Title: "Rico's One True Love"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: G
Summary: Kowalski frets when Rico falls apart in Skipper's absence.
Warnings: Slash, Established Pairing
Word Count: 1,733
Date Written: 17 September, 2011
Challenge: For A DiteysBlessings LJ comm challenge
Disclaimer: Rico, Kowalski, Private, Skipper, Marlene, and the Penguins of Madagascar are ﾩ & TM Dreamworks and any other respective owners, none of which are the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
"What are we going to do?" Private quietly asked Kowalski who had not ceased gazing helplessly down at his love since Rico had taken to his bunk. Kowalski blinked for the first time in quite a while since he'd gotten the bothersome otter to leave their lair. He didn't even remember how he had convinced Marlene to leave, or when she had. He just remembered that it was her fault that his beloved Rico had realized that their Skipper was not with them at the moment and had thus fallen to pieces.
"What are we going to do, Kowalski?" Private asked again, tugging at the scientist's flipper. "We can't just leave him there."
Kowalski cleared his throat. "You," he started to say and then had to pause to again swallow the nervousness that was forming a lump the size of a golfball in his throat. "You," he attempted a second time, "are going to do nothing, young Private. You'll leave Rico to me."
"But . . . " Private looked at him, hurt shining in his beady, black eyes. "That's not right, Kowalski. Rico's my friend, too; I want to help him."
"We can best help him," Kowalski instructed despite his heart's aching to scream out his forlorn rage, "by leaving him to his own devices." It hurt him to see his beloved curled up into such a tiny ball, sucking his flipper, all because another penguin was not present. Kowalski was painfully aware of what Skipper meant to his love. Rico behaved this way every time Skipper left them to go on a solo mission, and though Kowalski always hoped that he would be enough to keep him going strong, it never changed.
He felt Private staring at him and remembered he needed to get the younger penguin out of the lair. "Rico's beyond us right now. There's not much we can do for him until Skipper returns, and until Skipper returns," he continued, beginning to hatch a plan, "there are no missions, nothing for us to do save what we want to do." He slid over to his bunk, slipped his flipper into his secret compartment on his pillow case while keeping his actions hidden from his team mate, and brought out a few shiny coins. Releasing his pillow case, he turned away from his bunker and carried them back to Private. "Here," he said, pressing the coins into his flipper. "You should do whatever you want to do. Go buy a snowcone, a lollypop, or maybe something new with those Lunacorns with which you're so infatuated."
Private beamed up at him, the smile curving his beak filling his entire, unexpecting face. "Gee, wow! Thanks, Kowalski!" His tail feathers wagged, but then he paused, cocked his head to one side, and studied his elder. "But don't you want to come too?"
"I'd rather stay here," Kowalski quickly said, "and work on my latest creation."
Private nodded. He understood that there was nothing Kowalski would rather do than work on his inventions. "Okay," he said, "but I'll bring you back something."
Kowalski forced a smile whose trembles he hoped Private would not notice. "That would be nice of you, Private, although completely unnecessary."
"But it's your money! I've got to get you something!"
"Okay, you do so then, and thanks. Now go ahead. Get going. The ice cream man should be coming through soon."
"Righto," Private replied with a nod and hurried out of the lair.
Kowalski waited until he could no longer hear Private scampering before letting out the heavy breath he'd been holding and a relieved sigh. At last, he turned back to his beloved, who seemed completely unaware that he was anywhere in the world. He sighed again, his heart breaking once more. Every one thought that there was nothing else he'd rather do than work on his scientific creations, but they were all wrong. Even Rico didn't seem to realize that the thing he loved most in all the world was loving him. Kowalski blinked back the tears that welled in his eyes, but more fell. He swiped at them with his flippers, and his feathers trembled.
"Rico," he called, slowly approaching his love's bunker. "Rico? Rico?" Still he made no notice that he even knew he was alive, and Kowalski's heart broke further. He hated playing second fiddle in the eyes of the penguin he loved, but though Rico claimed to love him, too, Kowalski knew he would never hold as grand a place in Rico's valiant heart as their Skipper. If Skipper ever decided he wanted Rico, he'd be out of the picture, and Rico would no more stop to give a thought to him or to the feelings Rico professed to have for him than he now recognized him.
Kowalski stood before him, waving a flipper in front of Rico's eyes, and still Rico only continued to rock himself and suck on his flipper. Kowalski shook his head sadly and started to turn away, feeling completely helpless to reach his love when he saw a tear drip down Rico's face. "Rico!" he cried. There were very few times in their life together that Kowalski had ever seen the wild and certified crazy penguin allow tears to come into his eyes, and even rarer still were the times that he had actually seen him weep.
Though his heart was breaking at Rico's silent denial of him, Kowalski could stand it no longer. He could not simply stand by idly and allow his love to hurt. He jumped in the bunker behind him and pulled Rico against him. Rico tried to pull away from him and clung harder to his pillow, but Kowalski persisted in pulling him and his pillow into his flippers.
As he held him, Kowalski could feel every bit of Rico's body trembling against him, and he spoke his name again. He hated feeling so helpless to help him almost as much as he hated knowing how much more Skipper meant to him than he himself did. "Rico," he spoke again, and then he pressed his beak to his forehead.
Rico blinked. Kowalski kissed him again and again, and slowly Rico's tremblings began to pause until at last he spoke his name. "K'waski?" he croaked weakly.
Kowalski jumped in surprise, but then he clung even more tightly to Rico. "Yes, my love," he crooned in response, "it is I!"
"Skipper gone," Rico muttered.
Kowalski nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I realize our Skipper is not here, but we are here, Rico. Everything's going to be fine."
"No, it not." Rico shook his head. "Skipper protect us, keep us live. Wit'out him, we sitting ducks."
"No, we're not." Kowalski marveled at Rico's concept. He could never imagine his beloved being merely a sitting duck, unable to fight or even protect himself. "We'll be fine."
"Not wit'out Skipper."
"Yes, we will."
"What make you think that?"
"Because I know we will be." Rico's head had come to rest against Kowalski's breast. "Do you hear that?"
"What?"
"That pounding."
"Your heart."
"Indeed. It beats for you, Rico, and I know that, as long as we have each other, no matter where Skipper is or what he's doing, we're going to be okay." That wasn't entirely true, Kowalski reflected inwardly. Without Skipper, they did all feel lost, even if he hated how terribly his love crumpled in his absence and how much more Skipper meant to him than he did.
"I wuv you, K'waski," Rico said, surprising Kowalski. "I don't want anythin' happenin' to you."
Kowalski blinked. "I . . . I thought you were afraid something would happen to you without Skipper here?"
"No." Rico shook his head. "To us. Skipper keep us all safe."
"He does," Kowalski acknowledged at last with a grin, his heart beating harder and prouder and a smile gracing his beak despite their fears and loneliness that came because of their Skipper's absence. "But we will be safe right here, Rico. If Skipper thought anything bad would happen to us in his absence, he would never have left us alone. We're going to be just fine, and he'll be back to us as soon as he can."
"You sure?"
"I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever of it, my love, just as I have no doubt that I love you." He nuzzled his neck.
"I wuv you too," Rico said, but still he clutched his pillow.
Kowalski wrapped his flippers more tightly around him and hugged Rico to him. "You'll see," he vowed, "Skipper won't let anything happen to us, nor will I. We'll be just fine."
"I hope you right." Rico put his flipper back in his mouth, and Kowalski held him as he sucked his flipper and rocked him gently. He knew he was right. Skipper would return to them in time to keep them safe from anything dire that might occur, but what he had never realized until now was that Rico's fears were not simply for himself.
He was so afraid in the absence of their Skipper not simply because Skipper was gone but because he believed that that left them all, Kowalski included, open and easy to attack. He believed in Skipper's ability to keep them safe more than he believed in his, Kowalski thought, his heart soaring, but he still loved him! It was to him that Rico's heart belonged, not to Skipper!
"He'll be back," Kowalski whispered, feeling Rico slip away from him again but knowing he, too, would return, "and I'll keep you safe until then and even after. I love you, Rico!" Rico didn't answer him this time, but still Kowalski knew he loved him and that love kept him warm, happy, and confident even in the light of their Skipper's absence and Rico's behavior. Rico loved him, and though he longed desperately for Skipper to return to them, he would always love him. Kowalski kissed him again and continued to hold him as they waited for Skipper's return.
{Hurry home, Skipper,} Kowalski thought silently, eager to return his love to his normal, if crazy, ways. He grinned as memories floated through his mind. He looked forward to his beloved Rico's courage returning, to seeing him spit up dynamite and make explosions again, and, most of all, to slipping him away into his laboratory and making sweet love to him all night long. They would do all of those things again soon, he vowed, just as soon as Skipper returned to them and made their family whole once more.
The End