Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: Never in all his years had he witnessed such a sight as the bouncing picture of paradise before him, and yet that paradise was more forbidden to him than solemnity to a hyena.
Warnings: Slash, Established Pairing
Word Count: 2,020
Date Written: 28 August, 2010
Disclaimer: Skipper, King Julien, Rico, Kowalski, Private, Mort, Maurice, and the Penguins of Madagascar are & TM Dreamworks and any other respective owners, none of which are the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Never in all his years had he witnessed such a sight as the bouncing picture of paradise before him, and yet that paradise was more forbidden to him than solemnity to a hyena. He should not even be watching the jumping, furry spectacle, but yet, no matter how hard he struggled to pull his lusty eyes away from the sight, they kept turning right back to him. It was like the moment before a skydiver hit the ground. He wanted to pull his eyes away from the gruesome happenings, but he was powerless against its pull upon his vision.
Skipper rubbed his eyes and once more tried desperately to look away. His left foot began to tap to the rhythm of the music, and he instantly stilled it. Then his right picked up the beat where his other foot had abandoned it. He froze it to the spot, as well, but no sooner had he stopped his right foot than his left began again. He glared at his misbehaving feet and sent them a growl of warning for good measure.
Skipper only growled when his frustration or anger reached their peaks, but right now both were going full blast. His feathers shifted restlessly along his tightened body as he finally managed to steal both of the miscreants protruding from his lower body. Then his dark eyes shot wide in horror, and he clapped both of his flippers over his shaking tail feathers!
His flippers held his feathers tightly, but still they moved to the enticing tune. He fought to resist the pull, but it was as though all his years of training had deserted him as his eyes looked again to that fine and furry rear end bouncing up and down. "RINGTAIL!" he roared, losing the last shred of his patience and, he feared, his dignity.
Julien bounced high once more and came down grinning. "What is it?" he teased. "Is the flightless bird trying to shake his tail feather?"
Skipper glowered and, inwardly, blushed. If the colors of a penguin's feathers could be changed, his would have been as bright as a baboon's behind! He was secretly grateful that they could not as he ordered, "GIVE IT A REST!"
"Give what a rest?" King Julien queried, somersaulting through the air once more. This time, when he landed, his full, furry front, except for his head, was stretched out upon his bouncing mat. His head rested in the palm of his right hand as he gazed at Skipper with what could only be described, Skipper knew with a shudder of fear and what he told himself was repulsion, as bedroom eyes. "Are you wanting to rest, Skipper?" he asked meaningfully. His eyebrows shot swiftly up several times as he twirled the bushy, ringed instrument of Skipper's torture through the air. He smiled, flashing his big, white teeth, as he watched Skipper's eyes follow his tail's every movement.
Skipper gave himself a stern shake. His dark eyes narrowed in deadly warning at the ringtail as he forced his gaze to refocus upon his smirking face. His flippers finally left his rear end which, thankfully, was no longer shaking but stood still, hard, and erect with the anger that trumpeted through his small body. "NEVER!" he bellowed. Then, realizing that he had answered King Julien's spoken query with more force than was necessary for the question, and that the eyes of his and Julien's men were beginning to drift inquiringly to him, he coughed into his right flipper and rephrased his answer, "I'll never rest when there's work to be done, something you should learn, ringtail, if you're going to continue to keep this charade of being a King!"
"Charade?" Julien repeated questioningly, flipping around on his bouncy mat. "What charade? Who's playing charades? Who dares to play charades without your King? I demand to play and win!"
Maurice shook his head and groaned. Mort grasped the opportunity of Julien's confusion to scamper forward and grasp his King's leg. "Mort loves charades," he crooned in his tiny, high-pitched voice, "but loves King Julien more!"
"GET OFF OF MY LEG!" King Julien demanded and shook him viciously. The momentum sent them both bouncing rapidly through his play house.
Kowalski muttered to himself in a language no one but he could understand and rubbed his chin in thought. His dark eyes darted between the bouncing ringtail and Skipper's eyes that were once again moving with every maneuver of the lemur's whirling, bushy tail.
Rico looked to Kowalski, shrugged, and belched. A red rose dropped out of his beak. Kowalski's eyes shot wide, and he snatched the flower off of the ground and hastily hid it behind his back.
"Sorry," Rico muttered, lifting his flippers in defeat.
Kowalski warily eyed the others. "It's okay," he murmured out of the side of his beak. "Everything will be fine as long as they do not see this obvious hint that we are aware of the underlining meaning of this precarious situation."
"Huh?" Rico asked, a look of pure confusion upon his face.
"Sh," Kowalski commanded. Rico promptly did so, putting both of his flippers over his beak to make certain that he did not vomit up something else that would give Skipper's secret away. He and Kowalski understood Skipper's secret admiration for King Julien, but neither penguin was fond enough of pain to mention it to where their leader could hear them. Skipper might be drawn to King Julien like a monkey to a banana, but they both knew that he would never admit to the fact that the lemur's antics stirred feelings in him that he would swear no male should feel for another male. Skipper's loud and adamant stance on that particular subject was also why they kept their own feelings for each other hushed and forever out of sight of their best friends.
"Skipper?" Private asked, quietly edging closer to the penguin he adored above all others.
"Hush, Private!" Skipper commanded with a wave of his flipper. "This is between me and Ringtail only! YOU CUT OFF THAT MUSIC, RINGTAIL," he demanded, "OR I'LL CUT IT OFF FOR YOU! SOME OF US AROUND HERE NEED TO CONCENTRATE!"
Kowalski and Rico sighed in relief, but Kowalski continued to keep the rose his partner had vomited behind his back for safety reasons. Skipper's eyes had been glued to Julien's tail this entire time. Private had been watching him just as hard, and Julien himself and Maurice had been too busy dealing with Mort, who was hanging as tightly on to Julien's leg as a sloth to its chosen tree, to notice Rico's betraying vomit.
"Ooo! Well, I am sorry if my royal dance party is disturbing your going out habits, little penguin, but I am King and have no intentions of stopping my partying any time soon!"
Skipper's eyes narrowed. "I didn't ask you to turn it off! I commanded you to turn it off!"
"A King takes commands from no one!" Julien called back, shaking his leg mightily as Maurice continued to try to pull Mort off of his offending position. The tiny lemur seemed almost to have bathed his hands in actual glue, however, for he was holding on to his King with the strongest grip any of the three had ever experienced out of his small, furry body. Finally, just as Skipper began to stride forward with purpose darkening his feathery face, Maurice managed to pry Mort free. He slipped out of his hands, flew across the bouncy house, and landed on the radio.
The music died instantly, and Skipper smiled thinly at the victory that had fallen into his lap. His men had not noticed his failure or his weakness, and now, at last, he would have his deserved quiet! "That's better," he ground out. "Next time," he ordered, pointing a flipper directly at Julien, "when I tell you to turn that blasted stuff that you call music off, do it, and we won't have to have this argument!"
"But then you all would not get to feast your eyes upon my bouncing bottom!" Julien declared, turning around and showing off his shaking rear end and jerking, ringed plume of a tail.
Skipper's eyes grew wide once more, and he shuddered inside as he realized that he was nearly salivating watching Julien! "No one wants to see that thing!" he announced. "Put it away!" It took every ounce of his will, training, and dedication to turn his back on Julien. "Men, I've had enough of this ringtail's nonsense today!"
"But, Skipper . . . "
Skipper blatantly ignored Private's pleading voice. "I'm going for a nice, long swim," he announced and promptly marched away. He tried to scamper, but his body was too stiff to allow him much more than an ungainly waddle. The very moment he reached the safety of their own shore, he dove into the water and swam quickly into the coldest currents that he had learned, not long after Julien had arrived at the zoo, were the only solution to his tensed muscles that the ringtail caused.
Rico had sniggered as he had watched Skipper's tiny tail jerking erratically as he had jumped out of the lemurs' habitat. Kowalski had quickly silenced his mate by placing a flipper over his beak.
"Why can't we all be friends?" Private asked, his voice seeming almost to be a whine, as he turned watering eyes upon King Julien.
"Because," the King announced, "those who fail to swing are always envious of those with the swing just as those who lack the crown are always green with envy of we true Kings! As I am both the King of Boogey and the King of all I survey, your little Skipper can not help but to be jealous and admiring of me at the same time, something, I am quite certain, that he has never experienced before!"
"But . . . But Skipper's not . . . " Private stammered.
Rico and Kowalski shared a look. Together they moved forward to their friend, and each penguin took one of Private's flippers. They dragged him away as Julien laughed hysterically.
"That is right! Go ahead and run!" he cried as the music started playing again from Maurice's finger pressing down on the magic box's Play button. "Run," he decreed, jumping around and pointing his rear end at them once again, "for none of you can match the swing of the King of Booty!"
"But . . . But Skipper's not . . . "
"Whatever he is or is not," Kowalski spoke soothingly, finally releasing Private once they were back in their underground headquarters, "he is still our Skipper, and we love him just the way he is."
"Yup yup!" Rico fervently nodded his agreement, his tongue hanging partially out of his mouth.
"But . . . But Skipper . . . "
"Skipper is Skipper, Private," Kowalski stated firmly. "He is our dear friend and trusted leader, and that should be all that matters. We all owe him our very lives. Would you disgrace him by talking about him behind his back, then?"
"No, no, of course not!"
Kowalski smiled. "Then this matter is settled and shall never be spoken of again. Now I am quite certain you have something you wish to do. I myself have a new experiment I am undertaking, and I am in need of some special help, as it were. Rico?"
Rico nodded and followed Kowalski into his private laboratory. Private stood still, watching them leave and still pondering over the events of the last few minutes. Skipper had seemed so . . . different as he'd been watching King Julien with such fascination. He heard Kowalski's words in his head again. "He is our dear friend . . . that should be all that matters." He sighed and nodded to himself. Kowalski was right, of course. Skipper was their friend. No matter how strangely he might act at times, he was still the same penguin and same friend, and that really was all that mattered. Humming to himself, Private set about cleaning his family's headquarters while he awaited Skipper's return.
The End
Author's Note: If you enjoyed this story, or any of my other writings, I hope you'll consider joining my brand new fan fic land comm - /FanFicLand - where four teams compete with weekly drabble challenges and monthly longer fic challenges to see who can reach 5,000 points first!