A/N: I figure I'd start my fan fiction page out with something nice and sad… I have 5 other things being written but this is the shortest (all of the others are chaptered with plotlines and romance, this one isn't).
I completely plan on doing a chapter format of this one day with a happy end and possible romance, unsure on the romance… maybe two different versions of the story, one with and without for those who ship and those who don't. Who knows.
This oneshot, however, has no happy ending, it's just plain angst.
Now, I'm exploring angst in a way they couldn't in the actual series (they couldn't really bring tragedy and angst in a comedy cartoon for children, but I sure can in a fan fiction!) so there's no loud hysterical crying about booty-shaking, etc.
Warnings: Character death, depression?
Pairings: None, unless you want to see it that way.
Word count: Exactly 2,500
Disclaimer:I do not own Penguins of Madagascar or related characters, and I make no profit off this story!
OoOoOoO
The sun was mocking him, he was sure. It shouldn't have been shining at all. No, the sun should never have risen at all, as far as he was concerned.
Was this his punishment, he wondered, for years of being a bad king- for years of abuse and just general getting in people's way?
If this was his punishment, it was completely unfair. He was suffering, but he was at least alive.
Why, he wondered, did his best friend have to pay for something. 'Why, Sky Spirits, why Maurice?' he asked silently, staring at the sky as if looking for an answer. All he got in response, though, was a wispy white cloud sailing across an endless blue sky.
It should have been storming. It should have been pouring rain from dark, black clouds, with thunder echoing all around and deep red lightning heating up the sky- the entire world should be in mourning. The world shouldn't be bright and happy; everything was completely wrong, completely unfair. It certainly felt like his world was falling apart as he looked at the circle of Zoosters standing around the little wooden coffin.
That little wooden coffin- he could see it, he could feel it when he touched it, he could hear it when he hit his fist against it, but he just couldn't acknowledge it. It couldn't be there, if it was there then that meant his friend wasn't.
If he didn't acknowledge it, then it wasn't real. Right? Right.
He almost believed it.
The worst part, King Julien- who at this moment felt nothing like a king- thought, was that he had known something was wrong for months now. He had known from the very beginning, but he hadn't tried hard enough to pry the truth out of the aye-aye.
Because, in the end, he didn't want to know what was wrong… he didn't want to face reality.
He was smarter than everyone gave him credit for, even Maurice. Especially Maurice.
Julien noticed the very first time Maurice stumbled, the very first time he lost his balance. He noticed Maurice getting tired earlier and earlier every night, he noticed how he needed to rest more and more.
He noticed the little winces Maurice gave when he had to lean over for some reason, the sudden intake of breath when his little legs started to give out when he was simply standing there. He noticed how Maurice began to use that old staff he had again, relying on its support to get him from point A to point B every day.
He told himself nothing was wrong, that Maurice was perfectly fine.
He almost believed himself.
Julien closed his eyes. He wasn't fighting tears like the penguins were. He wasn't silently crying like Marlene and the chimps were. He wasn't bawling his eyes out like Mort was. He just stood there, outside of their circle of friends, no tears finding their way to his eyes. He stood there, listening to them cry, listening to them mourn, and he couldn't do anything.
He didn't feel like he had any tears to cry. Oh sure, his heart felt shredded, his crown suddenly meant nothing, no amount of shiny objects could make him smile, his entire world was turning grey and shattering into tiny little shards of glass to fall around him, cutting at his very soul, and nothing would ever be the same again, but he couldn't call forth even a single tear.
He wondered if he should feel bad that he couldn't cry like the others. He had no problem crying when he thought Maurice had died… but now that he really was dead, there were no tears. Just an empty feeling and a horrible pain in his heart.
He almost hated himself for everything he didn't do, for everything he ignored- for everything he pretended wasn't happening.
When he first noticed the trembling hands, he asked, "Maurice, why are your hands doing the shaking thing?"
"Just tired, your highness," Maurice had told him. Had lied to him. He knew it was a lie, too, but he let it go. Normally he wouldn't, but he did. Why did he let it go?
However, when Maurice's trembling hands had dropped the cup of smoothie, Julien had gotten angry and the fact Maurice's hands were even trembling in the first place was forgotten. "Maurice! You droppeded a perfectly good smoothie! Now it is a perfectly bad smoothie!"
"I'm sorry, Julien," Maurice had apologized, going to grab something to clean the mess up with. Julien had paused; Maurice hadn't called him solely by name since they left Madagascar.
He had watched the aye-aye struggle to breathe as he began cleaning, then turned away. Maurice was fine, he told himself. Lied to himself.
He almost believed his lie.
It was hot. Uncomfortably hot. The sun was beating right down on him and there was no shade, and although New York had nothing on Madagascar, he felt like he couldn't stand it. He wanted to run away, curl up in the shade of the umbrella in his lounge chair; just curl up and never get up. Pretend none of this was happening, pretend he didn't feel like he was dying inside.
'Is this what true mourning is?' he wondered. If it was, why were the others crying so much? If true mourning was an unbearable pain in your chest, a pressure in your head that couldn't be relieved, an empty, terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach- a desire to just lay down and never get back up… why were they all crying? Why did no one else seem to feel this way?
'I could have done something', he suddenly thought, and it was like a punch in the gut, causing him to stagger slightly. 'I could have helped him. I saw he was in pain, saw he was being uncomfortable. But I did nothing.'
Of course, deep down he knew there was nothing he could have done. He had known since the moment he had woken up all alone that morning with that empty feeling. Hell, he had known before he woke up, he had woken up knowing his friend would be gone.
He had known for a while it was coming. No, maybe he hadn't known known, but he had felt it. He had almost convinced himself it was nothing.
He knew from the start something was wrong, ever since that damned vet visit four months before… no, it had started before that- two weeks before that, to be precise. It was why Alice arranged Maurice to see the vet a week early in the first place.
No, he had known all along. He had seen the signs. He just didn't want to say anything. If he did, then his nightmare would become real.
Julien continued to ignore the signs. He ignored how Maurice began seeking out shade every chance he got, how he lay down every free moment he had, how his movement was more mechanical than usual.
He didn't stop ignoring the signs until he noticed Maurice was starting to lose weight. He looked gaunt, somehow, though his weight loss was hardly even noticeable.
Finally Julien acknowledged that something was very, very wrong in his kingdom.
The day he noticed, he cornered Maurice at the smoothie bar, where Maurice was painstakingly polishing the cups. "Maurice," he had called, getting the aye-aye's attention. "What is being wrong with you?"
"What do you mean, your highness?" he had asked, his voice weary. Julien felt the sudden urge to grab the older lemur's shoulders and shake him, demanding what the hell that was supposed to mean, but he ignored it, knowing such an action would only serve to send the unwell aye-aye to the ground or into the pedestal's wall.
"What are you meaning what do I mean?!" Julien nearly screeched. "You stumble, you almost fall, you use staff as walking stick most days, your knees give out when you simply stand, your hands tremble and you drop things, you sleep a lot more than before, you wince in pain every time you move, you walk so careful- I am noticing these things, Maurice! And now you are losing weight and looking unhealthily! Tell me what is going on!"
There were a few moments of tense silence where the king's eyes never left his advisor's. The expressions that flashed across the aye-aye's face were so quick that Julien didn't have time to discern them. Then Maurice turned away and simply said, "It's nothing, King Julien."
"Do not be telling me it is being nothing, Maurice. I am the king- all things need to be told to me. Especially about my right-hand man! Maurice, tell me what is being wrong."
"I told you, it's nothing. Mango or banana?"
Julien stared at Maurice. Part of him screamed to continue the conversation, but another, more selfish part of him just wanted to let it go. Pretend nothing was wrong.
Eventually, that selfish part won out.
Nothing was wrong, he told himself, he was just being paranoid. "Mango…"
Everything was fine. Maurice was okay. He was just overreacting, maybe misreading signs. Everything was going to be alright.
He almost believed it.
"…friend and teammate," Julien heard Skipper speaking. He hadn't realized Skipper had begun the eulogy. "There was no one else like him. He…"
Suddenly Julien felt angry. The words being spoken- they didn't even begin to really describe Maurice.
Maurice, who had given up a normal isolated, nocturnal aye-aye life to live in a colony of ringtails and mouse lemurs.
Maurice, who stuck by his side year after year, even when he could have left at any moment, taking the abuse thrown his way.
Maurice, who, despite everything, cared about him and helped him when no one else would, even when it meant questioning his authority or speaking up about his own opinions.
Maurice, the smartest and bravest lemur Julien had ever met. Maurice, who had never left another lemur behind when he could help. Maurice, who had willingly gone out to help rescue him on various occasions. Maurice, who had loved him even when he was being a spoiled, pompous, self-centered, abusive, egotistical, idiotic asshole.
Maurice, reduced to simple words such as "good friend", "teammate", and "he will be missed."
Julien clenched his fist and turned his back to the proceedings, thinking 'This isn't fair.' Finally he could feel the burning behind his eyes, in his eyes. Angry tears finally began making their way through his fur and he had to choke back an angry sob, covering his face with his still-fisted hands. 'This isn't fair at all.'
Why? Why did it have to be Maurice of all people? Probably the one and only person Julien could honestly say he cared about. Sure he'd cry for Mort or any of his lemur subjects back in Madagascar, maybe he'd cry for Marlene and the penguins, but… they didn't know him like Maurice did. None of them cared for him like Maurice did. None of them actually legitimately wanted him around like Maurice did.
In Madagascar, he was just the king- they could get a new one. To Mort, he was just feet- he wasn't even really a person. To the penguins, he was just a nuisance- they'd be happy whether he was there or not. To the other Zoosters, he was just another animal who would come and go.
To Maurice, he was more than all of those- he was the king, but he was also a friend.
None of them could ever measure up to Maurice.
And those few, generic words could never measure up just what Maurice truly meant.
It had been four months. Four months, and Maurice was hardly able to force himself up in the mornings. Julien watched him silently, knowing something was horribly, horribly wrong. He hadn't tried again to get Maurice to tell him what was wrong since his first confrontation with him, but he no longer needed to be told.
Maurice was sick. He was very, very sick. And there was simply no cure.
He told himself Maurice would get better in time, and when he closed his eyes as he lay curled up next to his sick friend, he almost believed it.
Almost.
The next morning, the sun shone brighter than ever before, waking the king up. He didn't bother opening his eyes. He could feel the emptiness next to him, but if he kept his eyes shut, he could almost make himself believe that Maurice was still laying there.
Almost.
Almost almost almost.
Almost meant nothing.
Before he really knew what he was doing, he had run away from the little procession, unable to hold back his angry, grievous sobs. He ran away from the circle of friends-
No.
He ran away from the funeral.
The ring-tailed lemur found himself standing in his own habitat, staring towards the corner where he had found Maurice that morning, curled up and almost looking like he was asleep.
Almost looking like he was asleep.
Almost.
Julien had never hated that word more in his life than at that moment.
Almost. If Maurice's chest had been moving- if his tail or ear had twitched like they tended to when he slept- if his eyelids had fluttered ever so slightly as he dreamed- if he hadn't been so still the illusion would have been complete.
But no. It had to be almost. He had to walk to that dark corner on the entirely opposite side of the habitat, where he knew Maurice would be- he just knew- and stop and just watch the best friend he had ever known lay there in complete silence, completely still, unmoving, and almost looking asleep.
He had just stared at his almost sleeping friend, feeling absolutely no surprise and yet feeling his world start crumbling. He didn't feel an onset of grief; he finally realized it was there.
And as he stood there again, looking at that sad, dark corner, the one place in the world that had the appropriate mood, with his throat hurting- feeling like he'd swallowed a lychee nut whole- and unable to swallow, hot salty tears streaming down his face, Julien felt the last pieces of his world collapse.
He closed his eyes and listened. The wind blew gently, the sun shone so brightly he could see it through his eyelids, cars drove by unaware, police sirens blared, children played, birds sang cheerfully… the world was still turning.
The world would keep turning, he knew, and life would go on, but right then, he couldn't see how there could even be a tomorrow.
Tomorrow, he'd wake up for the first time in his life knowing he would never see his best friend again.
Everything would be alright eventually, he knew, but right then nothing was, not for him.
The wind was blowing gently, and for a moment he almost swore he heard Maurice.
Almost.