The Discount Smeet by Dib07
Summary:
It all started when Dib went to an alien market to buy supplies. He didn't realize he'd be going home with a smeet. Only, the young smeet slowly becomes Dib's whole world, and the human space explorer soon has to defend Zim against those who want all defectives dead.
Warnings:
Sci-fi adventure. Light swearing. Peril. Alternative Universe.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.
The story picture I am using is not mine, it has been lovingly made by Sin Hogar/tenebrio. The picture is owned by her. Please do not use/burrow without her or my permission. Thanks for reading! ^^
AN:
Hi all! I really need to get a lot of these chapters out, and I am proud to say I have a very good ending for this story! It's not out in writing yet, but it is in my notes!
Also, I am aware that Saving Zim only has 20 chapters left, and though that may seem like a lot still, to me it's the final countdown until I leave ffn. So I must finish and post this story above all as well.
Another MASSIVE shoutout to you: the reviewer! I hope I have replied to every one of you! I have been so swamped in work and family life that I haven't had a lot of time to reply which isn't like me at all. And yeah, this story has got so many reviews! I'm so happy! I cannot BELIEVE it! I love you all so much!
Also, for those younger readers reading this, I will warn you, there is a bit of blood. Don't be afraid to skip it when you get to it. It's really short. ;)
Guest
Sorry for the wait and thank you for being patient with me! I will try and get another update out next week to make up for it! ;)
Guest
Me too! He is so adorable! And so little! Every baby needs much cuddling!
Very good
It sounds like a good idea! But ah! The realist in me says that cannot work, as Zim and Dib are two very different species! I'm so sorry! It is a cute idea! But I'm afraid you'll just have to contend with this story! Thanks for suggesting it though! ;)
Heather
He is precious, isn't he? So fragile, so tiny, such a warm little bundle of fun! I feel such strong motherhood/maternity urges when I write this. I wish he was real!
Guest
Thank you SO MUCH! Back before I even submitted 'Saving Zim' I was not going to submit anymore after 'Out of the Game' believing the fandom was quite dead and forgotten. Now my stories are being eaten up, and it's the best decision I have made sharing these stories with you. I am so grateful, you wouldn't believe.
pff
Thanks! :)
RhiannonsaurusRex
Oh gosh I remember when I drew on the walls! Why does every child have to do that!? It's so funny! Especially when there was no shortage of paper in my house! Kids make no sense, in an adorable kind of way! Before rules become such a boring part of our lives, we were very free as children! Hahah! It sounds like you and your brother had a great time owning the room for just 15 minutes! Children have so much creative energy, as well as destructive energy! I wish I had some of that energy now! I have to really honour parents. They really do dedicate all of their time and energy for their little horrors, haha! I bet it's not easy! It's hard enough looking after baby animals, and well, smeets! And yes, I think intelligent babies/kids must be the worst because they want to get into everything, and know everything, and try things out, because their mind and curiosity demands it.
Yes, Dib has so much to learn, and every mistake he makes can be a really bad one. A baby choking on an object is the absolute worst. Even if smeet Zim can heal with the aid of his PAK, say, it can do nothing for him if he chokes. He can die really quickly. It was foolish of Dib to leave him like that with the feather pillow and toys. Dib is still a little wrapped up in his own ways, as he has lived that selfish bachelor life. I think, if he had a female present, they'd instinctively know immediately what to do and what not to do, but Dib hasn't got those skills, yet. Plus, until he sees Zim as 'his' he won't have that precious bond, and that stronger feeling of protection. He just sees Zim as a foster kid. Which isn't wise. And yes, I believe children must make excellent escape artists! Especially when they are supposed to be sleeping! I remember being restless as a kid, but more because I was afraid of the dark, and the nightmares. Smeet Zim has been plenty of trauma already, which has doubled his insecurity.
''Also with children, especially young children, you cannot leave them to sleep by themselves, they need to be monitored, for health reasons, and they feel more secure with someone there with them. Hopefully Dib has learnt this lesson and won't leave baby Zim alone like that again. That was sad to see Zim cry like that the poor we thing. But it is nice to see that he is aware of Zim's needs like with the feeding and burping. Babies make all sorts of sounds and though some are similar, like there's various types of crying, it's just a matter of interpreting what each sound is. Like is this a I'm hungry cry or a I'm fed up with this cry. You learn to spot the difference.''
Ahaha. Yes, I see how important that is now, to sleep with them and monitor their health. Thank goodness I seem to be doing everything right so far, considering I wrote these early few chapters months ago. I think Dib pretty much nails it in the beginning of this chapter - well - sort of. And yes, I think he is learning Zim's crying sounds, as the tiny little thing doesn't want to talk! Bless him!
You have helped me so, so much! I love your insight and I eat up every word you write. You've given me some inspiring ideas and it's really motivated me to push forth a few more chapters. I never thought I'd do baby versions of characters, but here I am! I must be getting old! XD Thanks so, so much Rhian! I hope you are doing okay! I haven't heard from you in a while, but I hope you are doing fine wherever you are! Take care! :)
Chapter Four: Costly Mistake
It took Dib a further hour to clean and dry all of Zim's blankets and spoiled clothes. How many hours had he had this smeet now? Six? And Zim had already been through two changes of clothing.
But the smeet was exhausted, and frighteningly feverish. His terrible shakes were back, and he was sniffling and coughing worse than before. For about thirty minutes Dib held him in his arms while he paced, alternatively rocking and hugging the stressed smeet, all the while cooing to him softly to try and allay his tears.
I... I think he's sick... A little voice started to whisper: and it was one voice he didn't want to hear.
It's just a cold. I've worked him up. Of course he's going to sound worse!
What if it isn't a cold? Or it is, but it's got worse? Babies can pick anything up! I doubt smeets are no different, especially when they are just runts.
No, no. He'll be all right. He's just weak from malnourishment is all.
"Please don't cry, Zim. I'm really sorry. I just... I just don't want either of us to get attached to one another. That's all. Really."
He was beginning to think that Zim might never sleep, but at a quarter to two in the morning, Zim suddenly sagged against Dib's shoulder, eyes closed as he became as limp as a dishcloth. Tears darkened the bottom rim of his eyes and snot had gathered where his invisible nostrils were. Dib had kept wiping his face clean with baby wipes every few minutes, only for more of it to appear.
Dib had not realized how far down defeat could feel like.
He waited for the voices of doubt and insecurity to return.
They did not.
With the smeet coddled in his arms, Dib peeled back the coverlet of the bed and slipped between the cool sheets. He then gently lay down with the smeet tucked up in his arms against his chest.
So much for my plans of having Zim sleep in the basket.
He could feel the little thing oscillating – from fever or from stress, or a combination of both.
Dib felt terrible. New guilt spiked into him in fresh, painful waves whenever he felt Zim shiver.
He had just been trying to do what was best. Separation was usually a necessary objective when you didn't want to get too fond of something.
Now it had backfired.
Do smeets usually get this attached to their... owners, or parents, or whatever it is they have?
The few Irkens he had glanced at had never seemed like the emotional type, clingy type. They strutted around in a militarized march, looking like borderline psychopaths with dreadfully murderous eyes. Or maybe it was because they had never had any parents explained why they were like they were.
Dib could not close his eyes for a very long time. Zim's shivering really worried him, and it twisted his heart into painful knots. He had an extra blanket wrapped around his little frame, plus Zim had his body heat to warm him up, plus the coverlet of the bed. But the irregular trembling continued.
He waited for his heat to sink into the little smeet. Waited and waited.
Finally, at two minutes past three, the little mite's shivering had slowed right down to a couple of jolts every now and again until finally he was lying peacefully against Dib's chest. His tears had all dried up and his breathing was good and deep. There was still the occasional creak at the back of a long inhale, as if the smeet's lungs were cramped, but you really had to strain to hear it, which was a vast improvement from before.
Now he was too afraid to get up to use the toilet, afraid of disturbing the smeet again and reducing him back to tears.
So Dib lay there, cuddling the little thing, and drifting off occasionally. Sooner or later he would catch himself and wake up; sure he had fidgeted and had hurt the baby beneath his weight. But every time he was startled into being, he would look down and see Zim still safely cradled against his chest, unharmed, undisturbed.
Relieved in the deepest possible way, Dib slipped off to sleep again. But his head was full of cold worry; a tangle of anxious knots and terrible dark, and what he did dream, he could not remember.
xxx
When Dib woke up, it was not the alarm clock that had woken him, or the automated light system that turned itself on to emulate natural sunrise in his room. It was the smeet. He was kicking and clawing weakly, not harming Dib in the slightest, but it looked as though he was having a bad dream. He could feel his little knees brush against his chest, and feel his claws clench and then unclench against his clothing, like a kitten kneading for milk.
Truthfully, he was a little excited about the day ahead of him. On most days during a voyage when he got up, and after he had had a steaming hot cup of coffee, he'd slop about the upper decks for another hour or so in a gown, lazily working his way down the list of what needed doing, what needed looking at, and what consoles and data streams needed to be monitored. Now, this smeet was a complete break in an otherwise boring, but well-practised routine. As much as he wanted to get rid of the baby in all eventualities, and 'set-it-free,' this smeet was a ray of sunshine in his life. He had not realized just how lonely he had been, until this little cutie had fallen in his lap.
With one clumsy hand, he reached over to the nightstand where his alarm clock stood to snatch up his glasses. Sliding them over his sleepy eyes, the clocks minute and hour hands focused into sharp clarity. In Lincoln, millions of light years away, it was eight o'clock in the morning.
"Good morning, Captain." Said Blue, Dib's ship computer. She could basically speak to him in any part of the ship and answered to his commands without preamble. She was programmed to have a bit of humour, and she had a homely, sweet voice that was ever so slightly robotic. She was also the security, and the main monitoring system.
"Good morning, Blue." His response was unnecessary, and he knew it. But he said it anyway, as he had been doing for the past seven years.
Even though he had slept damn near five hours give or take, he felt lousy, like he hadn't slept at all. He supposed every new father felt this way after the first night of having a newborn in the home. For it was emotionally draining.
He looked down at the smeet cropped against his chest, one of its nubby fingers in its mouth.
You're now 6 days old. And you've only spent 11 or so hours with me.
Now it was back into the reluctant-father-routine until he found someone better capable of taking care of it. Then once Zim had breakfast, he'd go about his daily maintenance slog inside the ship. Every damn day the ship needed to be maintained, its engines checked, its power core levels accessed to make sure nothing was going topsy-turvy. Blue reported back to him on digital statistics and if any one system went into the red zone, but problems needed to be found and rectified before they even went anywhere near any such danger levels.
Dib tried to slide out of bed carefully so as not to disturb the smeet, but one claw happened to be attached to his clothing. Dib gently untethered the finger like he was loosening himself from a hook and managed to free himself. Tenderly he shored up his warmed blankets over and around the smeet until just his head was exposed, and he went to relieve himself and grab a coffee.
As he was prone to do, after having lived by himself for so long, he started talking to himself in his Mess Hall, a deck that really was just a kitchen and combined dining area.
He opened up the fridge and selected the long-life milk from the shelf.
"Why couldn't you have gone and got yourself a puppy, Dib? It would have been so much easier, but no, you had to go and buy a smart but demanding baby Irken. Yeah. Real smooth. My dad would be shaking his head at me right about now. So would my sister, in fact. Just another complication, on top of every other complication I have."
He poured himself some coffee, got showered and changed into his usual blank pants, a blue shirt and a black jacket. When he returned to the bedroom, he saw the smeet just waking up. He had sat himself up and was currently rubbing his eyes. When he stopped, and looked up at Dib, the human noticed that Zim's eyes didn't look as bright. It was almost as if they were covered in an oily film, and hiding the shine beneath. Because of this thin opaqueness, his eyes no longer reflected Dib's image back at him.
"Hello, uh, Zim." He said, feeling awkward in the one-sided conversational exchange. It was hard enough trying to socialize with a smart baby, let alone a smart baby that happened to be a mute. "Good morning, I guess. You hungry? I bet you are."
He tried to picture himself as a father, but he couldn't quite see it. Especially not with a baby that belonged to a different species.
He did not like to see the smeet's feeding as a chore, but to him, it was, when he had a whole lot of other more important things to attend to.
Getting out the usual formula in the pink baby bottle, Dib sat with him on the bed with the tablet and stylus on standby. He was hoping to chat with the little thing again, if Zim wanted to.
After shaking the bottle, Dib picked him up and deposited Zim on his lap. He was getting better at holding the smeet, and feeling that little bit more confident.
When he tried to feed him, dipping the bottle into his mouth with uneasy practise, Zim did not exhibit the same hunger he had shown last night. He only hesitantly sucked down the formula before withdrawing after about three minutes, and even then his slurps had been slow and half-hearted.
"Don't you want anymore?" He asked when Zim stopped drinking and refused Dib each time he gently tried to tease the nip of the bottle back into his mouth. The smeet kept turning his head away, and flinching back each time, until at last he buried his face in the crook of Dib's arm. "Surely you must still be hungry?"
Maybe his stomach can't hold very much?
Dib put the bottle down and went to burp the smeet like before. He supported Zim against his shoulder, with one hand below the smeet's rear and one hand on his metal-dome contraption as he patted him gently. He got a feel of the metal shell on the smeet's back as he did this, feeling the strange grooves and smooth outer shell as he tried to guess at the density of the material. The dome had three singular ports, oval in shape, and about an inch wide in diameter. And they were emanating a warm, soft pink that glowed when he clasped a hand over each port. The metal was thick, and tough, and did not even produce a single echo when he lightly tapped his fingernail on it. It was as if the dome within was compact inside, and full of something. When he tried to nudge it loose, he received a nasty squeal from the smeet that made him go temporarily deaf in one ear.
Being the inventor and gadget-wizard that he was, not to mention being the son of an esteemed, noble scientist, Dib naturally wanted to explore this metal dome much further, and take x-rays of it, CAT scans, you name it, and pry open one of the ports just to look inside. Paradoxically, the newfound father in him backed away from this idea instantly in a violent turnabout. He was pretty sure this odd, metal construct seemingly growing out of the smeet's back served a VERY important purpose, and that tampering with it would surely bring about the smeet's premature death. After all, wouldn't it be like opening up the protective shell of a snail? Maybe, like the snail's shell, the metal dome was a kind of life support, hard to crack because it was delicate within? Or was it some vital oxygen-processing unit? But that couldn't be right. The smeet was breathing by using his chest, and there were no extruding tubes extending from the metal dome to anywhere else on his body.
Leave it alone. Dib told himself, even though the scientist within him wanted to know more about it.
"Better now?" Dib asked, lifting Zim away from his shoulder and holding him up with both hands, feeling oddly like Rafiki in the movie: The Lion King that he had watched when he was a kid.
Zim giggled, seemingly liking the height. The noise was a brief access to hearing his voice: a voice the smeet was keeping well locked up behind a wall of silence. The giggles were very shrill, and squeaky, like hearing car tires braking very quickly.
He got a small whiff of a smell.
A poopy smell.
"I bet your diaper needs changing."
The chore ahead wasn't quite so fun. But Dib just mentally put his head down and decided to just get it over with. Babies pooped after all. And babies pooped a lot.
He lowered the smeet back into his lap, watching his antennae rise up, and then down.
What are you thinking? What's going through that young mind of yours?
I wonder what you think of me?
Dib smiled, and the smeet smiled back.
He felt Zim's little head, and sadly felt a touch of fever still present. He did not understand why Zim felt overly warm. Was it because of this cold he had had since being in that glass cage?
Because he had been wanting to for quite some time now, since seeing the smeets for the first time in that glass prison in fact, he lifted up a hand and ever so softly touched Zim's right antenna. He knew it was wrong of him to do this, but he just wanted to know what it felt like, what it did!
Zim spontaneously giggled and shrieked in pain at the same time as if touching his antenna both tickled and hurt him. Either way, the unprompted sounds made Dib retract his hand super fast before he had even got a proper feel of it. He just managed to get a sense of its flexing rigidity.
"Sorry!" He said. "Guess I'll remember not to do that again."
He felt more and more like the bumbling father that he was.
Getting a new diaper ready, Dib laid a thick blanket on the floor and reclined Zim to rest on it. Zim watched him with two parts curiosity and two parts affection. Whatever fear had been haunting the smeet, it seemed to have dissolved, but only when he was in Dib's company. Alone, and his demons made their daily visit: or whatever it was that had made the smeet cry so in the little study.
"You're really smart, for a baby, Zim." Dib said as he began to undo the smeet's pyjamas to get at the diaper beneath, "You can write, and read, judging by what you did on the tablet yesterday. So why do you need a diaper? You just not used to life yet?"
He wanted a response. Anything! A single word would do! Or a single baby babble! The smeets in the glass box under the presiding glare of the Halycon had been jabbering amongst themselves quite freely in their own language. So why couldn't Zim?
Maybe he will. When he's ready. Spoke a voice.
The smell got stronger.
Ugh. The part I've been dreading!
With the lower baby pants unbuttoned, Dib pulled away the sticky elastic from both sides of the diaper and peeled it down, revealing the sorrel, stinking mess. Dib sharply pulled away, wafting at the air below his noise. "Ugh! Gross!"
At this, the smeet chuckled as if he found Dib's forced predicament to be very amusing.
"And I thought my shit smelt bad! Peehew!" He grabbed the clean diaper, trying to think of a way to safely exchange it without getting baby poop everywhere. The poop itself was very sloppy and runny. He wished he knew what consistency smeet poop was supposed to look like. Was it bad that it was this sloppy?
As Dib lifted up his legs slightly, he saw with reluctant dread that the poop had gotten all down his undercarriage and loins.
"I think a bath is a much better idea. What do you think? Then you'll be clean and comfortable. Hold on just a moment." He left Zim lying in his smelly diaper, and Zim, being obedient and loyal, did not move, because he sensed that Dib would come back. And return he did, carrying a sink basin he had just filled with soapy warm water from the ship's bathroom. At once Zim sat up in his poop, eyes wide as he stared, riveted, at the water sloshing at the sides of the basin Dib had just set down before him. His antennae flattened tightly against his skull and he started to shiver again.
Dib assumed he was a tad nervous because it was something new. "It's just water, honey, it can't hurt you."
Poor thing's never seen water before.
Dib dipped his elbow into the warm, bubbly water to test the temperature. Using his elbow instead of his hands was a better method for feeling how hot it was, for asbestos hands might not feel the heat like the rest of the body could. It was another bit of odd trivia he had picked up during his life on Earth.
Satisfied at the lukewarm temperature, he stripped the smeet of his clothes. As soon as he went to pick him up though, Zim dived from under his hands and scrabbled to get away, slipping on the used diaper as he went. Dib caught him easily, and Zim shrieked like a wild animal that had just been caught. As Dib lifted him upwards, heading back now towards the basin, Zim started to shake his head furiously, struggling vainly against the hands that held him.
"It's okay, Zim! I'll just give you a quick bath! It'll be over before you know it!"
His deduction, his estimation of the situation was likened to a sandcastle ebbing away block by block against the gurgling, hungry tide. His execution of the bath, which might have all seemed well and good with any other species, became a melting disaster in more ways than one.
And the only thing he came away with other than the tears in his eyes and the overwhelming shame in his heart: was how very ignorant he was on the Irken species.
He dunked the little smeet into the water, bottom first, and Zim clutched weakly onto Dib's hands with his claws as if the human had him dangling from an immense height. Then there was an acrid, burning smell, and the smeet started shrieking like a terrified ferret.
Alerted to the smeet's unusual show of pain that frightened Dib, he lifted him back out to see the water sizzling. Odd, dark greenish fluid was now floating in the bubbles and water. Then his eyes cast to Zim's lower half as he held him, and saw that his bottom and lower legs had been stripped raw of their natural skin. Steam, not from the heat of the water but from the sizzling flesh itself rose into the air.
It was like the water had melted off his layers of skin, leaving his bare flesh runny with dark green fluid that had to be the little thing's blood.
In his arms, Zim continued to shriek so hard that Dib could feel his body shudder in his hands with each cry.
Dib felt a steep light-headedness soak into his mind from the slow realization of what he had done. Zim's crying continued, but the noise was muffled in his ears as the human dealt with the dawning horror of his incurred actions.
Zim had reacted to the bath. Or even the soap in the water.
Note to self: water is bad; water is very, very BAD!
Good Lord, I've just hurt a baby.
Yeah, okay, it was totally unintentional, but...
You don't know what you're doing! You shouldn't have bought it!
The guilt thickened.
Shaky and feeling pretty faint, Dib patted and coddled Zim constantly in his arms to try and appease his loud wailing cries.
"I'm so, so sorry! Oh gods, I'm so sorry, Zim!"
I should have listened to you! You warned me, and I did nothing!
You knew! You knew the water would hurt you! Was it instinct? Or did you experience it not long after you were born?
Kneeling down by the towel, he rocked Zim to and fro in his arms, feeling the warm blood seep through his own clothing as efficiently as ink blotched through parchment. Ribbons of blood etched out lines between his claw-like toes and dripped onto the floor, creating little puddles of green.
With foggy eyes, he looked around at the various objects laying nearby to see if anything inspired help.
Then he saw the towel and the open box of baby wipes.
Baby wipes! I've used them on him before with no ill effects!
Picking up the towel, he used this to wrap around Zim's bloodied legs while the smeet hung onto him with hooked claws. Then he started dabbing at the raw flesh with the baby wipes. The alcoholic wipes stung, for Zim's shrieks heightened a few notches until Dib's ears were ringing.
"I'm so, so sorry!" He repeated, locked as he was in the guilty auto-pilot tirade.
The guilt was so extreme in fact that he felt physically ill. He had suffered no emotional disaster like this! It was as if his feelings had been rolled over with a plow, and all that remained was the messy hurt.
The bleeding stopped, and Zim squawked for a bit like an injured bird, but the metal dome on his back started to do something. As Zim had been lying on his side, lifting his leg away each time Dib meant to dab some wipes against it, he saw the PAK's three ports bleed a far brighter pink and the dome of metal got warmer to the touch. Dib paused in his ministrations, a pile of bloodied baby wipes on his left, and a box half empty on his right as he watched the smeet's legs begin to magically heal. In seconds the bare flesh didn't look as horrendously painful as new skin seemed to grow from beneath the old: stretching until the soft, burned flesh was closed up by new, lime-green tissue. Every patch that had sizzled away was healed up, skin closing and leaving not a line or a trace of where the damage occurred. Moments later Zim did not show a stitch of damage. The PAK lights dimmed back to their customary glow and the excess heat died. Zim awkwardly sat up on the bloody towel, rubbing at his wet eyes. He had stopped shrieking.
All that remained was the blood to suggest what had just happened, happened.
His mind was so bulked with guilt that the human could barely process this new development.
In fact, his emotions were steam-rolling ahead as if his thoughts were but a fast train speeding out of control, and he was just the hapless passenger along for the ride with no way off.
I gotta stop fucking up!
Smeets are harder to look after than I thought! I didn't sign up for THIS!
And... and did he just heal?
Nothing can heal that fast! The damage was extensive! What I just saw is just impossible!
But he had seen it. And the wounds were healed.
The blood remained, of course, to show that Dib hadn't completely lost his marbles. He even gently touched the area on Zim's little legs where the damage had been, but he could not find a trace of any burn marks. To heal so fast and so perfectly got Dib a little too excited, and for a moment he forgot about his responsibilities to the smeet and became a scientist on the threshed of some new and life-changing discovery. He wanted to take Zim to a lab, and run some more tests, take a skin sample, and make a graph of his blood and chemical work.
Zim's nervous mewling brought Dib back, and he blinked down at the smeet. The little alien had seen something in Dib's eyes that he had not liked and for a whole moment Dib had to blink and re-establish himself. The excitement was still there, but he remembered his fatherly responsibilities with a rueful reluctance. To make dozens of fresh blood samples and have him lay on some table while he ran tests would only traumatise the smeet. Besides, he had bought the baby not to run tests for personal gain, but to look after it until a suitable surrogate mother came along.
"Did... did you just heal yourself? That was amazing, Zim!"
Surely something like that takes energy?
And it became clear that yes, that was indeed the case, and that the smeet in question did not have the energy for the trade-off.
The smeet slopped to one side on the bloodied towel, his eyelids drooped to low crescents and his arms and legs turned to limp noodles on the instant. It was as if his life had been drained: like a battery low on power.
"No, no, don't go to sleep!"
He wasn't sure what was going on, but he didn't like Zim's sudden exhaustion.
He tried to get him sitting back up and nudging him a little, even going so far as to tap his cheeks to keep him floating above consciousness. Zim's crescent-slit eyes opened that little bit wider but all he did do was lean forwards into Dib's arms as he sought sleep.
Hurrying now, Dib dressed him up with a clean new diaper and silky, blue baby pyjamas covered in white polka dots. They were fluffy and velvety soft, perfect for keeping the smeet warm. But dressing him wasn't easy, as Zim was very limp and soft himself. His eyes were now closed, and his breathing had started to labour.
With him all dressed, Dib coddled him in one arm against his chest and tempted some formula down him with the baby bottle. He was worried that Zim had spent too much energy crying beforehand and 'then' healing. A dreadful fear had risen up on an unwelcome shore, and he was suddenly, overwhelmingly concerned that there was a possibility he could lose the smeet. Some instinct, motherly or logical that was once buried, had now risen to the surface of his turbulent mind; telling him to get as much feed and nutrients into Zim as possible. For the smeet had taken on a strange, dead kind of weight in his arm that he didn't like.
"Come on, little one. Just a little more, then you can sleep."
He managed to get something down him, he supposed, though it was hard to regulate exactly how much he was feeding him when he couldn't see through the bottle to gage at how much Zim had taken.
When he was about to deposit the little thing back in his towel basket full of new, dry blankets and pillows, (the old pile was yet to be disinfected and washed) Zim whinged, even with his eyes closed.
The message was clear: he did not want to be left alone.
Dib sighed frustratingly. He had a hundred chores to do, a lot of them checking and maintaining the ship's systems to make sure everything was in order. But the smeet had once again fetched his little claws into Dib's bloodied shirt and wouldn't let go, even when the human tried to tug the smeet off him.
Dib groaned.
Dib07: That's it for that chapter! I hope it wasn't too gruesome! I am determined to keep this story very lighthearted, with some serious undertones in-between for us adults to reflect on and appreciate, but nonetheless I am loving this cute, fluffiness of a story I have somehow created from my more macabre imaginations. Smeet Zim is a very special little thing, and though this started off as just a curious one shot, it has taken my by surprise and I have expanded upon it with great joy and fascination. Man. I want a smeet so bad. I'd love to hear your thoughts, always! In the meantime, I'll see you next week (hopefully!)
