A loser's tale

A Loser’s Tale

Summary : Gretchen watched them fight, praying that Dib would look her way just once. But she just couldn't compete with the green kid. One-shot ZADR
Rating: PG-13 for boys making out with aliens
Warnings: Slash, Xenophilia, Voyeurism (gosh it sounds terrible put like that )
Disclaimer: I don’t own Invader Zim characters, Jhonen does. I’m just using them in a totally unrealistic and very gay way.
Author Notes: Many thanks to my sexay beta-reader, the lovely Miyukyo, and to my first fangirl, the awesome Crazymegami.


*

Gretchen looked at Dib from afar, a lovesick sigh getting past her lips. He was there, only steps away yet so unreachable. His attention was focused on the same thing he’d always obsessed over. The green kid.

Zim.

Another sigh, which went unnoticed by the other students passing by, the same way they didn’t acknowledge the shouting pair in the middle of the Hi Skool hallway. But Gretchen saw them and couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of jealousy. There was nothing to be jealous about, of course. Dib hated the green kid, had done since their elementary Skool days. Theirs was an epic rivalry that had become background noise. Let’s face it, they were both losers and not worth the time of cooler students.

But ugly and timid Gretchen, rejected as much as them both, longed to be noticed by the most mentally unstable and socially inept boy in the Skool. Not counting Zim, of course. The problem was that Dib only had eyes for his mysteries, his aliens, and his lifelong feud with the green psychopath.

They were fighting again, but that was nothing new. They couldn’t hold a conversation more than five minutes without reverting to the old “filthy hyumun” and “alien scum” insults. It would either end in a fist fight or with Zim saying something so totally absurd that people around them would stop and stare. He would then yell “I’m normal!”, point elsewhere and run away.

Zim was currently engaged in an endless rant proclaiming his amazing greatness and how Dib was nothing more that a lowly dirt child that wasn’t even worth the great Zim’s time, or something along those lines. In the middle of a particular evil laugh, Dib threw his hand in the air with an exasperated shout.

‘ENOUGH!’ he snapped. ‘I can’t take anymore of your nonsense, Zim!’

He turned around and walked away, leaving the green teenager with his mouth open and his finger pointing empty space. A furious yell followed the retreating paranormal investigator.

‘How DARE you walk away from ZIIIIIIIIM?!?’

Gretchen thought he was about to run after the other boy, but the bell interrupted his plans and forced them all to scatter to their classes. She sighed again. Dib’s eyes had been so intense, his demeanor so fiery… How she wanted for him to look at her like that, or to just look in her general direction once in a while…

*

Gretchen wandered the empty Hi Skool corridors, her Hall Pass blinking silently around her neck. She’d been sent to do an errant for the History teacher and gladly got away from the boring class. The silence was only broken by her footsteps and the teacher’s muffled voices trough the wooden doors.

Something shiny on the floor caught her eye. She bowed down and took it delicately, frowning. It was a contact glass, but not small and transparent like they usually were. This one was huge, thick, and painted in opaque tones of white and blue to mimic a normal eye. She wondered who it belonged to. Maybe a student or a teacher was currently walking around with only half their sight. She’d go and leave it to the Lost and Found room so they could find it faster.

A distant shout caught her attention. Her heart stopped beating at once. She’d recognize Dib’s voice anywhere.

She walked towards the stairs going to the basement. It had come from there. She suppressed a shiver. Far from being as creepy as her elementary Skool underground classrooms, the basement here was still not a place a defenseless student wanted to litter around. Tales of crazy janitors, horrible mutant beasts and portals to Hell kept the teenagers from going down there.

But her Dib had shouted and maybe it was in terror, or in pain, or worse. She couldn’t just stay there and hope for the best! Taking a deep breath, she started going down the stairs, gripping the banister with a trembling hand, holding the contact in the other, getting more and more nervous with each step.

She got to the floor and took some seconds to get used to the dim lighting. Most light bulbs were dead, the only working ones flickering in a creepy way. The floor was incredibly dusty, cobwebs covered the empty lockers, the unused classroom’s doors were hanging by their hinges and she could have swore that that moving shadow over there was a rat. Or worse.

She whimpered and kept walking forward, holding the contact next to her chest, eyes darting everywhere. She had to find Dib at any cost and take him back! She had to save him!

She heard them again. The voices. There was more than one and she could hear them clearly now. She peered around a corner and contained a gasp. There was her Dib, but he wasn’t alone.

He was pinned to a wall by metallic contraptions looking a lot like spider legs. Their pointy ends were digging holes into his shirt and trench coat. Gretchen’s eyes popped wide when she saw where they emerged from.

Zim’s back pack.

The green kid was lifting himself from the ground with the same metallic legs that held Dib. He was hissing and spitting the usual insults, and Dib watched him with a bored expression, as if this was usual between them.

Gretchen couldn’t find anything to do with the strange situation. Her Dib seemed to be in danger, but he wasn’t even acting like it.

‘…and you’ll regret making fun of Zim that way!’ was saying the Invader.

‘Are you quite done, yet?’ asked Dib with exasperation. ‘We shouldn’t be here. How about we continue this later, after Skool?’

‘I refuse!’ growled the green kid. ‘You sought the wrath of Zim, you shall pay for it!’

‘All of this because of a stupid waffle? Come on, you know it wasn’t even my fault!’

‘But you did nothing to rectify the situation! And you laughed at ZIM! I will make you regret your insolence!’

‘Geez, I swear you’re getting bored if something as stupid as that makes you take out the pak legs’ grumbled Dib.

‘I wouldn’t be bored if you cooperated once in a while!’

‘What, by stopping your world domination plans? Zim, they’re getting lamer and lamer, you don’t even put any kind of effort into them!’

‘You don’t even pay attention to ZIM anymore!’

‘I still argue with you…’

‘Only at Skool! You stopped spying, intruding, and tricking me! You got soft, Dib-thing, and I can’t allow that!’

‘Look who’s talking, Mister I’m-taking-over-the-world-with-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwiches! If you want me to react, at least put on a challenge! You haven’t tried to kill me in the last six months!’

‘And you haven’t tried to dissect me for even longer!’ spat the green kid.

At that, Dib frowned and looked away. Gretchen hid herself even deeper in the shadows, and had to strain her ears to listen what came next.

‘We talked about that already’ muttered Dib.

‘Nonsense! You just whined about your people being stoo-pid and blind and not caring about them anymore! Zim didn’t pay attention to your emotional crisis, Dib-thing!’

‘Oh please, as if you were better! “Oh woe is me, my Tallest have exiled me, I’m useless and pathetic and yaddayaddayadda!”’

‘We agreed not to mention this anymore!’

‘You’re the one that started it!’

‘We agreed to continue as if nothing had changed!’

‘Well what if I WANT this to change?!?’ snapped Dib.

‘What are you on about, hyumun?’

‘I’ve got enough of this! The fights were fun when they meant something, but now it’s just us trying to stretch something that’s not even there anymore! I know you won’t destroy the Earth and you know I won’t expose you!’

‘Now don’t go and make dumb assumptions –‘

‘I’m just stating the truth, Zim. I know it hurts, but it’s there. I’m the only one who cares about your miserable life, and you’re the only one that gives a damn about me being alive!’

Gretchen felt her chest hurt. “No” she wanted to say. “I care, Dib, I care…” But she kept silent and kept listening, each word letting her see a part of Dib she wasn’t aware of.

Zim narrowed his eyes and kept silent.

‘Can’t you see we only have each other?’ asked Dib with a voice full of emotion. ‘I’m just tired of fighting the only friend I had in my whole existence!’

‘…Friend?’ exclaimed Zim, repelled by the word. ‘Zim is not your friend and never was!’

‘You’re the closest thing I have to one!’ shouted Dib. ‘It’s not as if I had any choice in the matter! You came to Earth and ruined my life, but you made it worth something!’

‘You’re getting all emotional again’ grumbled the green kid, looking uncomfortable.

‘What if I am?!?’ snapped Dib. ‘I can’t keep this stupid charade anymore! I have enough of these endless arguments! I just want to talk to you civilly but you always manage to turn everything into a life and death matter!’

‘You want to stop being enemies? What else is there to do besides fighting?!?’

‘This’ growled Dib, pressing his lips against Zim’s.

Gretchen placed both hands on her mouth to fight the scream that wanted to pierce the silence. Dib, her Dib, was kissing the green kid. Her Dib was gay. Her Dib would never be hers.

Zim pulled away after a moment.

‘What is the meaning of this?!?’ he shrieked.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t know’ retorted Dib. ‘You spent enough years on Earth to know the meaning of a kiss.’

‘ZIM KNOWS THAT! Zim is asking why did you DO IT?!?’

‘I wanted to, isn’t that enough?’ snapped back Dib. ‘There you have it, I’m a fucked up delusional gay xenophile, and I wouldn’t be surprised to have a masochistic streak somewhere! I must have for liking you, you stupid alien!’

‘Zim doesn’t know what half of these words mean,’ growled the green teenager, ‘but Zim agrees on one. Youare fucked up, Dib-thing.’

And with that, he grabbed Dib’s face with both gloved hands and started kissing him back. Gretchen watched in morbid fascination as both boys in front of her started making out with a raw need she wasn’t aware existed. It was fierce and intense, like every fight they had before. She could feel moisture on her cheeks. She was crying.

Dib gasped for air.

‘Release me’ he whispered.

The metallic legs retreated in Zim’s back pack. Dib didn’t waste any time in grabbing the other’s waist and press him against the wall. He started licking and biting the green neck. Now that Zim had turned around, she could see his face. He was missing one contact. His right eye was a deep crimson color.

She shivered. The eye looked weird. Almost… inhuman.

‘What are you doing, Dib-thing?’ muttered Zim with a raspy voice.

‘No idea’ admitted Dib between two nibbles. ‘But I ain’t stopping any time soon.’

‘Stop and fear my wrath’ gasped Zim after a harder bite.

Gretchen could not tear her eyes from the scene. She saw Zim’s gloved hands slip under Dib’s shirt and press their bodies together. A loud gasp from both of them.

‘Oh God why haven’t we tried this sooner?’ wondered Dib between two moans.

‘Less talking, more smooching!’ ordered Zim with another kiss.

Dib’s hands went from Zim’s waist to his head, and grabbed his hair. Gretchen couldn’t suppress a startled jump. It was a wig that fell to the floor. Zim’s head was totally bald, except for two long strands of hair on top of it.

But then the locks of hair moved by themselves, and Gretchen recognized them for what they were.

Antennas.

Suddenly, everything seemed to add up. The green skin, the lack of nose and ears, the red eyes, the antennas, the talk about invading the world… Dib was right. He’d always been right. Zim was really a bloodthirsty alien invader…

…currently reduced to a whimpering pile of jell-o while Dib licked his left antenna. Gretchen could hear him mutter endlessly in a language she didn’t understand. Dib manifestly did, because he stopped his licking to chuckle.

‘You should hear yourself’ he said with a wide smile.

‘…you don’t know how sensitive Irken lekkus are’ growled the alien, trying to get his senses back.

‘I think I could venture a guess…’ muttered Dib with a sly smile.

The loud bell made them all jump. Gretchen suddenly remembered where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. The boys sprung apart, seeming to realize the same thing.

‘Shit’ cursed Dib. ‘We missed all of second period!’

‘We still have five minutes to get to the next one’ grumbled Zim, patting down his antenna to get it back to normal again.

Dib bent down and caught the fallen wig, shaking the dust off it.

‘Here you go’ he said, giving it to the alien. ‘Huh, you’re missing a contact.’

‘Must have fallen while we were fighting upstairs’ grumbled Zim, covering his head. ‘Go to class, I’ll look for it.’

‘…You sure?’ hesitated Dib.

‘Yes, Zim is sure’ he said with a vague wave of his hand. ‘Don’t give me that kicked puppy look, we can resume whatever you had in mind after Skool. You’re coming to my base.’

‘You’re inviting me?’ asked Dib with a huge smile. ‘Wow, I haven’t had the pleasure to visit without getting kicked out…’

‘Keep the lekku licking and Zim won’t activate the base defenses’ smirked the alien. ‘Now shoo! Off to class!’

Dib smirked and pressed a lingering kiss against the alien’s lips.

‘See you later’ he muttered in a husky voice.

Gretchen saw him run up the stairs, a new spring to his step. She turned around to wait for Zim to leave, but let out a scream when she saw him standing in front of her. He narrowed his eyes, the crimson one terrifying her. He extended an expecting hand, and she noticed for the first time that he had only three fingers, ending in long, menacing claws.

Slowly, she deposited the contact in his hand and watched him pop it into his naked eye. He smiled at her in a mean, cruel and victorious way, and simply left, not caring that she could reveal his identity.

And Gretchen stayed in the dark, hands pressed against her beating heart, knowing that he was right. She wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Because even if she knew that the green kid was really an alien… what difference did it made? Even if she told Dib that she believed him… he would never, ever be hers.

She just couldn’t compete.

*

Author’s Note: So, what did you think of it? Don’t hesitate to leave your comments, squealing and insults, I promise I don’t bite.