Chapter Requested By: Polly

Comment Request: "Can we do something involving Pur and Red talking to Zil about how smeets are made?"

Genre: Family/Comedy

Rating: Rated T for light language and soft suggestive themes.

Author Comment(s): This was a request I got a while ago in my private messages! I am SO sorry I took so long to make this! I've been having some financial troubles lately, so I've been shirking this piece in favor of keeping up updates on a few other things but I am back and better than ever! I hope you like this chapter, it was so fun and cute to write, and please leave a comment if you'd like!

Larrimeme, I'm so excited to announce that your major, incredibly Irk-shattering chapter will be popping up next! AHHH! I'm really excited about that one and it's going to really shift Zil's perspective for the…good? Bad? I don't know so we'll have to wait and see, angel. :)

"Dad, what is this one? What is it? It looks like a scary hairy! A big scary hairy! Dad? Does it like to eat smeets? Does it like to live in the dark or the sunshine? Where are its eyes? Why is it so fuzzy? Why does it smell weird? Dad? Are you looking? Look! Look! Is it on my list? A scary hairy on my list?"

Zil tried to shove her glistening electronic scavenger hunt up into Red's free hand as he and Purple shielded their eyes against the sun in the blistering heat, annoyed that they were forced to spend half of their coveted weekend running their daughter about through the Irken International Exposition of Exotic Species for her school project. Of course Zil, being the tiny menace that she was, had picked to perform a highly detailed, mind-numbing scavenger hunt her instructor had set up for anyone not wanting to write a lengthy report over what they had learned about alien biology. No, she wanted to look at it, dragging her unenthusiastic parents through the gargantuan collection of peculiar odds and ends to stare in awe at foreign scaly animals, fur covered monsters, and wrinkly behemoths with mouths dotting their bodies. There were jelly filled blobs of cosmic nonsense, nervously chittering fiends with gnashing claws snarling beyond bars, and docile flittering insects carefully caged behind fire-retardant materials as they spontaneously combusted through their long antennae and scorched their enclosures. Zil adored it all, reading over every single information card for tiny morsels of knowledge she needed to fill in on her worksheet while poking her curious fingers through grates and cages as Purple hastily tugged her away before they could be grabbed by toxic, eight legged curiosities. They had been walking for hours in the summer sun and Purple was beginning to complain, lazing obnoxiously over Red's shoulder and tugging constantly at his sleeve to whine out his antennae-piercing boredom when Zil turned her back to lock eyes with something tiny and vibrant green peeking back at her through a florescent crimson bush.

"Ugh, can't we just look this stuff up for her and fill it out at home?" Purple flicked his antennae forward, jabbing Red in the eye and smirking when he grumbled to brush them back. "It's not hard! I don't get whey we have to come all the way back out here!"

"Would you shut up? You're giving me a headache." Red snapped back, scrolling through the remaining few creatures on their list as their smeet bobbed and weaved through other uninterested parents tagging along with bright eyed younglings. "She wanted to come out here and it's not my fault if you wanted to wear those." He pointed down at Purple's one inch boots and quickly earned a hot tongue jabbed back in his direction.

"Grow up, Red. What else would I wear?" Purple snorted, pulling away from the crook of his partner's arm to cross his heatedly over his chest to show his defiance. "In my defense I thought we were gonna be wearing our hover belts out here but someone forgot to pack them."

Red leisurely re-read some poorly typed tidbits on their screen, going back through and correcting his daughter's appalling grammar and spelling mistakes. "Honey, I told you I wasn't bringing them. You need the exercise."

"Excuse me? What are you insinuating? That I'm getting soft?"

"What? No! You're reading into everything and taking it way too personally. You just need to get out of the command chair every once in a while and walk like a normal person...Plus, I kinda like hugging your squish."

"Red, if you don't stop talking, I'm going to push you into the enclosure of…whatever those things are." Purple hissed, eyeing the strange tropical environment their tiny daughter had stopped at, ducking beneath the safety guardrail for a better look. "Oh, gross. They're so ugly."

They meandered over together, forgetting about their loving spat to marvel at the inexplicable family of four in utter enchantment. They were gargantuan pink blobs of formless flesh jiggling and sloshing their way around one another, towering just over four stories as they quivered and ached for more space in their cramped enclosure. Four tiny legs protruded from the bottom of their trembling, veiny flesh, rippling with excitement and opening wide mouths of forty rows of gnashing serrated teeth as Zil neared the second safety rail, Red immediately darting forward and again scooping up his overly curious smeet to whisk her away before she could get too close to the beckoning jaws enticing her beyond submission. They were behind four tons of reinforced steel, but he didn't want to take any chances, taking her firmly by the hand and glaring down at her when she shot him a hot look of utter defiance.

Zil turned her attention back to the smaller beasts galloping with booming roars around the ankles of their jiggly parents, observing them with keen interest as Purple strode forward to finish off the last of her scavenger hunt at the information board slung against the side of the cage, filling in each and every line and eager to get back to the Massive and off of his thoroughly aching feet. He halfway tossed the reader back into Red's free hand and shielded his eyes against the sun with a tired grumble, leading the way back along the cobbly path as he attempted not to trip in his heels and eyed his husband every time he snickered when he managed to halfway get himself stuck in a crack. Zil craned over her shoulder to keep her eyes on the strange monstrosities, watching vigilantly as their wrinkly babies bounded about with gelatinous fervor through shrubbery and kicked up loose foliage before looking back up at her father and searching his face against the vivid light. She stared him down for a few moments, meeting his gaze and unnerving him a bit as she pierced his soul with her almost dead stare and lost herself to a profound, Irk-shattering thought she had never graced before in her young life. She had been so preoccupied with brightly colored toys and giggling fantasy games that she hadn't really thought about the wonders of what it meant to truly be alive, or to give life to another, feeling the strange connotations and unknown queries blossom into something undiscovered in her young, agile mind and grow into a colossal tree of unidentified amazement. Eventually, she lit back up, crimson eyes shooting wide and jaw dropping to the philosophical weight of the incredible, bizarre question hanging on her tongue before immediately stopping in the path and attempting to drag Red down to her level so she could whisper against his antennae.

"Come on, baby, we finished your thing and we're going home." He reminded and ignored her silent pleas to ask her sensitive topic, gently tugging her along as she squeaked in protest and wildly pointed back at the cage they had just been standing at. "What, Zil? Use your words like a big girl."

Zil took a deep breath, realizing she wouldn't get ahold of her father's attention that easily and nearly screamed the one question he and Purple hadn't been ready for, stopping them both in their tracks as their antennae flattened in overwhelming dread to the conversation that could no longer be avoided, no matter how hard they had both tried to keep her innocent and blissfully ignorant to the processes of the natural world. It was appalling, terrifying, and utterly erroneous in all the wrong ways, cutting them off and frying them both worse than the beating sunlight as their curious daughter stared up at them with profound fascination and a giddy smile stamped over her rosy cheeks.

"Dad, Daddy, where do babies come from?"

Purple nearly tripped and gagged on his own tongue, spinning on his heel and immediately locking eyes with Red who had all but gone catatonic, panicking when Zil's childlike gaze bounced between them with a sweet giggle at the hilarious faces creeping up over her paling parents as they desperately tried to figure out how to steer her away from the topic. She pointed back at the enclosure in the distance, listening eagerly to the rumbling roars and prattling warbles pouring from the jowls of the monsters that had piqued her interest.

"Like those big guys! How did they get the little ones they keep as babies?" Zil wondered, letting go of Red's hand and skipping her way to where Purple had frozen, dumbfounded as other natural smeet parents gave him looks of sympathetic knowing and carted their own younglings off home. "I've never seen a baby making machine before, but we learned that lots of smeets come from a DNA robot!" She exclaimed proudly, throwing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest at how infinitely smart she felt. "But my teacher also told us that natural smeets like me don't come from there. Where do I come from, Daddy?"

Purple didn't know what to say, bringing his nervous claws together to wring his fingers as he glanced back up to Red for help, rolling his eyes when he noticed his sly husband had somehow crept off to a nearby concessions stand to buy a bag of popcorn, flashing him a condescending thumbs up from afar as he hung back and left Purple to deal with the world-changing talk he was about to have. He narrowed his eyes and felt a growl bubble up in the back of his throat, immediately swallowing it back down when Zil tugged at his pant leg with a frown.

"Why don't I get a robot, Daddy? Am I not special enough?" Zil whimpered, pacifying Purple into soul-crushing submission as her shimmering eyes glazed over and she threatened to cry at the awful, horrific thought that she was somehow an abomination to Irken kind.

"No, no, silly Zilly! You're more special than any smeet on Irk and in the stars! You're a Tallest's smeet, and that's the greatest honor you could ever have." He quickly reassured her, motioning for her to follow close at his heels as a wave of foreign tourists swamped the path and drove them to the sidelines. "You…well…eh…You don't come from a robot because you're special. Let's just…ugh how do I say this? Let's just say that you're made from a lot of love." He sunk into himself as the corny, overdone statement accidentally slipped past his lips, groaning under his breath when his daughter struggled to hoist herself up on a small garden terrace she had found, plopping down in the moist soil and ruining the pristine hem of her pink chiffon dress.

"A lot of love?" Zil repeated, cocking her head and digging her fingers into the gooey mud beneath her. "Who made me from a lot of love? Did you buy me somewhere?"

"N-No. You don't buy smeets."

"Oh. Then…was I baked like a cake? With lots of layers and chocolate and good gooey stuff? Is that why I like candy and cookies so much because I'm a giant cookie too?"

"Not exactly…You…oh geez, you and all the other natural smeets were made by two Irkens who love each other very much. Dad and I decided a long time ago that we wanted to make you together, so we did."

"You and Dad made me? But if you didn't bake me like a yummy cake, how did you make me, Daddy?"

Purple lowered himself down, bringing a hand to the back of his sunburnt neck and sighing when he felt some of the tender pressure leave his toes for a much-needed break. He didn't want to necessarily lie to Zil, but he also wasn't ready to open up the wave for her to ask too many personal, hopefully not graphic, questions and bombard him with wide eyed observations about other pregnant Irkens she may witness in the future. She remained completely still, leaning forward from where she listened intently and sinking her tiny fingers deeper into the soil to halfway uproot exotic flowers and other bulbs her hands grazed beneath the surface.

He took a deep breath and clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, relaxing a bit when Red saw the humiliating shade of deep blue splayed over his partner's excruciatingly pained face and reluctantly returned, trudging across the path and weaving his way in between small tourists half his height as he shoveled salty popcorn into his mouth and gave in to the agonizing torture their unsuspecting smeet was bearing down on their shoulders like a potent sledgehammer.

"Dad, Daddy said you made me!" Zil piped up when he slung himself down next to her and frowned as she instantly dug her filth covered hands into his popcorn, sneering playfully and relinquishing the rest of the bag over to her when he lost his appetite.

Red sighed and gave a quick sideways glance to his mortified partner before collecting himself and nodding. "Yup. We made you." He repeated simply, keeping his answers short and sweet as Zil munched away on a mixture of buttery deliciousness and flower roots he reached down and picked from between her sharp teeth. "Sometimes, a mom and a dad want to have a smeet, so they do something very special to make that happen."

Zil swallowed thickly, hacking on a pebble she had accidentally swallowed before gracelessly spitting it to the side. "I don't have a mom." She stated the obvious in a matter of fact tone, pointing up at Purple with a wide, overly proud beam. "I have a tall pretty Daddy! Do you need a mom to make smeets?"

Red shook his head, holding back a chuckle at the oblivious little thing beneath him as cogs turned in her unsuspecting mind and snickering teasingly when Purple's embarrassment only grew at her fanatical praise, watching as he sunk deeper into his shirt and tried not to rock through the uncomfortably sweet atmosphere their once innocent outing had taken. "No, you can have a Daddy to make smeets, too." He mulled over how much to tell her, staring up at the sky and admiring the overcast clouds handing in the magenta stratosphere. "You're a mature, big girl, now so I think you can handle knowing some of this and I'd rather you hear it from me or Daddy then your friends at the Academy. It's all about science, right Pur?"

Purple shot up at the mention of his pet name, immediately agreeing with a cheesy, harrowing smile and wanting to smack himself when he realized he hadn't been listening. "Yeah! Yeah! Um…what now?"

"Science, honey, making a smeet is all about science." Red said slowly through his teeth, drawing out the word and trying to prompt his jittery husband to help him along and trying not to let his blistering annoyance get the better of him.

"Oh, yeah, science and biology! Remember learning about those in your class?" Purple chimed in after a gulp of much-needed air. "Because Dad loves me and I love him, like I said, we came together to make an…a-an egg for you to hatch from."

Zil still wasn't understanding, counting something on her fingers that didn't make any sense before furrowing her brow and scrunching up her smooth features in a twisted look of dirt smeared confusion. "An egg?! I came out of an egg? That doesn't sound right, though! If you and Dad made me, how did you put me inside an egg without breaking it? Did you have to glue it together or…" She tried to map out the image of her parents taking her tiny unborn self and carefully slicing open a shell to slip her inside, only growing more bewildered when it too didn't seem to hold any rational logic.

Red sighed, trying a different, more direct tactic instead. "Hang on, let's look at this rationally here. Do you remember when General Gor picks you up from school and you see other moms with big round bellies picking up your friends?" He asked tentatively, reeling Zil back in and waiting for her to nod. "Do you know why they have round bellies?"

Zil shook her head with a shrug. "I think it's because they ate too much candy." She laughed, finishing off her popcorn and flopping back into the filthy dirt of the flowerbed.

Purple smiled at her beautiful naiveté and simplicity, finally relaxing enough to follow along with his partner's gentle lead and gaining enough confidence to pick up where she left off when he realized she wasn't throughout appalled like he had expected her to be. "Not quite. It's because they have an egg inside them where a smeet is growing." He dropped his voice to a whisper when a group of younglings came bounding past, throwing tufts of cotton candy and attempting to outrun their exasperated parents. He pointed to his own abdomen as Zil shrunk back in disgusted horror. "You grew right here inside me."

"Ew! You swallowed me so I would grow?!" She slammed her hands repeatedly down in the soil, scattering it over the edge of the once manicured terrace and sticking out her tongue with a fake gag. "Gross, Daddy! I know you like to eat, but why did you eat me?!"

"I didn't, freak. Dad put you there."

"Didn't? Dad made you swallow me?!"

Red chuckled under his breath, biting back a slew of terribly uncouth jokes he wanted to make but refrained for the sake of his own daughter's slowly distressing mind. "Baby, your Daddy is beautiful and I love him more than anyone in the Universe. When you love someone enough, you can give them a," he paused, irritated he had to appear so soft in public and held back a smile when Purple flashed a soft, loving one in his direction, "special kind of hug that makes all of that crazy powerful feeling build up inside and make a smeet form inside Daddy. I gave him that hug and transferred all of my own love to him so you could grow up to be strong and influential one day. Get it?"

"Mm…you loved Daddy enough to make me grow? Like a flower?"

"Yup."

"…and all the other moms and dads love each other enough to make a smeet grow with a flower making hug?"

"Uh huh."

Zil brought a muddy finger to her lips, smearing the dark blue substance over her mouth as she pondered. "Neat. So can I have a smeet with a flower making hug? Like if I hug my best friend Flar really, really hard will we have one too?" She grinned in oblivious amusement when Purple shook his head and chuckled between his fingers.

"You won't have smeets for a while. You can only have that kind of hug when you're older." He meticulously clarified. "For now you can focus on taking care of that nasty pet of yours."

"What about the smeets who don't have an egg or a super pretty Daddy? The ones that have a robot. If they need all the big boy and big girl love to grow like a plant how does the robot make them?"

Ugh, she would ask that. Purple locked eyes with his partner who gave a secret shrug back in his direction, ushering him on with his mellow body language and acting as the ever faithful, trustworthy anchor in the chaos that had become the last grueling fifteen minutes. "I guess you don't really need love to make a smeet grow," he replied carefully, watching every inquisitive twitch of Zil's lightly curled antennae, "but the best smeets are the ones who grow up with that. You're really lucky to have parents who love you and want to take care of you, Zilly, because there's lots of smeets out there who don't have that."

"Why?"

"The Control Brains say so."

"Why?"

"Because we need soldiers. That's the fastest way to get more."

Zil let her wry smile fade with a tiny nod of enlightenment, somewhat satisfied with that answer as her swirling questions finally began to settle in her underdeveloped psyche. "Huh. When I'm Tallest I'll give them all moms and dads then so everyone can be happy." She decided flippantly, brushing off the unnaturally mechanical hatching processes and DNA cloning happening twenty miles under their feet as smeets of all sizes were ushered into categories to immediately begin training over warfare and Irken military history. "Does that mean I have to go be a soldier like the robot smeets?"

Red stood with a yawn when he noticed the sun reach its incredibly sweltering zenith and almost scorch Purple to death, taking him by the hand as he fanned himself pathetically to no avail and silently willed the summer to go away and leave him be with the cozy caress of frigid winter. "Nah. You're too small." He teased, watching Zil bristle under the perceived insult.

"Hey! You said I'm the tallest in my class! I-I'm tall and I'm brave and I have strong hands and I'm learning my PAK legs to fight off all the mean bad guys like hoomans who come to invade our home and eat smeets!" Every fine, feathery hair on her fuzzy antennae stood on end at the mention of humans coming to overtake Irk as she tried to shake away the horrific image plaguing her mind with a poorly masked whimper. "When I'm old enough to have my own flower making hug I'll have fourteen smeets and keep them all safe from bad hoomans and their scary claws!"

Purple blinked as Red fell in next to him, instinctively offering up his hand as Zil took off further down the path with a twirl to chase after fictious monsters swirling in her overactive imagination and grabbing for a rotting twig to brandish it like a plasma pistol, firing away at the gnashing faces of rabies infected humans threatening the dire safety of her quaint family.

"Damn…thank Irk she changed the subject; I was starting to sweat." Red breathed our his relief, feeling Purple's grip tighten around his fingers. "I'm not sure I want fourteen grandkids. With as much as Zil eats, they'd probably starve us both to death."

His partner shuddered in revulsion at the thought of their adult daughter and her eventual partner dumping two heaping handfuls of screaming mouths and flailing toys on them as they went off to fight wars and dogfights through the glittering cosmos. "Ugh, I'd shoot myself before that happened. Might as well put myself out of my misery before it kills me, right?" He reached up with his free hand and mimicked a fake, playful gunshot at his temple, teasingly letting his eyes roll back as he pretended to die and halfway swoon into his chuckling partner's arms and almost making him drop the electronic reader clutched beneath his arm.

Red fumbled to inelegantly catch him, nearly falling forward in the process with a wild, untamed laugh and shaking his head when his mate struggled to set himself upright against the uneven ground. "So…we ever gonna tell her how it really happens? The whole shebang?"

Purple jabbed him hard in the shoulder when Zil's antennae perked up momentarily before her wavering attention was caught by something small hopping aimlessly in a nearby enclosure on long, spindly legs. "Let her keep her innocence, Red. I'm not ready to see her grow up this early." He mumbled, happy their overly curious, sensitive daughter hadn't heard their profound secret.

"I take it that means she'll never know she was conceived in the cleansing room, huh?"

"No. She can never know."

Horray! Once again, I hope you liked this chapter and it was fun to write! Thank you for Polly asking for this one, it was super cute and I think our tall dads handled it well. Sorry again for taking so long! I don't usually do that, as you guys know, but there's been a lot of changes in my life I finally got over and am all back to normal now!

Larrimeme, the much-anticipated Dib/human chapter is coming next. And I. Am. EXCITED. It's gonna be a major one, a bit of a thriller, and a profound shift in Zil's world. EEE! I can't wait, honestly! I'm going to try and have it up before Christmas as a gift! Love you darling!