PAK heat up against his organic spine, as if, it too, is at a loss for how to handle this situation.
Is this why disgusting things like affection and coitus were phased out on Irk? Not just because it was impractical but because it turned perfectly competent Irkens into vibrating gummy dumdums?
Zim groans in misery and lets it draw out. He almost wishes he had not hatched this, slightly less than brilliant, kissing plan. Silently he begs his PAK for a way to fix this, surely something was wrong if his body shell was making him all gooey and gross after a little shared spits?
If his PAK has any idea of what's wrong; it’s not giving him information on how to fix it. Beyond occasionally heating up and its usual alerts about ‘ serious defective code found ’; (which he ignores because it’s obviously an error) his PAK stays silent. It has no information on what is going wrong, or at least no information it's going to share with him. It’s almost like the flaw is in Zim himself and not his programming. His groaning goes up a pitch as he clutches his vibrating midsection in horror at the thought.
“Uh.....You’re freaking me out a bit space boy.” Dib flitters nervously, hands held uselessly in the air. It’s clear he wants to reach out for something, but he seems to not know if that will help or hinder the situation. That makes two of them. Three of them if you counted his PAK.
Deciding not to push his luck, Dib purposefully lays his hands down on his lap, palms up. It’s a considerate gesture that only causes Zim’s hackles to raise. He is not a smeet to be pacified or a skittish beast to be placated. He is a skittish beast to be feared.
“Look, while this is 100% your own fault, I guess I’m sorry for taking your first kiss if you’re going to be weird about it... Not really doing much for my self confidence though.”
Zim lets out a startled cackle at the absurdity of that statement, the vibrating coming from whatever useless vestigial organs he has in there, finally abates. “What self confidence?”
Dib looks relieved that he’s no longer groaning or chirping in misery, but he can not allow the insult and flips him off in return. Zim is only a little jealous that he can not perform the gesture properly with his three claws. One of the few good things humans had ever created, a way to be casually disrespectful, and he can’t even do it.
“Do not get it twisted human, I was the one that stole your first kiss, not the other way around. BEHOLD MY GREATEST PLAN, ZIM IS NO INHUMAN LOSER.” He stands on the bench and laughs. Surely this was the real plan all along. A plan so ingenious even he didn’t know all the twists and turns to it.
Dib gives him an unimpressed look and shrugs. “You don’t know that.”
“Wha?” Now there was a fly in the Metamucil. “Don’t know what? Zim knows all.”
The Dib may be stupid, but he’s at least observant. He can see what the other humans can't, whether it be the creepy crawlies that make their homes in the woods or the very real alien threat that walks among them. And right now what he sees is a big buzzing hole in Zim’s armor, a lapse in his knowledge, a weakness. Another reason to hate his dumb eyes. “I never said that was my first kiss. You didn’t steal jackshit.”
Dib’s grin is biting and he knows he’s won this exchange at least. Zim hates losing but he hates losing to Dib more than anything. Dib exuding smug confidence is an insult that cannot be abided. For the second time in a single night he gets a boot to the chest for his insolence.
Zim delights when Dib is once again pinned back to the dreaded bench armrest.
He leans down until they are eye to eye, his expression furious. How dare this worm child. HOW DARE. “Who else have you exchanged the spits with then? Zim will accept no one’s second hand spits.”
The boy under him groans and tries to wiggle out from under his boot. “Man, that’s so gross. Why do you have to make things sound so gross all the time?”
His boot presses down harder. It feels right. It feels like this is where Dib belongs. “What’s really gross is that you allowed yourself to exchange fluids with some stinky child other than Zim.”
It’s easier to deal with anger than the gross mushy feelings taking up space in his body. Anger is comfortable, safe.
“Dude, what the fuck.” Dib tries to shove his foot off him but his stance is stone and sure. Zim will not be shrugged off like a pesky earth bee. Dib’s face sours in annoyance. “I didn’t exactly know that making out with you was an option until 4 minutes ago.” He shoves again to no avail.
“And it will never be an option again if you don’t tell me who you swapped spits with so I can rid the planet of their disgusting stench. Tell meeeeeeeee!”
With a grand groan that he can feel the vibrations of through his boot, Dib stops fighting and sinks back into the bench, his spine bending awkwardly over the armrest. He glares at Zim as if he is a chore he does not want to deal with. It is a very familiar look. Also safe. “You’re so annoying. Obviously I was lying. You’ve stolen my first kiss. Great plan Zim.”
Even though it’s said sarcastically, praise from someone he, somewhat, respects makes his PAK fan whirl and his legs feel wobbly. Zim removes his boot from its (rightful) place subjugating Dib and plops down on the bench beside him with a breathy ‘hmmm’ . His expression could almost be serene if it weren’t so obviously patronizing.
“I had suspected as much the whole time.”
“You absolutely did not!”
He ignores Dib’s heated denials. “We have no problem here then. I have bested you in lip to lip combat and proved that I am a perfectly normal human teenager who makes kissy faces at New Years. You should feel honored that I have allowed you to have your first kiss during my ingenious scheme.”
Dib rolls his eyes, perhaps a bit sore from being emotionally jerked around for the last 10 minutes. He pushes his glasses up his nose and starts counting off points on his fingers.
“1) Your scheme sucked. If you wanted people to see you kiss or whatever you failed. No one was even paying attention to you.” Zim is so busy being dramatically insulted that he does not notice that Dib has recovered from his shame-based slouching and is looming again.
“2) Don't act like it wasn’t your first kiss too. I doubt swapping spit is covered in your stupid alien military training.” Zim is about to hurl another insult, but is caught off guard when two large hands wrap around his midsection, encircling him entirely.
”What do you think you’re-“ Alarmingly, the buzzing starts up again and his squeedily spooch stutters. Dib grins, as if he’s proven something, which he absolutely has not! Idiot boy.
“And 3) That's a lot of big talk for someone that turns into a squeaky toy if I touch them.” He presses fingers into his midsection firmer. They can both feel the vibrations coming from directly under his thumbs, centralized and then radiating out until a few chirps push past his mouth.
Zim is well aware that ever since he was a disgusting little worm child the Dib has been fascinated with the idea of knowing what went on in his, amazing, alien body. Which is why it must be an unconscious choice for Dib to lift Zim up and lay his filthy ear on his midsection to listen closer.
Will the parade of indignities he must suffer on this horrific planet never cease?
“Whoa, that's… that's really weird. Are you doing that on purpose?” He can feel Dib’s breath on his midsection and it makes his legs feel like they are full of donut jellies. Zim makes a screech of indignation to disguise the chirp that comes out of his mouth.
He’s really, really, not doing it on purpose.
“Unhand me you dirt-monkey!! I am no chew toy for you to slobber over.” Zim grabs a claw full of Dib’s gross hair, yanks him away from his midsection and tries to kick him in the face. Dib braces for the impact, Irken boots hurt like a bitch, but the blow never comes.
“Wha..?”
Zim’s legs dangle uselessly in the air, as if they are fine with this kind of manhandling. Zim orders his legs to kick. It does nothing. He orders his PAK to order his legs to kick. It still does nothing. He orders his PAK legs to come out and still nothing.
He is left with only his wetware to handle the situation, which is not going well: his stupid body shell is too overwhelmed with sensation to do anything. His legs just sort of wiggle around, uselessly.
They both stare; at a loss for how to proceed.
“Is… is that normal?” Dib asks unsure.
“Of course it’s not normal! Clearly there was some kind of toxin in your spits that have infected my leg nerves.”
“Zim that's stupid. I know you’re not that stupid. I did not infect you with a kiss, only babies think that.”
Not for the first time tonight Zim wonders if the disgusting fondness that floods his system stems from some manner of cootie infection or a previously undetected flaw in his body shell. (It has to be the former, Zim is perfect.) Zim wants to die of embarrassment, or at least kill anyone who is here to witness his shame.
His legs may have turned traitor on him, but his claws certainly haven’t.
Dib simply holds him out further, like one might an angry cat, so his claws can’t reach his stupid face to tear appendages off. His PAK refuses to listen to his request to open and give him weapons to wipe the human child off the face of the planet. His midsection keeps buzzing.
Dib just laughs at his misery. “Calm down, I didn’t know that would happen to your legs, don’t scratch my eyes out.”
”That’s the least you deserve for this indignity!” He hisses.
“Need I remind you that this was started by your stupid make out plan?” With a roll of his eyes, Dib makes a big show of gently sitting Zim down on his lap. Zim allows it only because he’s not confident his stupid jelly legs will support him otherwise. And maybe because it feels a teeny tiny bit nice.
An Irken elite is nothing if not a highly trained soldier; he will endure this gentle torture like the any other.
Dib keeps one hand on his midsection, prodding with surprisingly gentle fingers. No doubt the filthy beast was already imagining slicing him open to see what alien organ was causing this reaction. Zim sort of wants to know too, not that he would ever admit that. Just like he will never admit to leaning back into the horrid creature’s chest with a sulk.
Dib wisely does not comment on that, but he has obviously noticed. “So, are these your horny bug noises?”
His PAK is still refusing to bring up any information on what his body is doing so Zim’s not 100% sure. As a smeet he had been told that his body held no vestigial reactions or urges. And while it, perhaps, could be said that Zim was a bit more expressive than most of his fellow Irkens, that was no reason for him to react this way to what was by all reports a casual act of affection.
Except it isn’t a casual act to him. Zim can count on his claws the number of times he has been touched with softness in his entire life. Most of which were in the last 10 minutes. As much as he hates to agree with Dib, all signs point to him being correct: These are, in fact, horny bug noises.
He voices none of this. “I will not dignify that stupid question with an answer. Irkens do not debase themselves like lower lifeforms.”Zim sulks with as much dignity as he can muster. “You will not live to see another New Year for these crimes to my person.”
The human keeps smiling like a fool and flicks his wig where they both know his antennae are hidden under. Despite his earlier statement about this not improving his self esteem; Zim can’t help but notice how annoying smug Dib is being. “Hmmm, I dunno, You’re the one that kissed me. Sounds like you’ve got some repressed urges, Zim.”
Zim sputters, indignant at the implication. Zim has never repressed a single thing he’s felt in his entire life.
“You really didn’t have to do this. No one cares if you don’t kiss someone at midnight, most people don’t.” He stops poking and settles his hand back over his entire midsection. It’s warm and nice and it makes Zim want to hurl, but in a nice way. He’s changed his mind, he hates Dib’s hands more than his stupid eyes now.
If he tries to remove his hand from his person again, Zim vows to rip it off with his teeth and put it in a jar.
“It’s just a dumb superstition. It’s supposed to bring good luck or whatever.”
Zim scoffs and wills his legs to move. “You humans love to make up fake rituals to slobber all over each other. Gross.” Under his boot, he manages to wiggle his toes. Progress.
He feels the light exhale of laughter that Dib makes through his chest. “Zim, your legs short-circuited because you were overwhelmed by making out a little, is this really the hill you want to die on?”
Jokes on Dib, there wasn’t a hill Zim didn’t want to die on.
He is about to tell him as much, tilts his head up to glare but Dib is already looking down at him.
They’ve always been good at prolonged stare downs with one another: it’s one of the things that makes them such great rivals, but the angle of this stare and the buzzing humming through him makes the atmosphere charged with something other than animosity. Their mouths are uncomfortably close again.
“Your PAK is really hot.” Dib mutters, strangely quiet. If Zim can feel the heat of it on his spine, Dib must feel it on his chest. It’s strange to think that Dibs knows what his PAK usually feels like because it had it been attached to him once. It is an alarming intimate knowledge to share with someone; but he does not mind sharing it with the human. Even Zim knows that this is a heretical thought to have. He thinks it anyway.
“Is that normal?” Dib whispers.
His PAK is burning up and not feeding him any information, his wetware is literally buzzing with sensations that overwhelms his nervous system. He can’t stop looking at Dib’s mouth. Zim might be defective. Nothing about this is normal.
It’s easier to not think about it all and give into sensation and lays his own hand over the one on his midsection. “Stop asking questions you know the answers to.” Zim allows himself to be kissed a second time and he can taste the smile on Dib’s mouth.
“Ugh, gross. If that's how you flirt it’s no wonder you could only pull Zim.” Gaz interrupts,returning from her little group and gagging a little at the sight of them.
Zim’s legs decide to to work again in the presence of a threat and lash out, sending him and Dib crashing inelegantly on opposite sides of the bench. ( He fastidiously ignores that he had not considered Dib a threat. )
Gaz makes a face of disgust that they are both familiar with and levels her gaze on Zim in particular. “I told you to babysit him, not get to third base on a bench.”
Zim tilts his head, failing to understand. He is about to point out that his base was not involved in his plan to kiss the Dib, let alone a second or third base. Dib interrupts. “You know he doesn’t know what that is Gaz. And that was hardly third base. Maybe first and a half at best.”
It feels weird to have Dib defend him, he’s not sure if he likes it or not.
Gaz crosses her arms and sneers at her brother. “And weren’t you just about to try and steal to second? What kind of chaperone are you?”
“One that didn’t even want to come here!”
Zim, officially over this, climbs out of Dib's hold on feet that still feel like jellies. He gives the Membrane sibling his most annoyed, put-upon, look. “My amazing plan has now concluded, your lip services are no longer needed Dib. I’m leaving. Do not follow me!” He stomps off shakily, knowing full well that Dib will 100% follow him. He’s dependable like that.
Gaz only snorts, which might as well be uproarious laughter for her. “Ouch, guess it wasn’t a good first and a half base after all.”
Dib scrambles with all the grace of concussed Blorknap to get back on his feet. “First and half base was fine! There was buzzing and chirping Gaz! Autonomous arousal reactions! I gotta write all this down!”
“I don’t want to hear about your weird alien kinks.”
Dib ignores he quip and throws the keys to his beat up car at this sister. “Drive yourself home; if you don’t hear from me by tomorrow I’m probably dead. Call NASAplace or I don’t know, a UAP alert in to the government?”
“I’m not calling the government to tell them you got laid."
Predictably Dib is hot on his heels, long legs jetting through the dense foliage of Torque Smacky’s suburban backyard and to the bushes where Zim has parked the Voot. “HEY ZIM, WAIT UP! Can I measure the frequency of your horny buzzing? Zim? Zim?”
Idiot boy. Zim is almost charmed.
Something is definitely wrong with his spooch with how it warms at the thought of riding back to the base with Dib and finding out what on Earth constituted a‘second base’. Whatever the problem is, he could probably wait until tomorrow to fix it. Probably.