Her antennae were thick and luscious, as straight and black as the eyelashes lining her crimson orbs. Her lips were slightly parted, her mouth open only enough to be sensual as she ran the tips of her claw-like fingers down her antennae, teasingly caressing from the back of her head down her neck, lower and lower until her fingers dipped under her uniform top.
"Oh, Allison," Red muttered, snuggling his face against her softness. "Don't stop, don't stop!"
Slowly, she gently opened her mouth, and whispered…
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Red sat bolt upright, striking the back of his head on the headboard of his comfortable bed. His arms were not wrapped around a luscious, eager female Irken, but his own plain, white, lumpy pillow. He had deep scarlet sheets wrapped around his legs, not soft and fleshy legs. The sudden sound had not come from an adult female, but from the crying smeet in the next room.
Throwing down his pillow, Red flung on his black terrycloth robe and stormed into the adjacent room. Inside Purple rocked a wailing, red-faced Amber in his arms, hurriedly trying to shush her. "Amber, Amber, please! You'll wake up Red. You don't want to wake up grumpy ol' Red, do you?"
Amber paused as if thinking, then regained her loud wailing. Red, irritated at being called grumpy and old, stomped into the room. "She already woke the big, bad tallest," Red snapped, rubbing his still sleepy eyes with the backs of his fists.
Ignoring Red's anger, Purple hefted the hiccuping Amber over his shoulder and patted her back. "I don't know what's wrong with her, she usually doesn't wail like this!
Maybe I really should have Morris check if she had an antennae infection, poor little thing." In his arms, Amber's feet kicked frantically in mid-air as she continued to sob, her tiny hands drawn up into pained fists.
"Poor little Amber? What about poor tallest Red? Purple, since she got old enough to find her voice, she hasn't stopped crying! I can't remember what it's like to sleep through the night," Red cried, dramatically sweeping his claw across his face and mock swooning to the floor.
"Just be grateful that you're not the one whose room she sleeps in," Purple responded, sticking out his long tongue at Red. Amber, still thrown over his shoulder, let out a belch to shame a beer-guzzling frat boy before returning back to her angry wailing. "Oh, did I tell you what happened at the mall?"
"No, you didn't," Red answered, thinking he was going to get the story of how Purple had managed to get so much tasty spider meat so cheaply.
"Amber needed a changing, and the only baby changing stands were in the women's bathrooms? Can you believe that?"
Red stared. "I care about that… why?"
"Because it's blatant sexism, that's what! I had to swallow my pride and deal with the fact that everyone says our robes look like dresses in order to change my Amber!"
Red found himself staring even more blankly. Purple in the women's bathroom. That just seemed… wrong… somehow. Especially with a smeet. Especially with a crying, wailing, farting, crying, burping, screaming smeet in his arms… Red clamped his hands over his antennae. They were starting to ring from the noise of Amber's protests.
Unable to take it anymore, Red ripped Amber out of Purple's protective grip. "STOP CRYING!" he shouted hysterically, holding the infant up high above his head. Amber stopped screaming long enough to giggle, right as a loud farting noise emanated from her behind.
A split second later, Red felt something drop against his face. Slowly, he lowered Amber down, handing her back over to a nervous Purple. Even more slowly, he raised his fingers to his face, rubbing the mysterious substance. He pulled his hand away, noticing the way it stuck to his fingers.
"Oh! The poor thing has a leaky diaper!" Purple cried, studying Amber. "No wonder she was crying!"
"Diaper? You mean she… she peed on me?" Red cried.
Purple paused, looking inside Amber's diaper. "It's… uh… worse than pee..."
Red barely made it back to his own bathroom in time to puke up the previous day's pizza all over the toilet and bath, requiring a late night "emergency" visit from janitorial. Purple, meanwhile, sought out medical attention for Amber's "Hershey squirts."
The next morning Red finally managed to bring himself to creep out of his bedroom around nine a.m. He felt like crud, and he was sure janitorial was currently telling "interesting" stories about him behind his back. Thus, he was less than enthused to arrive into the royal dining room to find Purple down on his knees before Amber's high chair, a can of baby nachos in his right hand and a tiny spoon in his left.
"Oh, are you feeling better after last night?" Purple inquired sweetly, grinning knowingly at Red.
"Shut your face," Red snapped, slumping down into his chair. "What in mother Irk's name are you doing?"
"It turns out that Amber's getting the… uh… runs because she's getting too old to continue only nursing. She needs solids and fibers in her diet. So today I'm going to start trying to get her to eat smeet food."
Amber giggled and waved her arms enthusiastically, aware that her little high chair meant that she was going to be fed. Amber was, however, expecting a fresh bottle to be presented to her. Needless to say, when a silver spoon arrived instead, Amber was less than happy about it.
Amber shut her mouth and well as her eyes, scrunching up her face and turning away from the spoon. "Come on, Amber, it's nummy! Num, num, num!" Purple coaxed, dangling the spoon in front of Amber's face.
She opened her eyes long enough to give her opinion of the smelly pile of mush pushed in front of her as food. "PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPTH!" Amber declared.
"Amber!" Purple sighed, "That's not polite." Amber wrinkled up her face again and grinned through the wrinkles at Purple. "Come on, Amber! For daddy?"
Amber shook her head back and forth, indicating that the answer was a big "No."
Purple glared at Red, who had finally lost his ability to hold the snickers in. He'd been biting his lower lip to keep from laughing at Purple's problems, but his internal damn had burst with Amber's last gesture. He was so busy laughing and pounding on the table that he hadn't even noticed that he was bleeding from biting down on his lip so hard.
Purple threw his head back, trying to pretend that Red's giggles weren't getting to him. "Look, Amber, here comes the space ship. Nyeeeeeeeeeeeeeerow, nyeower, vroom, vroom! Won't you open up the hanger for the space ship?"
Amber, suspicious, opened her mouth only an itty bit. That was enough for Purple, who took the opportunity to stick the laden spoon between her tiny lips. Amber chewed on it for a few moments, her tiny eyes reflecting deep thought.
"Well?" Purple asked hopefully, clutching the spoon tightly between his fingers.
"PPPPPPPPPPPPPTH!" Amber replied, spitting slobber-covered baby nachos all over Purple's face. His antennae drooping, Purple reached for a towel to clean himself up. It was unlikely, however, that the robes he was wearing would ever be the same.
By that point, Red was howling like a monkey with laughter, rolling around on the floor and kicking his skinny legs in the air from the perceived humor. "Oh, oh, Purple," he gasped, each word separated by a pause so that he could attempt to suck in air to support his laughing. "Watching this almost makes up for last night," Red snickered, holding his ribs. He'd laughed so hard they were starting to hurt!
"Did I laugh at you?" Purple asked angrily before returning to the task of attempting to get Amber to eat semi-solid foods. "Come on, baby, nachos are good for a growing smeet," Purple encouraged.
"Yuck!" Amber declared, kicking her feet and sticking out her segmented tongue. Purple sighed, his eyes downcast. This parenting thing wasn't going to be as easy, as neat, or as cute as he'd thought.
It took well over an hour, but Purple managed to get an entire serving of baby nachos down Amber's throat. The two had finally been able to come to a compromise when he'd realized it was the metal spoon Amber was largely objecting too. This was after he'd noticed that she'd eat the nachos just fine with her hands.
It was a good thing that there were two servings in each bottle, Purple observed silently. After all, the other serving had been entirely deposited on his face, his front, Amber's face, Amber's hands and her clothing. About the only place on her body that hadn't been stickied up with baby food was the area directly under her bib, which made Purple wonder if the bib was worth it after all.
Purple sighed as he looked up at the clock. Only fifteen minutes until the meeting with the big Planet Jacker ambassadors, in order to attempt to explain to them why Zim was located on a planet that wasn't marked as Irken potential property on the map. Red was clever enough to handle it on his own, Purple figured, but he knew he should be there. The Jackers would take it as a sign of disrespect if he failed to show.
All Purple really had time to do was wash large chunks and sticky bits off of his and Amber's bodies before having to arrive at the meeting, his robe still stained from flying baby food bits. Amber, jiggling in his arms, waved and cooed at the gathered group of Jacker ambassadors.
Out of the corner of his eye, Purple noticed Red attempting to hold back a snicker as he settled into his seat. The Jackers, meanwhile, were staring. "Your tallest… you've got nacho bits on your antennae," one pointed out as politely as a Planet Jacker was capable of being.
Purple sighed. "Do I?" he asked, reaching up and stroking his antennae until the offending food item fell off and onto the floor. "You'll have to excuse my appearance," he said quietly, still exhausted from being up all of the previous night. "Smeet," he said simply, referring to the sleeping Amber cuddled in his arms.
"That's why we hire nannies," the female Jacker ambassador said shortly.
"I could never do that!" Purple gasped, wide-eyed. After all, what if she blabbed important military codes in front of a less than loyal nanny, or simply one who realized a chance to make some money when they saw one?
"Why not?" Red asked critically.
Purple cringed nervously. He hadn't told Red yet, and wasn't sure he wanted to. "Because, she's my baby, and I'd never, ever dream of parting with her."
The Jackers looked less than impressed by Purple's lovey-dovey act of loyalty to his adopted daughter. Red, meanwhile, was studying the Planet Jackers intently. Perhaps they were the answer to getting him some sleep.
Halfway through the meeting, while Amber was busy attempting to eat a piece of paper containing important facts, the Jacker leader sat up, what passed for his nose twitching intently. "I smell something… *cough* ripe…"
Red gagged a bit himself. The air suddenly seemed three times as thick. "I do, too…"
All eyes turned accusingly on Purple and Amber. Blushing a deep shade of emerald, Purple snatched up the organish-red eyed Amber and hurried out of the room to change her offending diaper. Amber giggled and shouted "bouncy bouncy!" as Purple rushed from the room to the bathroom with her. Amber loved being bounced by Purple as he carried her around, but this was neither the time nor place for her games.
As soon as Purple was gone, Red leaned over the table. "How would you guys like me to take three large planets off the list of potential Irken acquisitions?"
The three Jackers looked at one another, then back at Red. "And what," the female asked, her voice smooth as velvet, "Would we have to do to get this… trade?"
Red looked in the direction of the door Purple had exited through. "Take care of a small bit of excess baggage for me."
The Jackers, possibly the only more immoral species in the heavens than the Irkens, grinned back at Red.
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Let's try the art link again: www.angelfire.com/ak5/comic/sketch/