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 coming home with a smeet. Only, the young smeet becomes Dib's whole world, and the human space explorer soon has to defend Zim against all those who want defectives dead.
Warnings
Sci-fi adventure. Light swearing. Peril. AU. Blood and cadaver mentions.
Declaimer
I do not own Invader Zim. However this idea and story is mine.
This gorgeous DAMNRIGHT GORGEOUS story picture I am using is not mine, it has been lovingly made by Alicartin! Please do not use without her permission. Thanks for reading!
Vampire Tails really requested that I update, so here it is! Sorry it's late. I had a lot going on in October and it's really set me back update-wise. I hope you enjoy! The next chapter will be out much sooner I promise!
All review replies are at the end of this chapter! Thanks so much for your loving support. It melts my heart!
Well, here it is. I just wish there was more smeet stuff out there! I love smeet Zim so much, and you dear readers do too. I love Alicartin for making Discount fanart that I use as this story's profile pic, because baby Zim is so terribly precious.
Chapter Nine: Unweaving the Tapestry
Gaz pushed her way forwards and then kicked the door with one smooth motion, causing it to slam shut behind her. In the fire of the moment, it was easy to believe that she was no sister at all, but a cop who had heard about his little secret creature and had arrived to throw Dib into handcuffs, and then throw him into the backseat of a police car with cold calculation.
"Okay, what the hell is that thing?" She didn't need to point. She never needed to gesture much these days. Her eyes usually did the persuading, with her fists clenched at her sides. She could get anybody to do anything with that stare, and that voice.
"What? Don't tell me you've never seen one of my dad's newest robot toys before?" It was hard to tell this lie, because of the way she looked through him. She might as well be an embodiment of Anubis really, judging his spirit with the ease of just one glance.
He tried to manoeuvre himself between the smeet and her.
She paused a moment, and still Dib couldn't breathe. Zim was standing in the kitchen doorway, looking uneasily at the back of his foster father, and then edging a glance around his legs to get a look at this scary intruder. His little hands were tapping against each other, his antennae slung so low that they had disappeared behind his head, with his eyes as big as silver coins.
"A robot, is it?" She growled.
"Well, yeah!" He could feel the sweat tickle his armpits; the adrenaline plugging his veins and making him feel as light as air, and yet paradoxically as heavy as a truck.
"Don't lie to me, Dib. How stupid do you think I am?"
Her deep purple hair curled at her white cheeks. She had become more sylphlike as she grew into an adult. She wore black almost all of the time now, which strangely made her look even more dangerous but also very pretty. Dib had never possessed that fierce grace.
Dib glanced down at the little creature. "Shoo now, robot thingy. Go and... switch to hibernation mode or something."
Zim looked to him, utterly confused. It hurt to see him so flustered and lost, with an ugly patch of skin curling down from his neck. Then the bottoms of his twinkly eyes filled with tears.
"Is that 'robot' of yours crying?" She asked, her voice just as stern.
"No, of course not! It's just a transmission leak or something. It's a prototype after all."
Gaz approached, and Dib planted himself between his sister and the smeet. He spread out his arms. "I don't think you should go near it! It's uh...a little delicate! Some calibrations are off!"
She gave him a look, and then pushed him bodily to one side. Zim looked up at her, claws bundled against his chest.
"Gaz!" He barked, his fear and shyness morphing into anger. He wasn't exactly sure what his next action should be.
Gaz wasn't making any aggressive motions towards the baby; she was simply staring at it. "That's no robot!" She sneered. "That's a fucking alien thing!" Now she went to touch it, pick it up maybe, or hurl it under an arm and take it away. Zim stepped back quickly, his little feet tapping against the linoleum floor.
Dib grabbed her arm to dissuade her from going any further, and she instantly turned, grabbed his hand and twisted his arm against his back. Disabled by pain, he was forced to stand down, his actions muted. "Gaz! Stop! So I went to space! Big deal!"
"And you came back with an alien that doesn't belong to you, didn't you! How stupid are you, Dib? Who knows what diseases that thing carries! It could be a biological threat to all life on this planet! What, you think no one will notice? That this thing will integrate just fine?"
"Gaz! Let go of me!"
Surprisingly, she did. Dib rubbed at his sore arm, hoping there was no permanent damage.
When they both looked for the smeet, there was no sign of him. Just an empty kitchen doorway.
"I can't believe this! You snuck it on board, didn't you? Snuck it past security too! Dad is gonna kill you!" He wasn't quite sure if he had ever seen her so angry with him. Her lips were so thin they were disappearing, and a ruby flush of colour was appearing in the centre of her white cheeks.
"It's a baby alien, sis! He had nowhere to go!"
"That doesn't give you the right to bring it back to Earth! You truly are CRAZY! You've got to take it back home, where it belongs right now, or I'll take the problem to dad!"
He was beginning to hear the echo of Rath in her words.
"Do you realize it could have infected you with something?" She continued as she walked, all guns blazing, into the kitchen to find it. "You need to go into quarantine! I could be infected too!" She crouched to look under the kitchen table.
"GAZ!"
"Shut up! I don't see you for months! Years! I thought of you! I worried about you! Then you come home with an alien gremlin!"
"It's not a gremlin! His name is Zim and he's an Irken smeet!"
"Oh great, you've named it! Just great!" Turning up empty, she pushed past him to investigate the hallway.
"Gaz, he's super intelligent! He can understand everything you say, and he can talk!"
"He can talk? In English?"
"Yes!"
That stopped her, but only for three seconds. She headed boldly into the parlour. So tiny a thing could be hiding under or around any bit of furniture.
"Gaz! You like animals, right? What would you do if you found a lost puppy or kitten on the side of the road? You'd take it home!"
"You should never assume anything of me, brother. And because you're so wonderfully inept, you wouldn't stop to realize the responsibilities. Besides, this is no goddamn kitten, Dib! Don't you understand the term 'alien?' You could already be dying from a virus it's being carrying. Gods, you're so fucking stupid!"
She dived round furniture, convinced of finding it. She pushed and kicked tables and chairs aside, anything that was in her way really, but her frustration levels almost popped when she still could not locate it.
"Gaz! Please! I'll do anything if you'd just stop and listen to me for a moment!"
"You're just naturally terrible at making decisions, Dib. You just need help, that's all." Ignorant to his pleas, she marched up the stairs, looking much like a soldier on the alert for enemy units.
There were four rooms on the landing; a storage room, a big bedroom, a study and a bathroom. Instinctively she went into Dib's bedroom first. There were lots of places to hide in there.
"Come out little alien." She was saying in a not-so-soothing voice. "I promise I won't hurt you."
Dib was always right behind her.
She looked under the bed, and smirked. A pair of glistening eyes of many strange colours stared back at her.
"Come out. It's okay." She icily cooed.
"Gaz, please, please don't do this. He's just a baby."
She ignored him. "Come on out. I'm a friend."
Those eyes in the darkness blinked. Outside, the wind was stirring up whirlpools of rain, causing it to lash across the bedroom windows. This caused the little alien to scrunch into a tighter ball beneath the bed. Gaz sighed heavily, and then resorted to getting down on all fours as she began to crawl beneath the bed. When she was closer, she swiped out a hand, and closed over the smeet's pretty blue sleeve.
Then she pulled. The alien was dragged along the carpet. She edged backwards, and pulled the smeet out from its little hiding place.
Its big, buggy eyes were looking at her, the colours in them swirling like a thousand slowly spinning galaxies. He was shivering in blue pyjamas two sizes too big for him. She noticed that the fine sculpt of his head, neck and body was very delicate and slender. This thing – this green creature with eyes that were much too big – that had feelers that twitched and moved spasmodically - was not her idea of cute. But there was a certain appeal in the way he looked at her, and the littleness he exhibited.
The unravelling of the skin on his cheek and neck; peeling like wet wallpaper, melted a few of the icicles in her heart.
She had intended to hurl it under her arm, and make off with it. Now she wasn't so sure.
The baby gently touched her hand with its claws, claws that were tentative and soft. "Gaaaz." It said in so tiny a voice.
She shook her head, aghast at what she had just heard. There was no way it could talk! Maybe it was like a parrot, and repeated what it heard, showing no real intelligence, only miming everything.
"Gazz." It said again, slightly differently, as if it was trying to get a hang of her name. "Gaz, Gaz fruend."
She pushed the smeet away from her, and stood up, brushing violently at the hand where he had touched her.
Dib stepped forward and scooped the smeet easily into his hands before straightening up and patting it as the smeet buried itself against his chest. "You really want to hand him over to dad?" He asked. "He'll be torn apart for science."
"Dib, they do that to animals in labs every day."
"Have you no heart?"
"No, because if I did, this world would consume me."
"Look, let's just talk this out. If you're still not convinced by the morning, fine. Run to dad and cry wolf. After all, if you're contaminated already, you may as well stay."
She was looking at the alien he so lovingly held. "How do you know it's not dangerous?"
"Does he look deadly to you?"
Gaz scowled. "Maybe I should stay to see how long it takes for you to fuck up with this thing."
"Whatever. I'm getting him something to eat."
"Why is this alien of yours moulting like that? Do you even know if that's normal?"
"It's the rain, I think. He reacts to untreated water."
"Oh great, and I suppose you've got something to treat those burns or whatever they are of his? And spare clothing too? He's a bloody mess, Dib!"
"I've got nothing else for him, okay! I had to blow all his baby things out of Blue Thunder's airlock! All he has are these blue clothes he's wearing, a baby seat in the car and a teddy bear in the washing machine dammit!"
"Oh that's just great, Dib!" She followed him back downstairs and into the kitchen, where the bear was still going round and round in the washing machine. "Do you just expect things to fall into place as you bumble along?"
"I had to act quick, okay! Besides, I've only been on the planet for two hours, and then I had you breathing down my neck!"
"You don't even know what it eats, do you?" Her eyes suddenly flicked over to the grocery bags on the kitchen table, something she hadn't really taken much interest in during her hunt for the alien. "You've been out shopping? With that alien?"
"Yes. I needed food."
"Right. You infected a shopping store with that thing. Good job, idiot." She rolled her eyes, and then headed for the door. She was so utterly unpredictable. Alarm bells were ringing loudly in Dib's head. He had to stop her!
"No, wait! I said we'd talk this out!"
She gave him another one of her patented scowls that put ice in his veins. "Calm down. I'm not going to run to daddy just yet, but I will if I start coughing blood. I need some fresh air anyway, and I gotta go right now before I do something horrible to you, like punch you repeatedly. I might not be able to stop."
"Gaz wait!"
"I'll be back in about an hour, once I've cooled down. Then we'll fucking talk I guess."
"No cops!" Dib shouted after her, but she didn't stop, or turn round. She opened the door, braced the rain, and closed it behind her.
The silence was incredibly heavy. Zim was looking at the closed door a moment, and then glanced up at his new father.
"She's going to run to the authorities. I know it." Dib murmured despairingly.
"Gazzy run run."
He looked down at him, and the smeet smiled nervously. "What am I going to do with you, hmm?"
He walked into the downstairs bathroom, still carrying the little mite in his arms. Gaz was right. He had bitten off more than he could chew. And, now that he thought about it, the smeet had no bed of his own. No playpen to stop him from getting into trouble. And what the hell should he feed him when everything he had had been blown out of the airlock prior to landing?
He sat on the bathroom tiles, cuddling the little thing a moment as his stomach twisted into worried knots. Zim gratefully leaned his head on Dib's shoulder, enjoying the attention. He felt so small and delicate. It was a big, dangerous world out there, for the both of them.
Maybe he had but minutes before the cops lay siege to his home, and battered down the door. Or maybe it would be his dad, pulling up outside his house with a cage to secure the alien with. Gaz had never been too bothered with animals. She didn't possess the empathy to love and care for another creature unless she benefitted in some way. Games that trained the mind, and games that challenged her, were far more worth her time than clearing up after a puppy.
Dib parted the little creature from his shoulder, and held him in front of his face. He was going to fight for this smeet if he had to.
Even if it meant fighting his own family.
"Okay, let's try to get you cleaned up. Sit still now, and no running off!"
He put the smeet down, encouraging Zim to sit. The smeet followed every movement that he made with those all-seeing eyes of his. Then, just as Dib was removing his little pyjama top, there came a soft gurgle from the baby's stomach area. Zim patted his belly. He was hungry.
"That was my angry sister by the way. The one with the tough words and the purple hair. Don't let what she said worry you."
"No worried."
"Good. You must be starving. You haven't eaten since before we landed."
He removed his blue top to see more strange dark green blemishes. Underneath them was that same syrupy liquid, perhaps because this was the under layer of skin that was trying to heal. Using baby wipes, and hoping there wouldn't be any nasty reactions that would drown him in guilt, he carefully smoothed them over the blemishes, taking off any excess skin with it. Zim moaned, leaning away from the wipes and scrunching up his otherwise neutral face that was now contorting into differing stages of discomfort.
"I'm sorry Zim. It'll be over and done with in just a moment I promise."
He wasn't sure how exactly a healthy baby Irken should look, or should behave, but he had a nagging suspicion that the smeet he had was very premature. Maybe they'd kicked him out of his mother's womb, or a hatchery tank early, when the machines monitoring him detected a certain element of deficiency. Maybe they'd slapped the PAK on him to perhaps balance things out? But maybe the PAK had been a bit wonky too.
Now it was time for a question he had wanted to ask for a long time, especially during the voyage home. That need to ask the question mounted whenever Zim fell into a perplexed, and worried silence, or when he looked grieved in random moments. Dib hadn't forgotten that moment when Zim got scared of pigs. "Zim Zam. I want to ask. What happened to you? Before you were taken to Flaxier 19?"
Zim started to moan all of a sudden, the moaning escalating into a throaty whine. Both his hands pressed against his mouth as if to keep in the horror. Both antenna seemed to droop downwards, his frightened eyes trying to dart away from the memory beneath.
It was a reaction Dib never could have expected.
Though he was naked, and sticky with healing wounds, Dib coaxed him back into his arms and rocked him until he felt the smeet slowly start to relax. He noticed the way the smeet's little claws kneaded into the fabric of his shirt. He wished he hadn't asked, even though he was desperate to know, so that he could at least try and understand Zim's nervousness.
"Hole." The smeet whimpered eventually. It was in so tiny a voice that Dib barely heard him. "Big, big hole."
"A big hole? Like a pit?" He asked gently. He didn't stop with the rocking.
He felt him nod.
What did that mean? A big hole? What about it?
Dib didn't want to press the issue, but the questions opened up all the wider.
Had Zim been discarded from the smeet-making factory and placed in a hole - a mass grave for defective babies? At some point, that merchant from Flaxier 19 had come along maybe, and had taken them onboard his ship. Had Zim sat in that hole, Dib wondered, sitting atop dead babies alongside some that were still alive? That would have been plenty traumatic enough to still his voice for as long as it had.
He hoped this wasn't true. He always had a bit of a wild imagination, and coaxed up crazy ideas.
Something so awful, couldn't possibly be true.
"Were there other smeets in this pit?"
Another confirming nod.
"I'm not going to ask anything more, Zim Zam. I'm sorry. But you're with me now. Okay?"
"Okay." He heard him shakily repeat.
Because he had no spare clothes, he wrapped the little trembling baby in a soft pink towel, and took him upstairs to his bedroom.
"Toy." Zim whimpered.
Dib knew instantly what he meant. "It's still in the washing machine. Don't worry. As soon as it's out, I'll dry it, and you can have it back."
His imagination curtailed his thoughts again, like an incoming train throwing itself to the fore. Smeets. Dumped in one steep hole. Left to starve with no food and no love. The merchant had potentially been a hero, taking out the ones still alive, and taking them to the black-market planet to try and give them another chance in an uncaring universe. Perhaps the sides of the hole had been barbed. Maybe the top covered up to prevent any escapes.
If this story was so, it explained the timorous nature of Zim, and the moments of complete loss in his heart. Regardless, Dib felt horribly cold at the mere thought of what his darkest imaginings inspired.
He tried to tuck the little thing into his bed that was huge for a baby. It was getting late, and the smeet's skin felt chilled, but Zim wasn't so prepared to lie down and sleep. He was hungry after all, and naked beneath the sheets, save for the warm towel wrapped around his little frame.
"Just rest, for two hours, Zim Zam. I gotta make some food for you and me but I need you safely in one place or I'll never get anything done. You want your toy too, don't you?"
Zim looked miserable. The bedroom was big, and spacious and very quiet. He had been quite acquainted with the soft purring of the ship's engines, but here there was no background noise.
Dib stroked his head, feeling weighed down with all these new and taxing responsibilities. He had a strong feeling that, like before in the ship, the moment he would up and leave, the smeet would slip out of bed and quietly follow him like the worried and anxious duckling he was.
He had been much the same when he was a child. Always fidgety and restless. The dark had scared him, and he didn't like the dreams he had, so he always went to find his mother after leaving his bed. What his mother did to calm him was to read a bedtime story.
Dib looked around his bedroom, looking for a book that wasn't there. All his childhood books had either been sold off when he was still young but old enough to stop believing in fairy tales, or given away to other children. He may have kept one or two old favourites, but if he had, they had been perfectly buried in this house, as if every one item he owned contributed to a layer of permafrost, each deepening layer affording a glance at his life's history and what he had accumulated and then forgotten about.
Zim had lain down, his head on a pillow, looking up at him with that wistful, attentive gaze. It was a double bed, and Dib didn't fancy sleeping beside him when the time came, in case he forgot he was there in his sleep and crushed the smeet or accidently smacked him over the head with an arm.
"If you stay here, I'll try and find a book, and read to you."
"Read?" Zim almost sounded offended by the notion. "I can read."
"No, no, it's not like that! I read to you!" Oh how could he explain this to so smart a creature? "It's a story. You get to imagine it, while I read it out to you."
"Storey? What's a...storey?"
"It's like something make believe."
He didn't understand that either.
The wind gusted again, throwing up loud rain. Zim squeaked frightfully, and hooked the bedsheet over his head. Dib could imagine Gaz storming out there too, perhaps driving to their dad's lab right now, despite the wind and the rain. She was impetuous. God knows what was going through her head. It was foolish to stay here, and await either outcome set by his sister, but Zim needed stability, and if he took him to someplace new yet again, especially in this weather, he feared the smeet would gain a fever on top of this cold he had, and that would be one thing too much for so frail a baby.
He got up to find that book.
Zim slowly lowered the bedsheet, sat up and watched his foster father start to search the cupboards, those quirky antennas of his wavering up and down as though he was listening to the rain as well as Dib's rummaging quest for reading material. In his eyes, there was a reflection of darkness deep where the stars could not reach.
Guestrev: Hi there! Hmm, Gaz certainly is scary! And yes, in this AU Dib was still considered crazy, but not as crazy without adult Zim around to emphasis his craziness! XD
Guest (May 31st): Yeah, who knows what might happen!
Springtraplover: Thank you so much! I'm glad you love it! ;3
Guest (July 15th): I hope this chapter fulfils your need if not all of your questions! I really enjoy writing Dib and his misadventures with this smeet! Sadly it didn't get updated in the summer...I know, I'm awful. I lot of crazy stuff happened and I got seriously behind on Discount.
Guest (July 27th- August): Omg thank you! And I'm really pleased this story meant so much to you! And thank you dearly for reviewing, and letting me have a sneak peak at your thoughts as you read through each chapter! I hope you happen to find this updated too, as it's been so long. I'm a bad updater! The next update won't be so long in arriving this time! Oh and this chapter gives away a tiny sneak peak at why Zim is like he is. And Zim is so forgiving with Dib, despite the accidents when he's tried to learn about Irkens through trial and error. But Dib, he still has so much to learn. And you're right, these two have got very attached to one another! And I LOVE that nickname too! I'm sure it's been used before, but dang isn't it the best! Anyway, I really hope you're still reading this! Thanks again for the amazing feedback, it means the world to me.
Hope: Awww you sweetie! Thank you! There is just not enough smeet Zim out there! I need moar! And dang isn't baby Zim just mouth-wateringly adorable? I hope you enjoy this little update! They'll be a lot more to come! Thanks for being so patient with me!
