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:

This here DOUBLE update is for Rocky Rooster (I know, took me LONG enough! Haha!) and Nonrealistic Barrier! This chapter is just... swings and roundabouts so they say. The next chapter's much more PLOT THICK!


Boxy

Hi there Boxy! Dib is pretty mixed up, isn't he? He wants what's best for the abandoned smeet, and is frightened of the responsibility. At the same time he does want to keep Zim, but is afraid of what kind of future the Irken will have, growing up with a human. And then, could you imagine taking that dear smeet back to Earth? Ooh that's a toughie!

RhiannonsaurusRex

This chapter was written under your fun-loving guidelines my dear reader! I just hope it comes to your standards, and that you have much fun and amusement reading this! I sure found it fun at the time; one last loving chapter of these two dorks before things get a little more serious! I have to say, I do selfishly love writing and shoving in all these dorky sci-fi elements, as well as writing about smeets and reluctant father's-to-be! It's such a pleasant switch from my usual dark stories! And yes, Zim has latched onto Dib with a jealous fierceness indeed! Which was what Dib was afraid of, as this separation will be tough to follow through when the time comes, if of course such a thing were to arise. How could a sane person let go of such a little, sweet thing that's finally able to live without its fellowship of war and hatred? Ah! Irkens and their evil legacy! Anyway my friend, I shall let this chapter do the talking, and I hope, just hope you enjoy it and its following chapter!


Chapter Six: Complexities

Dib was in the kitchen area, sitting at the table, eating a microwaveable meal from a ration pack. He had many of these ration packs, and each one was as bland and as tasteless as the next. They were good because they were a source of nutrition and minerals when he had little chance of obtaining it elsewhere unless he was really brave and bought alien food from alien markets that could very well react badly to his body. And the ration packs were meant to last decades.

It was a pity they tasted like shit.

Zim, unable to be trusted, for he was gaining the ability to walk with almost tenacious distinction, had been imprisoned by a makeshift playpen that Dib had easily cobbled together with old bits of wood. It was too high for Zim to climb out of, but Dib could still easily pick him out of it. Each wall was made of wooden bars that were soft yet strong. Zim felt these pillars with his claws, bumbling along each wall on rebellious legs as if determining if there was a weakness in its design to exploit. Then he sat on one of his blankets that Dib had laid out for him, and played with his toys. But he didn't just play. he went along, feeling each toy, and exploring its design, its surface, and its texture as if he was still getting to grips with metals such as wood, metal, soft fur and plastics. But he grew tired of the toys and watched Dib eat his bland, boring meal at the table. Dib paused, his fork halfway to his mouth when he saw Zim watching from the playpen.

When Zim saw that he had his attention, he started putting his claws towards his mouth, as if he was mimicking Dib's behaviour with his food.

Dib seemed to get the gist of Zim's actions. It wasn't easy, remembering how very smart this little baby was, even if he knew next to nothing on the world and how it functioned.

"No, Zim. You can't eat this stuff. It's not for you."

The tablet was in his playpen. He reached for it amongst the toys, and started drawing with the stylus. Like before, his fine motor skills were better adapted than his gross motor skills, but he was not without his mistakes. Several times he tried to write something, only to puff with frustration, sometimes squealing. A couple of times he gave up, and threw the tablet down on the blanket, folding his arms in anger – a gesture he must have learned from Dib. Dib found that he folded his arms a lot, without even noticing, and here Zim was, copying that very same gesture.

Then, as Dib turned back to his less than appealing meal, Zim picked up the tablet and started again.

Eventually he held it up for Dib's inspection.

On the screen on the tablet were the words: 'Eat'

Dib smiled and shook his head. "No, sweetie. Not for you. You've already eaten. In another hour maybe."

Zim frowned, and then wrote something else. This took him even longer, perhaps as much as five minutes.

'Eat'

'You'

Dib laughed. "You, eat? You mean? I am eating, yes."

Zim repeated the same gesture as before, by placing a claw towards his mouth.

I want some.

Dib left his seat at the table and knelt over the wall of the playpen. He produced a biscuit instead from a little packet in his pocket. He unpeeled the plastic wrap and gave it to Zim. "Here. Try this instead."

When he tried to give it to the smeet, the baby just squealed angrily instead. Dib smiled. "You don't want it? You just want what I have, is that it?" He offered the biscuit again. "It's good. You'll like it."

When Dib was close enough, Zim reached up and snatched his glasses off him. The smeet had to stand up to perform his cheeky manoeuvre, and when he had this mystic object in his claws, he wobbled back to the middle of the playpen, playing with them. He tried planting them on his own face, as if these glasses were magical, but they were five sizes too big for him, and he had no nose to give the glasses purchase, so they fell off his face.

Dib stepped into the playpen and knelt down by the smeet, dinner forgotten. With one whisk of his hand he had the glasses back into his possession.

Zim clambered up onto his lap and experimentally poked the human's nose with a claw. Dib flinched back a little, smiling. "Yes, Zim. That's my nose. Be gentle."

Zim placed a claw on his own face, trying to feel for a nose there as well. He was perplexed. His eyes were wide, his antennae rising up in curiosity.

"No sweetie," said Dib, "you don't have a nose like me."

Then the human's smile quickly dropped clean away. He had a suddenness of terrible thought: what if Zim was starting to think that he was a human being, and not an Irken? Animal babies had this alien complexity all the time when they were raised by human parents. They started seeing their own kind as aliens, as they believed they were human, and as a result, had a terrible time integrating back into the wild. Usually they all died, hence why a lot of animal rehabilitation programs changed tactic, with humans disguising themselves as animals to try and prevent this.

Zim was smart, and was probably thinking himself to be a human far quicker than Dib had ever anticipated.

"You're an Irken, sweetie." Dib said. "You're not human."

Zim sniffed, and looked him up and down, not understanding.

"I have hair. You have these... antenna-things." He pointed out, not sure if this was getting through to the baby. "And you are green. That makes us very, very different."

Zim felt one his antenna, but no new recognition or understanding came upon him. He did not seem to be getting it.

Dib put his glasses back over his nose. "You're such a little pickle. I have consoles and buttons and crap everywhere that I need to clean up if I'm going to have you running around. So, while I spruce the place up a little, you can watch some TV. How's that for fun?"

He thought that TV was an excellent source of mental stimulation, something Zim obviously needed, for already Dib felt like the smeet was running circles around him.

The only problem was that Dib had a wide collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays, but none of them were of children material. He had few Disney movies, and nothing for babies. Everything he had was already recorded on a DVD, for he would get no TV satellite reception from Earth to broadcast programs for growing tots.

Dib got out of the playpen to clean away his cutlery and food, and Zim ran to the far wall of the playpen, worried that the human was about to abandon him. He fell over in his clumsy haste, and he hit the side of his head on the wall of the pen. He sat up, feeling that bumpy, hot spot on his head for a delayed moment before he then cringed into tears. His beautiful eyes filled up with blue tears, and he curled up at the pain.

Dib paused in what he was doing, for he had been stacking dishes in the dishwasher when he heard the smeet's belligerent moans. He turned round to see what was wrong, and at first he was unsure. He hated being unsure. Because, when it came to babies, he was forever, eternally unsure, and that had inevitably led him to that accident with Zim and the basin of water. But when he looked a little more closely, frowning as he stepped lightly over to the playpen, he saw the neat little dark bruise rising on Zim's left temple.

Luckily there were plenty of little medical units spread across each deck, and there was one in the kitchen, in case of a small isolated fire breaking out, or in case of burns or cuts. He opened the medical cabinet and retrieved plaster bandages and a bottle of salve.

"It's okay. You just had a little bump is all."

For it was really all it was.

"You keep falling over, don't you? Is that what you did? Fall and bang your head?"

The smeet nodded, one clawed hand now cupped over the rising brand of bruising. No doubt his PAK thing would heal it, if the smeet had the energy to spare. But that make take a few minutes. Better to treat it now, and get Zim to calm down. It was also an easy way to procure some trust.

Back in the playpen, Dib tried to apply the salve, and the plaster, but Zim cowered, and violently too. He had no idea what Dib was trying to do to him, and the human was beginning to suspect: as he had come to suspect quite a lot over the brief course of days with the smeet; that Zim still acutely remembered his abusive past. there was little to now suggest what had happened. All of his old injuries, such as the bruises on his ribs, hip and neck, were gone, the mysterious PAK having tended to them all. And Zim would not speak of what might have gone on, choosing instead to close up his voice, therefore shutting himself away. For Zim was scrambling away, as if Dib meant him harm.

These little clues began to string together.

Every time Zim did something wrong, and hurt himself, or, like when he had destroyed Dib's feather pillow, he had cowered almost to the point of screaming, as if a testy punishment would duly follow. He must have quickly learnt that if he didn't do something right, he would get beaten.

It was not an easy thing to imagine: the Halycon seller, or his little band of Nox friends, hurting such a helpless little newborn for self-pleasure or because it gave them a feeling of empowerment.

"Easy, easy little one!" Dib tried to implore in the gentlest, sweetest voice he could muster, "I'm not going to hurt you! I just want to make you better! This plaster is good! Good!"

Zim had scouted to the far corner, looking sorry for himself. The bruise was quite a dandy one: swelling a little to form a rounded bump. When Dib was a foot away from him, he held out the plaster in a surrendering gesture, and pretended to place it on his own head.

"See? It covers up the hurt. Makes it feel better."

Zim tentatively prodded his hurting bruise and squeaked in surprised pain.

"Touching it will hurt too. Don't do that." Dib fatherly admonished. He approached the tiny newborn again, and gently rubbed some salve over the dark green bruise. He hoped this would incur no new, horrible reactions like the water in the basin had.

He waited a few beats, and Zim shrewdly touched the paste of the salve with a claw, then brought it to his invisible nose slits, and sniffed it. He made a face. Then he tried to taste it.

"No! Not good for eating!" Dib said, taking his claw away from his open mouth. Zim shrieked this time.

He rubbed the excess paste off his claw and then removed the sticky peel from the plaster and smoothed it over the bump.

Dib leaned back, regarding his work.

Zim sat up, inspecting the plaster over his bruise with an explorative hand.

"There. Much better. Bandages are meant to help little bumps and cuts." Dib tried to explain, not sure if he was ever getting through to the smeet. If someone had come in and called him the 'not-sure-parent,' he would not have disagreed. Everything he felt that he was doing was purely experimental. He was the type of man that liked to be sure of himself, and Zim was about as chaotic as a tornado: for you could never quite plot its course, or its temperamental behaviour.

But, Dib had to remind himself another countless times: he is just a helpless infant. He is trying to learn about me too, about himself, and about this ship he's found himself in. His world is huge, and he's struggling to take it all in.

When Dib scooped him out of the playpen, he realized he was devoting all of his time to this thing pretty much, even during all the times when he thought he wasn't.

Again he was worried about getting attached all over again, and he didn't want Zim to start thinking he was the Irken's parent, even if he was failing at it. But keeping himself emotionally and physically distanced from the smeet was getting harder and harder to do. Even while he lay awake in his bed, hearing the little thing squeakily snoring or sucking his thumb in his cobbled crib or box, his thoughts were never far from the smeet. He'd think about general maintenance, and what the next day's work loads would entail, and he would think about finding Rath, and how pleased his dad might actually be when they finally get re-acquainted again after a seven-year long absence, but, periodically, his mind would fall into that whirlpool again of the smeet, and he'd fancy himself a father for a moment, toying with the idea, and finding that he liked it a bit too much. But he'd already proven himself unworthy of being a father by dumping the little thing in a basin full of water that corrosively reacted to Zim's flesh. He had not looked this up any further, believing that all Irkens suffered this strange affliction with water.

The planet Kinyra was not far off now; he'd reach its orbit in about a day.

Then he and the smeet would finally part ways.

It would be hard at first. Dib was already anticipating the pain of a final farewell.

It was just a shame that he could not reach Kinyra any quicker to get it over with, and to shorten the length of time Zim was here, getting his own Irken identity mixed up.

He carried Zim into the entertainment lounge. There was a plush array of seating, and he planted the smeet on one of them that faced the large overhead TV screen. The smeet had captured one of Dib's fingers in his claws, and was less inclined to let go. In his other arm was the blue plush dog.

Dib curtly unstrung the claws from his index finger. "It's okay. I'm going to put on a little movie for you. You'll like it, I think. Then you can have some dinner."

Zim touched his plaster again, and Dib tucked his hand down.

"Don't touch. Let it heal." The human said demurely.

Zim obeyed. For about three seconds.

Dib viewed his massive library of DVDs. They were all meticulously inserted into their horizontal slots that towered towards the ceiling and around the TV itself: wreathed in movies of every genre. There were horror movies, sci-fi collections, chick flicks and satirical comedies. Adventure epics and a few predicable romances. Whatever he was in the mood for, really. There was not a single movie he hadn't seen, and his favourites he had seen many times during his long, tedious voyage to unexplored regions of space. He didn't watch the sci-fi movies very much. Too many disasters and monsters to deal with, amongst the subconscious demons he had piled back there already. He did not fancy breeding more, or potentially jinxing his ship by watching something like 'Event Horizon.'

He saw Spielberg's movie E.T and was about to slip it out of its slot, when he realized Zim may not like the latter half of the movie very much, so he put it back.

Dib ran his finger over the collection of titles, ignoring the slight film of dust gathering on his fingertip.

He selected one, and opened the DVD case.

Jack and the Beanstalk.

He inserted the shiny disc into the drive and stood back, watching the black TV come to life. Zim stopped fidgeting with his new plaster, and looked up, his tender eyes riveted on the screen. A shudder went through him: either one of fright, memory or something else. Then the FBI warning came up, and finally, the movie itself began to start, panning in on a poor little farm. Zim started sucking on one of his fingers, intently interested. His eyes reflected the characters as they moved on the screen.

Dib smiled. "Yeah. This should do. Now I can get back to do some work. You be good, Zim. I'll be back to check on you in ten minutes." He said this, as if Zim had a perfect concept of time, when really, he had no idea.

Now, Dib did not go far. Ideally he stayed close enough so that he could hear the movie, and he had an intercom system that could work like a baby monitor so he could listen to the room, and he had basic CCTV cameras on the bridge. So, in this way, he was able to keep an eye and ear on Zim while he did a perfunctory job trying to suss everything Zim could reach. Most of the consoles were too high for the newborn to reach, but there were tool cabinets and array systems where Zim could pull open a drawer and have access to dangerous tools, wires and drills. Dib had to baby-proof most of his ship from about two feet high.

Zim was a weak little baby who still seemed poorly, so it was doubtful he would get into heaps of trouble. But, just to be on the safe side, Dib began to move tools and drawers and anything away from the floor space. Grills that were loose he screwed in again with the power drill, and any loose flooring he quickly repaired and strengthened. The lower decks to engineering he promptly sealed off, locking them down so that they would open only if he keyed in a password he had had to quickly invent. For engineering was deadly. There were hydraulics down there, pistons that could crush a newborn with ease, and cooling fans that whipped around at 100 miles per hour, and were big enough to suck in a dog. There were oil pits, and chemicals and radioactive materials. His ship was a deadly thing of death if not understood, and so Dib sealed off all these areas, and baby-proofed the living quarters and more homely decks of the ship.

It wasn't easy work, and before long Dib was sweating through the shirt that he was wearing until dark bands appeared on his back and under his armpits.

He had been working so religiously, barely lifting up his head to check the time on his wristwatch or barely registering that he was thirsty that he at first did not hear Zim's croaky wailing. It was only when he heard a particularly shrill squeal that he stopped from his work to listen, cocking his head to the side and thinking that it was just the toil of the ship, and the squeal of the hydraulics down below, as was often the case. The ship, forever toiling through space, was never really quiet, especially when it had so much to maintain.

Living with another that made biological noises was still a strange, new experience for Dib.

So, when he heard a repeat of the earlier cry, Dib straightened and rushed to one of his CCTV cameras that showed him the layout of the entertainment room from the northern side of the room, above the TV. He could not see the smeet, because in the security screen he was hiding behind one of the sofa cushions, crying weakly.

It was bad enough that he was not used to babies at all, let alone ones that cried frequently.

Abandoning his tidying up, Dib hurried back to the entertainment lounge, which took him nearly five whole minutes, as he had to descend an elevator and go across nearly a whole deck in the living quarters to get to the room.

When he got there, he saw nothing obvious that was wrong. The TV was still playing out the Jack and the Beanstalk movie. Jack was at the market, trading his cow for a three measly beans. The room wasn't dark, as he had left the lights on, and other than the movie, everything else was quiet and serene. But the smeet was stilling hiding behind a cushion, miserably wailing. Dib approached the sofa and pulled away the cushion Zim was hiding behind.

"What's the matter?" He asked softly, curious and patient in the face of Zim's confusing distress. "Is the film really that bad? Or have you filled your diaper again?"

Face wet with tears, Zim pointed up at the TV screen as if the problem was obvious.

Dib turned and looked idly up at the screen, not really paying the movie any real attention.

Nothing seemed amiss. The boy was exchanging the cow, and receiving the magic beans from an old man. But, when Zim continued to burble with tears, he took another look, almost chalking it up to infantile distress because Zim had never seen moving pictures before.

Then he saw the pigs.

They were in pens, or were being herded up by farmers by the dozens, because there was always a lot of pigs being bought and sold at markets as was the norm among other livestock. But the Halycon had been a pig, hadn't he? He had the snout, the warty face and naked skin, even though he was as blue as a summer lake and not pink, like normal pigs.

Zim was reacting to the pigs, and perhaps to the market environment; an environment that was still fresh in his mind.

Perhaps in a way, he was remembering, and reliving the terror on or even before Flaxier 19 with the Halycon seller. And as such, he had an intense fear of pigs.

Dib switched the movie off immediately, and he watched the screen fall to black.

Zim peered anxiously up at him, still crying. One clawed hand was rubbing his left shoulder up and down, and he was rocking himself slightly to and fro.

"I'm sorry, little guy. Guess you didn't like that movie very much, huh?" He gathered the baby into his arms, and, without meaning to, he kissed him on the top of his head, beside the plaster. The feeling had come naturally to him, and he immediately felt foolish straight after, as if he should have known better. But, his gentle, accidental kiss stopped Zim's complaints on the instant.

"You don't like pigs?" He asked, cuddling him against his chest.

Zim shook his head and opened his mouth. It almost looked like he was about to speak: to utilize that rusty little voice, and Dib often wondered what his voice would sound like: what tones and cadences it would have. But, the gathered courage, or bewilderment fell apart in seconds before a single note was uttered, and Zim closed his mouth again.

"That's okay." Dib said gently, not wishing Zim to feel discouraged. "You'll speak when you're ready. Maybe when we speak to Rath, he can get you to a doctor to examine you. Maybe you can't speak? Or maybe you just need a stable environment, with your own kind? I bet that would make you happier."