This is both Humanized and Pre-Slash. If you wanna see it as close buds that also works :) Enjoooy~

As a general rule Rico didn't send texts with lots of words. Most times in lieu of words he'd send photos of things, scribbled over with messy lines of colour to show you what he needed you to see. Entire text conversations consisted of streams photos and words like 'K' and 'no.' and that was from both sides; if you needed to give him instructions you called him, and if he needed to give you some he'd find a way.

It was 2:39 in the morning when Kowalski's phone lit up and started making its daring escape off the edge of the desk. He snatched for it the moment before it topped off the desk that it was vibrating in a way that was entirely too loudly for this time in the morning. In his haste accidentally sent a flurry of papers off the other side with a stray elbow to scatter over the carpet. He groaned, took one look at the mess and propped his feet up on the ridge of his desk instead of trying to immediately clean it up. The front legs of his chair rose off the floor as he pressed his phone on his knees and unlocked it.

It wasn't unusual for him to be awake at this time. He had difficulty sleeping. Or very serious chronic insomnia if you wanted to quote the psychiatrist who had seen him a year ago and had been 'extremely concerned'. Honestly Kowalski didn't think it was a problem. He was able to function on the amount of sleep he managed to get, and when he wasn't functioning his body would suddenly decide sleeping was great and that he could most definitely sleep a whole night problem free. It had it's own strange system and all Kowalski did was follow it. If that meant staying up until 4 am some nights well then so be it. He'd rather spend that time working on projects than lying prone in bed counting 7's until he lost track of the number and had to start over for hours.

He rubbed his neck, feeling something odd tickle his skin and clicked on the message icon. Kowalski pulled the pencil out from behind his ear and after lazily regarding it tossed it somewhere behind him without much thought.

Rico didn't send texts with lots of words because he couldn't spell most of them, and auto-correct often did nothing but make what he was trying to say more incomprehensible than it already was. People didn't send him texts with lots of words in return because he couldn't read them. He didn't just ring up and tell you what he wanted to say because his speech was halting and jumbled at the best of times. A twisted mix of Dyslexia and Schizophrenia, the professionals the higher-ups hired still couldn't tell which caused which problem and what contributed where.

A long time ago Kowalski had set up a shortcut on Rico's phone. It had been short and simple, 'ZXZ', the lower left hand corner letters on his phone. Easy to remember and hard to confuse with other letters even if he forgot where they were. All he had to do was type that in and his phone did the rest.

Night Terror.

The dyslexia wasn't to blame for that one. He shut off his phone and stood up, shoving it in the front pocket of his sweat pants and stepping over the papers now all over his floor.

The first time he had seen him after one of those night terrors had been awful. Rico had been sweating like crazy, with eyes wide but unfocused and hands clamped firmly down on either side of his head and breathing ragged and wheezy. It had taken him over half an hour to calm down and all Kowalski had been able to do was sit beside him on his bunk, close enough so their shoulders brushed and ramble aimlessly on about something Johnson had said. That had been back when they had first met though, and over time he'd only gotten better at helping him back out of the weird static the nightmares left him stuck in.

Rico was wide awake when he entered his room. He was curled up in a tight upright ball against the headboard with his phone clenched against his chest. Even from the doorway Kowalski could see the rough angles of his hair and the wide shape of his eyes.

Kowalski climbed carefully onto his bed, pressing close against his side and prying the phone gently from his hands to rest it on the nightstand. One arm went over his shoulders, carefully pressing Rico's head down against his shoulder and threading his fingers through his hair and rubbing his scalp.

He let out a shuddering breath and his hands moved to grip onto the front of Kowalski's thin cotton shirt instead. His knuckles were burning white under his skin, hands still trembling even as they balled into fists pressed tightly against his skin. Another shuddering breath and Rico moved so his forehead was pressed into the join of his neck and shoulder. Kowalski didn't even notice when his free hands moved to cover Rico's, thumb tracing in soft patterns over his knuckles, focused on keeping his breathing steady.

"I'm here." He murmured, resting his cheek against his hair. "It's about quarter to three in the morning and we're in your room in New York. Skipper and Private are asleep in their own rooms. Everything is as it should be."

Everyone coped. Skipper, Private all of them, they all coped. Sure as a unit they had seen some things they could have done without, and even outside of being a until they all had their demons, but the fact was this wasn't Rico not coping. This was the Schizophrenia rearing its head again. there weren't voices in his head or anything like that, but occasionally his grip on reality would slip. It wasn't a serious problem most of the time because it only seemed to happen during periods of inactivity where his mind could wander, but it did become a problem when night terrors were added to the mix. Kowalski could understand it, waking up after one of those with no idea where you were or what had happened would obviously be frightening. Especially when you took into account the dark things Rico had seen.

"What was it?" His curtains were open a fraction, and the light from the street lights below and the occasional passing car was seeping over the floor in a fuzzy band. Rico didn't say anything, instead he moved one of his hands to lay flat over the left side of Kowalski's chest.

He nodded. "It's not true, you know that right?"

Rico hummed in agreement, though it came out strangled into a whine and his fingers dug back into the fabric of his shirt again.

It had really only ended up being him out of convenience. He never slept anyway, and they'd shared a bunk for so long he already knew what was going on when it happened. When they moved to New York as a field cell and received their own rooms he'd done what seemed like the logical thing and made the phone shortcut. It had only been logical. Besides Johnson had a policy about medication, you were never in charge of your own. He was in charge of Rico's and well that kind of meant it was his job to look out for him when they weren't working, right?

His breathing had started to get steady, body lax and heavy against his side, occasionally arching his neck slightly to direct the fingers still soothing over his raw scalp. Without realizing it he always tried to pull it out when he was anxious and the wild look if his hair told Kowalski he hadn't just been tossing and turning. "I'm going to talk with the psyches, your speech has improved but the night terrors have been getting worse." He sighed. "I think you'll agree its better the other way around."

Rico laughed quietly, "Less spacing out." he added after a moment.

Kowalski couldn't help but let out a snort. "You went blank behind the wheel last week, clearly not paying attention huh?"

He sheepishly giggled, pulling away and extracting himself from Kowalski's arms. He didn't think about the odd feeling it left him with. He rubbed the back of his neck and crossed his legs. There was a concerned look on his face, eyebrows slanting and mouth drawing into a firm line. "Sleeping?"

Kowalski shrugged. "as much as you'd expect." He didn't miss the minute movement of Rico's nails dragging over his thumbs cuticle or the slight shift of his eyes. There was a tense slope to his shoulders like something was knotted just beneath his skin and Kowalski sighed. He rolled lazily off the bed and after knocking some wiring and clothes to the floor slumped into the ratty arm chair they'd currently been occupying.

"Go back to sleep Rico, if you start to have another I'll wake you." He said quietly, flicking his legs up to rest on the bed. Not that it was very likely, while they were more common to have in succession he never seemed to suffer same night repeats when there was someone else there. It was like having the reassurance that if things got bad stopped the anxiety that pulled it up again.

Rico didn't move, staring him down with the same concerned expression. He finally shuffled over and started rummaging through his bedside table, shoving things around until he found what he needed and started shaking it in Kowalski's direction with a pleading look.

It was a small bottle of pills, the words N. KOWALSKI printed on the label along with the directions and the specifics of the medication. Sleeping pills for the nights it was really bad. Well they were actually for every night, but the psychiatrist seemed to bitterly understand that the scientist was not going to actually take them every night, still giving them to him anyway. "Please?" Rico asked, crawling forward until he was perched on the edge of the bed.

Kowalski shook his head. "Not a chance, you know those knock me out like a light and I can't sleep in this chair all night."

He frowned at that, and for a moment Kowalski thought he'd simply let it go. A moment later he lit up and patted the bed with his free hand, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

"No."

"Sleep." He said firmly in return, "Please. Skipper's worried." He paused, lips pursing and eyes narrowing. "Worried I'm - I'm worried."

If he looked hard enough Kowalski swore he could see the tiny yellow feathers caught in his teeth. It wasn't that there wasn't enough room on the bed, but…

He took the bottle being offered, shook out a small orange capsule and swallowed it dry. As he twisted the cap back on he reminded himself that after all this was only logical, and it was just to keep Rico and Skipper from worrying.

As Rico put the bottle away he pulled back the messy duvet up, smoothing out the wrinkles and laying back on top of it. Tossing one of the pillows messily to the floor, he remembered his phone and as an after thought, fished it out of his pocket and placed it on the ground before rolling over to avoid resting on his bruised shoulder. He blamed Skippers kendo-stick for that one.

Rico had his face half buried in his pillow, eyes watching him lazily and Duvet pulled up around to his ears. It didn't do enough to hide the small curve of his smile though and Kowalski punched him lightly for it. "Go to sleep. I'm still a light sleeper even with the pills. I'll wake you." he promised.

Rico nodded, letting his eyelids flutter shut so his lashes fanned over his tanned skin. "Thanks Walski." He murmured, slowly coiling one arm up to tuck under his pillow.

Kowalski lay awake, waiting for the pill to kick in, eyes half lidded and breathing shallower than he wanted it to be. He chose to ignore it though, just like he chose to ignore a lot of things about the situation. His fingers twitched at his sides and he rolled carefully onto his back, sighing quietly.

Staring blankly up at the roof he reminded himself, he was only here because it was convenient and it made sense. There was nothing more to it than that.

Ok so notes to be made: I gave Rico both dyslexia and schizophrenia because they both helped in the sense that he wouldn't be able to talk without going for the 'vocal chord trauma' or the fact he's just a straight mute. I chose to do it this way because the Rico we all know and love talks in straight gibberish. Schizophrenia can sometimes affect a person's speech in a way known as word salad, where words can get out of order or mixed up super easily. Dyslexia can sometimes affect a person's speech so that it's slow and halting and words are mixed up with other words that sound the same or have the same but slightly different meaning. (E.G Car could be confused for Bar or Truck.)

So we get gibberish if he tries to say too much at once :) I'm well aware that Dyslexia can be helped in lots of ways but in this AU Rico never really got that help growing up and now just doesn't want it, making it pretty severe.

And as for Kowalski and his sleeping habits I just wanted that. Also if a doctor prescribes you medication TAKE IT AS DIRECTED DO NOT DO WHAT KOWALSKI DOES AND MESS AROUND WITH IT. Just felt that needed to be said.

Ok. Note over. Thanks for putting up with it being so oddly long!
PEACE!