Work Text:
Analogous Colors
- Tertiary (Birth)
It was cold, it was dark, and everyone was screaming.
Or wailing, more appropriately, as the newborn generation of smeets flailed wildly around the facility. All had been going as planned, with the cogs of the Irken machine clicking perfectly, and then it had all gone so suddenly wrong when some currently unknown smeet had shoved another back into the tubes and jammed up the system. Really, the red eyed one sitting amid the chaos could just count himself lucky that he wasn’t up there suffocating. It did little to quell the twisting in his stomach as he looked to the motionless robotic arms hanging down from the ceiling. Some of the other, weaker smeets clung to the metal fingers, letting out weak cries begging it to come back.
It was complete panic and here Red lay at the middle of it all, smeets piling around him and screeching in his face. Without the system in place, their PAK programming kicked in, directing them to the largest among the group. He was just a smeet himself, still laughably small, but among the tiny he was already the tallest of the lot. The crimson eyed one could not help but find himself irritated by their howls, by the crackling sound of failing electronics—what did they expect him to do? They had to know that just like themselves, Red had only the most basic of programming set into his PAK to prepare him for the earliest stages of training.
With a hiss he snapped his teeth at one that came too close; with a shrieking cry, the other smeet stumbled away from him. As it looked frantically around, its antennae perked up as magenta eyes locked onto a sight past Red’s reach, wobbling past him to fall against another smeet. Red craned his young, still weak neck around to look at the receiver of the irritation; he was surprised to find another smeet of his size, light violet eyes staring blankly down at the youth buried in his chest. Then, with a huff, the lost smeet was pushed to the ground. The crimson eyed child watched, curious, as this other smaller-but-taller batted the others away with a sharp claw; despite this, the smeets continued to gather around him as they had begun to gather around Red.
He paid no attention to them. Rather, he chose to direct his blank stare at Red.
Red couldn’t remember seeing such eyes among the others in his generation. It was a sea of magentas, with every one of their eyes ranging from a light pink to a dark ruby. Not among them was this shade of light lilac that examined him, looking Red over carefully as if trying to categorize him as threatening or not. They shone, bright and large, and Red found himself unable to look away during that moment—unsure himself whether or not to classify this unusual smeet, with its purple eyes and unusually pale green skin, as a challenger to his own position. For even if the smeets that hung onto his side irritated him, they were his to command, as ordained by their size against his own. Such height was a challenge.
Smeets were already fighting, he decided. Now he would as well. In the fray he would approach the other and kill the purple one as to eliminate any competition he could serve in the future. Red meant to do it, really, he did. He had his teeth barred and his claws ready to go for the neck as the purple one simply stared blankly back at him, cocking his head to the side curiously—it seemed that while Red had determined him a threat, the purple one had not come to the same conclusion for some reason.
It didn’t matter, though. When Red was only but three steps away from his perceived enemy, he felt himself uncomfortably jerked upwards. Limbs flailed and claws scratched against hard armor as he struggled against the hold, turning to face the masked Irken that had picked him up. All across the room the confused smeets were getting scooped up and thrown into large metal carts by soldiers with suits that glowed a bright neon pink. No living thing had entered the Smeetery in years yet whatever had happened had apparently called for a breach of a protocol, not that Red knew anything of this. He simply knew that he was being thrown in a pile in a deep cart and that his target was lost.
He clicked his tongue, stumbling awkwardly over the pile of wailing smeets as to try and scale the walls of the containment unit. It was of no use. They were flat and sleek, too difficult to get a grasp on with uncoordinated hands and too thick to cut through with juvenile claws. Even if he could have defied all logic and scaled the surface, the ground he stood on was too unstable to get a head start. The others around him jostled the cart, and it gave a heavy rock that knocked them all over as a soldier loomed over it and began to push. Red let out a loud hiss of rage, slamming infantile hands against the walls as if his youthful efforts would get him what he wanted. And he would get what he wanted.
Purple, purple, purple.
So close to red, but a hop and a skip away.
- Dominant (Childhood)
Red was not in the slightest bit surprised to find himself meeting the purple eyed one again. He had learned quickly that they were a small generation thanks to the power outages and backlogs at the Smeetery, in what had become known as Horrible Painful Overload Day (of which had actually lasted several months and left the first half year of his life to be led mostly in darkness). When they had finally been grouped up for their years underground pressing through basic training, he had of course found himself in the same training group as the smeet that caught his eye in the days of disaster. He had grown just slightly taller and leaner, eyes slightly darkened with a shade of egotism that made Red immediately wish he had killed the other when he had the chance.
The purple one was named, as if some joke of the universe, Purple. It bothered Red a bit, that this one that had chipped at his memories shared so many commonalities with himself. A single pair of tall Irkens in their childhood stages, one with eyes that did not have enough red and the other with not enough purple, both named for that visual distinction that set them apart from the uniform magenta that all their companions had. It was like having someone that Red was somehow meant to be around, and the thought displeased him greatly. Irkens didn’t need other Irkens. A single Irken at their highest point could conquer a whole planet.
So he agitated the other, snapping barbs at him and playing tricks on him.
There were two major flaws in his tactics. The first was that Purple seemed more amused by the toothless insults and juvenile pranks more than anything. The second was that Zim existed in the same training group as they did. That little rat caused nothing but problems, day in and day out, and expected to be praised for it. Any chance he could, Red would smack the little idiot across the back of his head, which tended to earn an amused laugh from Purple. As time went on, Purple joined in on smacking Zim around whenever the fool inevitably ruined another half-cocked scheme. Sometimes Red felt himself cracking inside with the ludicrous thought that it was actually nice to have someone to play around with like this.
Each time it surfaced in his mind he dashed it away and took to pushing Purple around for a few days. To try and establish dominance as the better taller, as the superior taller. But it did no good; he could only manage it for a few days before he ebbed back into mocking Skoodge and Zim alongside the violet eyed Irken. Purple always seemed to be there, and he always seemed to be somewhat of a mellowing presence.
Even in battle practice, the least soothing place in the already dismal and colorless training facilities, Purple was an odd salve. He was not popular with the instructors for his frequent laziness and insubordinate attitude, but the quips and mocking tones he used with the bossy leaders won him much affection from the other children. Red liked to pretend he was immune to it, scowling as he watched and hiding smiles behind a claw. It was hard to hide with how much Purple seemed to attach himself to Red’s side for no clear reason; perhaps, like Red himself, he liked not having to crane his neck when talking to the other.
Purple’s sunny mood and carefree attitude was contagious, and Red hated it. It crushed his dominance, tore it into pieces and let the other Irken child somehow manipulate him without a care. He was both endlessly infuriating and infinitely endearing, and it threw off his focus. Sometimes he wasn’t even clear what his focus was. As a stupid infant it was so easy to look at another and say that he was going to remove it from existence and be happier for it. As he grew from infant to child, though, it started to become more and more difficult to focus on it.
It came to a head, Red mused, when they were given real spears one afternoon.
For most of the time during practice they trained with practice spears and artillery that could do damage but could not typically kill the youth. According to the instructor, back in the days, there had been no practice weapons—they were just given the blade and if they were killed in practice then they simply were too weak and unworthy of serving the Irken Empire. This generation had simply been so small that such a risk could not be taken—enough potential soldiers had been lost in the Overload.
Now, though, Red stood across from Purple with a gleaming, sharp, deadly weapon in his hands. He was no fool; he knew Purple was more than capable of defending himself. He masked it with that laid back attitude. Yet even then Red also knew that he far outclassed Purple. The crimson eyed child had long since been the top of the class; Skoodge had almost had a chance at it, but he inexplicably came down with a bad case of broken arm. Red was brutal in his form and brutal in his tactics. If it meant being on the top of the heap he would not hesitate.
Yet here he was, hesitating.
He had been given a perfect chance to carry out his childhood plan to get rid of the pesky competition. The instructor had already let them know ahead of time that there was a high chance of ‘accidents’. Many of the training children had exchanged glances at that, knowing full well what that meant: if you carried a grudge, now was your chance to carry it out and rid yourself of any potential rivals. Red had ignored their eyes focusing on Purple and himself. He already knew what they said, about how their height was perfectly match—about how it provided a clear and distinct line of battle to be drawn in the future. Now was the time to eliminate that before it could even begin.
It was a perfect dance of blades. Their fights typically were. Their movements had an innate harmony to them, jarred only by the occasional attempt to step out of the dance and claim dominance over the fight. Purple had never been good at blocking; he had so many openings, claws wrapped around a weapon ready and willing to draw that fresh pink blood. Yet he found himself ignoring each other and instead focusing on the stepwork that his battle partner was taking. Breezy, simple, loose step-work to match the dumb smile on his dumb face. It made Red’s stomach boil and flutter all at the same time.
Before he even realized it, the instructor called the match.
It was over. He missed his chance.
He missed his chance, and he hadn’t even realized it, because he had been too focusing on the stupidest and most mundane aspects of his opponent.
In his frustration, Red threw the spear across the room. It impaled in the wall only a few centimeters from the head of a smaller trainee. He paid them no mind as he whirled on his heels to stride off the training platform and into the hall while muttering all those words he heard the instructors say when they thought the students weren’t listening. Voices echoed behind him but he ignored them, too focused on getting away to give any attention to the jeers of the onlookers. They had seen him fail and he would make them suffer for a good few weeks over it.
“What was THAT about?”
Oh, of course. The only one his age would could match his stride had wandered right after him like the dolt he was. Red grit his teeth as he looked over at his shoulder, glaring viciously at the purple eyed idiot. With a quick click he withdrew the small army knife that each of the youth were given and instructed specifically not to use on each other—it was advice that was rarely heeded, and even more rarely enforced. Now, Red used his claw to slam Purple’s against the wall by the chest and hold the blade up to the other’s slim neck. It almost didn’t surprise him when Purple failed to lose the bored look on his face.
“What’s up with you, Red? I just wanted to talk.”
“You’re a pain.”
“And you’re a jerk. Could you take the blade off my neck?”
Red growled. “I should’ve killed you the minute I saw you, you know that? Just sunk my claws into your chest. I had the chance.”
“…Yeah, I know that. It’s not like I don’t remember. You were weird when you were a smeet too.” Purple replied indifferently. Red loosened his grip in surprise; he hadn’t thought the other had remembered that. Purple never had brought it up and all signs pointed to that he simply hadn’t remembered the Smeetery. “But I like being around you so I don’t really care. Why bring up old news?”
“Are you stupid?” Red asked bluntly. Purple tilted his head, giving Red an annoying smile in return. “No, really. You know we’re the tallest in our group. You know that I should want to—”
“Kill me? Yeah, I mean, I guess so. I don’t think you would, though.” Purple hummed, lightly taking the claw on his chest and pushing the other Irken away. Red just stared blankly at him. “You like me being around. And I like you being around. Why ruin a good thing by killing me when you could kill someone way more annoying than me? Like Zim, or Skoodge, or whatever. Kill me and you’re just stuck with them.”
Well, he had a point there.
Red let Purple push past him and walk away, barely catching what the other said on his way out. Something about going back to practice soon, as if it mattered. What mattered, he mused, was that without even raised a blade or scratching his skin, Purple had completely dominated Red’s sensibilities—and Red couldn’t even find it in himself to be mad about it. With a low chuckle he tucked the knife back away.
Maybe it couldn’t hurt to leave Purple around, he decided, and let their egos clash now and then. The competition was irritating but also exhilarating in its own way. His instructor had said that without stimulation a warrior became weak and unsuited for battle. Nothing kept Red more preoccupied, more stimulated, than when he was around the other Irken child. He could reap the benefits of Purple’s presence, and be able to enjoy those stupid jokes and pranks without angering himself for doing so.
All he had to do was keep himself in control.
- Monochromic (Young Adult)
They were not typically seen separate. Red without Purple was simply not a sight that anyone was accustomed to, and their vibrant presences blended together into some authoritative and powerful monochrome of sheer force. As their height shot up they gained the privileges that only a tall Irken Elite could enjoy; if any other Irken had asked to be consistently partnered with one other soldier they would’ve been put under evaluation immediately. But with their status they could do what they wanted, and what they wanted was to spend as much time as they could together.
Red had matured in his years since training, aggressive habits more finely focused to target the enemy rather than lashing out at his equals. Sometimes he wondered if Purple would ever change. The other taller was just as lazy, carefree, and gluttonous as he had been when he was a child in training. The status of Irken Elite seemed to make him even moreso than ever, and in some ways, Red simply couldn’t help but indulge in that same gluttony. It was like sinking into a pit of decadence and superiority with Purple; eating snacks, teasing smallers, and conquering others without a care was the daily routine and it felt like the life of a warrior king. When he found himself on missions without Purple he found himself more and more distracted from his tasks, almost unable to focus; he had gotten a mark down for that once and only once. It hadn’t mattered in the long run. The pitifully small were not about to try and take someone as tall as himself to military court over something so mundane.
Still, Red sometimes wondered if they were right about how odd it all was. Irken soldiers did not form bonds with each other. Alliances were purely practical, and when the battle was done, the typical expectation was that they would either rejoin the crowd or return to their quarters. If they needed company it could be found in practice or in crowds ordained by Tallest Miyuki. What they certainly did not seek out was the comfort of a specific individual. Certainly not allow anyone, Irken or not, to absentmindedly lay his head on a uniform clad soldier.
Purple had grown steadily more touchy to everyone around him as he had grown older, but Red was often joked about as having to suffer the brunt of the lanky warrior’s constantly affectionate behaviors. It was not an unfamiliar sight to walk into the training hall to find the violet eyed Elite in the corner with his legs draped over Red’s lap, leaning against the wall and dozing as his fellow soldier cleaned a weapon. It had been a source of much derision from fellow Elites until Red had casually fired a shot at them for doing so. Since then, no one had dared question it to either of their faces, but he knew damn well that chatter still went on behind both their backs. Inappropriate chatter.
He would not hear of it. Red was an Irken Elite, and he would conduct himself like one for the sake of the Irken Empire. So what if in between doing that, he let Purple sit in his lap and doze off on his shoulder? So what if while in the far reaches of the galaxy on some hellhole planet with a team he hated, he always wished that he had been assigned to fight on a team with Purple instead? It didn’t mean his job performance suffered. He was one of the better of his kind so clearly his unusual alliance was not affecting him as part of the Irken war machine. Purple did just as well—he was surprisingly skilled as espionage missions, often taking well advantage of his ability to put people at ease before jabbing them in the back with a knife.
So there was nothing wrong. Nothing was strange about it at all. If they were productive, what did it matter? Tallest Miyuki didn’t seem to mind. She visited them both frequently, as she did to most who were breaking into the height numbers that they did. The blue eyed woman seemed more amused than anything by their frequent entanglement, though they rarely allowed her to see any of it. Miyuki simply had inopportune times of visiting and sometimes caught Purple lounging like the lazy bastard he was.
“You are exact in height and directly entangled. That is like a word I heard once, back when I myself was an Elite. The Vortians call it ‘Ranne’, and those of the Crystals call it ‘Hei-Hei’.” Miyuki explained; it seemed to only confuse the pair. “But the word I liked most was ‘fate’. There is a ‘fate’ in the both of you. And it is one that is sewn together in a perfect pattern, unthinkable to break. You match, and you blend. That is your ‘fate’.”
“I don’t understand, my Tallest.” Red said honestly. Purple just hummed absentmindedly, almost as if he already knew everything that Miyuki was going to say. Little quirks like that were the ones that still earned him smacks across the back of the head from Red’s claw. Disrespecting the Tallest was inexcusable, no matter how high ranked they were.
“Do you need to understand? Right here and now?” Miyuki replied, folding her claws over her skirt.
“…No, my Tallest. I’ll think on it.”
He did, and he had no answer. As the days flew by the only conclusion he came to is that no matter where it started and where it began, Red wanted Purple and it seemed like Purple wanted Red too. As the numbers were tallied after the death of the beloved Tallest Miyuki and the short lived Tallest Spork, both seemed unsurprised to the crowd when it was announced that their height was perfectly identical. Thus it was said that they would serve their role as Tallest as two in a perfect whole, the ideal decided upon by the Irken Empire.
And if Purple hugged Red at the end of the ceremony, no one would ever say a word on it.
- Color Harmony (Adult)
They had spent most of their lives together. Brief stints of circumstance caused them to separate now and then but it all led up to their true destination. Their ‘fate’, as Miyuki so put it, to stand alongside each other. Once torn apart as smeets by soldiers uncaring of their thoughts and whims, they now stood inseparable as they overlooked a mighty Empire. Red couldn’t say he hadn’t expected it. Some deeply egotistical part at his core had always told him that he would eventually be Tallest. He started out taller than the rest, so of course he would climb to the top as he grew. Purple was the only surprise, and if he were to be honest with himself, Purple had always been a surprise. Whether anyone liked it or not, the violet eyed Irken did as he wanted and went where he pleased. No one, not even Red, could stop him from getting what he wanted when he wanted it.
And Purple wanted many things.
Red surprised himself when he realized he was all too willing to give those things to him.
Disrobed, lying still in the sheets of their shared chamber, Purple lay on his side with his antenna draped across pillows and his energy comfortably spent. Red lay aside him, their legs entangled, their armor and undergarments discards entirely to reveal deceptively slim forms. His eyes were shut, deep in a sleep that most Irkens did not get to enjoy; Purple grinned at the sight of the once stubborn creature with his guard so down. If it were anyone else then Red would not have allowed the sight of such weakness, and his co-ruler savored the thought.
“One of the Invaders asked me a weird question today.” Red murmured, eyes still closed. Purple shifted to rest his cheek in his hand, head tilted in a questioning gesture that his companion did not bother to look at. “He asked me why I became Tallest.”
“It’s not much of a choice, is it?”
“No. But everyone wants to be it.”
“Mmh. I don’t know if I ever cared. It’s the greatest thing ever and I can’t believe I didn’t realize that when I was a kid, but…I’m pretty good at being comfortable anywhere. If anyone stops me I’ll just yell at them. What right do they have, right? I can do what I want.” Purple shrugged and collapsed onto the pillow with a soft whump. “…I don’t know. It’s cool, right? We actually get to rest, now.”
“So why did you become Tallest? Just to rest?” Red inquired, almost jokingly as he cracked open one crimson eye. Purple met his gaze with a long stare.
“I followed a red trail.”