A/N: I know that I'm not finished with my recent story, "Even Perfect", But I felt I had to write this. This is a Kico slash fic, but it's not entirely fiction. I guess you could say this fiction is a portion in my life that I am dealing with right now. Kowalski would be me, and Rico would be...well, just read and find out:) WARNING: The story does contain Tobacco use and perhaps marijuana, if I can somehow fit it into the story. I'm planning to make this a really long story, as one's life is difficult to contain in just few paragraphs, and I'm finding it quite difficult to merge Kowalski's life with mine, same goes for Rico. But anyways, I hope you enjoy and Review as always!:)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own anything related to Penguins of Madagascar.

Kowalski fidgeted with the lit cigarette in his hand, unable to keep his focus on the white paper as it moved from side to side, the bright orange cherry dancing in the blackness of night. He wasn't able to focus on much lately, mainly due to the feelings he'd been having. Sure, he was the team's strategist, and although he didn't want to brag, he was nothing short of a genius, but in the past few days, he had suddenly began to feel so ...empty.

He wasn't sure how to deal with it, as he'd never felt something like this. Yet, as the days dragged on, the emptiness slowly burned inside him, much like the cigarette he held in his flipper, and he began to feel that this new sadness had been inside him all along, he just never noticed it until now. His first reaction, of course, was to try to forget about it. But no matter how long he slaved in his lab, relieving empty hole inside him was still there, growing more each day.

As Kowalski sat at the top of the habitat, putting his beak over the filter of the cigarette and inhaling the smoke, he couldn't help but wonder, why? It had seemed everything was going fine with his life. Experiments and missions going through as usual and such. He couldn't find an answer, no matter how hard he tried. The distraught penguin looked up to the night sky, exhaling as he tried to remember what exactly set him off. He began to remember more and more of the day he started to feel it, and only one caught his mind.

Kowalski was in his lab, as usual, working on one of many projects he had planned to build and experiment on for his day off. Right now, he was working on a formula that would enhance ones abilities to near super-human potential, without the usual side effects of something like steroids. He was nearly done creating the last ingredients for the concoction, excited that he just hit a scientific milestone,when he noticed the sound of his lab door closing, loudly. Startled by the noise, he turned and met Rico's gaze, his usual idiotic smile on his face.

"Hi, 'Walski!" He exclaimed cheerily as he waddled over to the strategist, bumping him in the shoulder as he passed. Kowalski silently growled at the penguin's action as he was trying to get the last ingredient into the liquid. He had to make sure he was extremely careful, for if he added too much or too little of the liquid, the experiment could end in a lethal explosion.

"Hello, Rico." He grumbled, slightly annoyed that he would barge in like that without warning.

"Work?" He squawked, cocking his head to the right quizzically. Kowalski let out a sigh as he explained,

"Yes, Rico. I'm working on a very important experiment right now, and I'd like to be getting back to it.." He tried to edge on the hint that he would like to be alone, but the manic penguin showed no signs of understanding. A few moments of silence passed before Rico asked,

"Help?"

Kowalski looked up at Rico, scoffing at the latest remark.

"Sorry, Rico, but this is a very gentle procedure, It would be too risky for someone with your... violent tendencies to help me, and it requires all of my concentration to-" Rico cut him off, obviously angry at his latest remark.

"Me gentle! See?" He said, trying to grab the ingredient in Kowalski's hand, but fell short as the strategist quickly shot his flipper back, beginning to grow angry himself.

"Rico! This is a very fragile-" He was cut off again as Rico moved his flippers forward, still making an effort to grab the liquid. Kowalski was quick to react, and jumped from his desk, now boiling with anger. Rico wouldn't quit, he just continued to attempt to snatch whatever Kowalski had in his hands and prove him wrong.

The light tugs and pushes slowly turned more violent, now becoming hard shoves and punches.

"Rico!" Kowalski yelled, nearly beaming red with anger as Rico decked him in the side of his flipper.

"I told you, you can't possibly help me with this in any way! Just leave!" The last statement seemed to hit Rico. Hard. Kowalski, now realizing the hurtful words he said, had tried to apologize.

"..Rico, I didn't-" But, once again, he was cut off by the maniacal penguin's actions. His sadness turned to blind fury as he punched Kowalski near the beak, grabbing the dark vial as the intelligent penguin fell to the ground with a thud. Rico was startled that he used so much force, but didn't show a sliver of regret as he held the potentially dangerous liquid in his hand triumphantly.

As Kowalski rose up, he had a look of extreme fear on his face, realizing the danger for his project as Rico shot out a devious smile.

"Rico..please hand me the vial. You don't know how dangerous it is." His face lit up a little as the manic penguin appeared to ponder his decisions. But even though it seemed he was leaning towards giving it back, Rico poured all of the liquid into the beaker on the desk.

"Whoops." He squawked evilly.

Kowalski shrieked in horror as he saw the liquid run down the beaker to his experiment.

"Rico!" He screamed. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" Rico just stood there, chuckling as he thought he had won the seemingly pointless argument. But as he was about to mutter a response, he noticed the liquid in the beaker slowly darkened, and without any more warning, it exploded, shattering the beaker and setting the items around it ablaze in small fires.

Kowalski shot back, shielding himself from the flying glass with his flippers. Many shards passed him by, but a couple stabbed through the skin of his left flipper, making the strategist shout out in pain. Rico ducked down, covering himself from the blast, but the smoke caught his lungs and he began to cough violently. Once Kowalski gathered himself, he started to pull the shards out from his flipper carefully, wincing in pain as he saw the blood covered glass leave his body. But that was the least of his worries. As the smoke partially cleared, he noticed his flaming desk, with every blueprint and schematic of his present and future projects burning with it.

"My work!" He screamed, glad the lab was nearly soundproof. He shot his gaze up at Rico, who started to lift himself from under the desk. He had it with Rico. He grew tired of his usual pranks or mischievous attitude, but this took it too far. Kowalski exploded with anger as he lunged towards the surprised penguin, ambushing him with an array of punches. After realizing what was happening, the now fuming Rico grabbed Kowalski's cut and bleeding flipper, increasing his pressure on the wound. Kowalski yelped out, but continued to hit Rico with his free flipper.

Rico kicked him off and soon the two were on the floor staring each other down. Kowalski, who was holding his flipper in pain, began to shout.

"You've ruined my work! Do you know how long it will take me to get all of this back?" The crazed penguin looked at the desk, seeing many scattered papers and reports burn to ash on the scorched desk. He suddenly felt terrible. He reached his flipper out carefully, the word "sorry" quietly escaping his beak. But Kowalski was through. He slapped the flipper away.

"No! There's nothing you can do to fix this! Just-Just get the hell out of here!" Rico's reaction startled Kowalski. It wasn't anger or his usual devious grin, which he usually showed as he messed with Kowalski. No, it was complete sadness. The strategist's gaze never ended as Rico slouched down and slowly left the room, Kowalski slamming the door angrily behind him.

Kowalski's memories flashed away as he noticed the helicopter pass him by above him, leaving a trail of light smoke in the midnight blue sky. Kowalski didn't know why he freaked out on Rico. He actually had a lot of copies of most of the projects on the desk, but it was the fact that Rico didn't listen to him that really set him off. Rico was supposed to be his best friend. He should've listened to Kowalski and left, but he just had to push his buttons. He scoffed angrily as he hit the cigarette again, feeling the smoke enter and exit his lungs. That was another thing that angered Kowalski. Earlier in his life, almost right when he met Rico, the manic penguin pressured him to smoke. He said it would calm him down, and for the most part, now it did. But he wasn't sure how long he could sneak out in the middle of the night, scavenging for cigarettes and even resorting to stealing a couple packs from a close by convenient store.

He hated the addiction, and scoffed again, now becoming angrier at himself for even letting the stupid penguin talk him into it. He looked into the water that surrounded the habitat, remembering the rest of the events that night.

Kowalski had managed to clean the horrific mess in his lab within an hour, and was now slouching at his desk, his head in his flippers. What had just happened? How could they let that happen to each other? Kowalski began to pace, sadly questioning his friendship with Rico.

Sure, Rico had been there for him, helping him in a tight situation in missions and assisting him with his experiments. But something came into his mind that made the penguin stop. All the times Rico was with Kowalski and acting nice, Skipper was usually in the general area. But when he left, it did seem like Rico would change. He would become more aggressive, trying to start a play fight or distracting Kowalski during his work. Most of the time, it would seem like the manic penguin would try his best just to tick off Kowalski, and it usually worked.

The intellectual slowly fell to the ground, realizing what Kowalski meant to Rico. He was nothing more than someone to entertain him. A fool who would fall for all of his pranks and get provoked enough to fight him, though always losing. Kowalski could feel tears forming as he remembered all the times Rico made him feel worthless without even knowing it. He didn't know what hurt more, the fact that the smartest animal in the zoo couldn't understand what Rico was really doing to him, or the fact that Rico would even do that. He silently wept to himself as he took the realizations in.

Rico was supposed to be his best friend, he was supposed to be there for him through thick and thin, no matter what. But now, it seemed there was no chance of even a remote friendship between the two, after what happened...

And that's when he felt it. The increasing emptiness inside of him, all from knowing his best friend wasn't his friend at all anymore. He wasn't even sure if Rico would consider them best friends before the incident happened. Kowalski was nothing to him, and he felt so terribly empty inside. Skipper, of course, was Kowalski's long time friend, longer than Rico and him knew each other, but for some reason, not even that cheered him up. Skipper was an amazing friend, and he wouldn't trade him for anyone, but there was something about Rico. He wasn't supposed to make him feel worthless, and yet here he was, as useless feeling as ever as the smoke filled his lungs and the hole inside him. But what was it about Rico that made Kowalski feel so good when he was near, and so horrible now after what happened? The scientist couldn't come up with any logical solution, but stopped as he heard something in the distance.

It almost sounded like a lighter being ignited, but that was impossible. No other animal in the zoo had a lighter besides him. He turned around and noticed the fishbowl entrance open a crack, and a quick flash of light on the other side of the habitat. Kowalski slowly waddled over the the edge, wondering who would be up this late, he nearly stumbled back as he saw the figure in front of him.

Rico.

He had been trying to light a cigarette of his own, the lighter he had clearly out of fluid. Kowalski began to feel warm inside, but shook it away as he slanted his brow in anger, still devastated after what happened. He wanted to hit him right there, just to show him how he really felt at the moment. But something stopped him, he didn't know what, but it stopped him dead in his tracks. He watched in horror as his beak moved, slowly forming words.

"N..Need a light?"

Kowalski cursed at himself as Rico turned around, just as surprised as he was and staring into the eyes of the strategist. Why did I say that? Kowalski thought to himself as he shifted uncomfortably. The truth was, he wasn't sure he was ready to face Rico yet. The two hadn't spoken a word to one another since the incident, which Kowalski remembered was 3 nights ago. He didn't know how to act anymore. Part of him felt like punching him as hard as he could. Part of him felt like breaking down and crying, asking why Rico acted this way toward his so-called "best friend" for so long.

"Ya.." Rico grumbled softly as he scooted over, giving room for Kowalski to sit next to him, but he remained standing as he tossed Rico the blue lighter. The two stayed there, surrounded by the awkward silence of the night, when Rico got up and face Kowalski. He tried to put his flipper on his shoulder, casting a saddened glance, but Kowalski shot back, a look of anger and betrayal on his face.

"Oh, so now you act like a true friend?" He asked, the bitterness of his voice showing completely. The words hit Rico like a brick to the head, not expecting such a crude remark. His expression remained the same, though. A look of regret, sadness, but most of all, hope. Hope that all of this could just disappear and everything would return back to normal. A feeling Kowalski was all too familiar with in the past nights.

"'Walski..." He whispered, his beak lowering to a frown. Kowalski shot right back,

"Don't 'Walski' me, you-you...jerk! I see all the times you ridicule me, just so you can get a cheap laugh! And whenever Skipper comes into the room, you act like we're the best of friends. You're.. You're a terrible person!"

Rico and Kowalski both stopped, beaks open wide, at what the strategist had said. Rico's eyes became blurry, but he forced away the few tears that formed. Did he really act that way towards Kowalski? He never meant to ridicule him, he thought it was all just games. But he knew he was clearly wrong when he saw the intellectual begin to sob.

"I thought...I thought we were best friends, Rico.. How could you do this to me? How could this happen to us?" Rico wished he could answer that question.

Kowalski didn't know what he was saying, he just had all these strange and horrible feelings inside of him and he needed to let them escape, but he'd never imagine he'd do it in front of Rico. The words rang through Rico like some ricocheting bullet, each time he heard it come past and bounce off his mind, the more it hurt. "How could you do this to me?"

Rico couldn't contain himself anymore. He waddled towards the crying Kowalski, now letting his own tears form as he hugged him as hard as he could, mumbling between sobs,

"Terrible. Friend. So Sorry, 'Walski.." Kowalski stopped crying at what Rico said, and looked down at him.

"W-what?"

Rico now buried his face in Kowalski's chest, the tears running down more than ever.

"So Sorry. Do anything. So be friends. Again. For...Forever." The strategist nearly melted at the last few words, though he couldn't tell why. He moved his flippers to Rico's back, gently rubbing it as the demolitions expert loudly sobbed into him.

He never imagined him actually confronting Rico this way, but he definitely had not seen the tables turn around on him. Rico was the one who was crying, and Kowalski was the one that felt terrible. He wondered if Rico somehow managed to trick him, so he could avoid confrontation. But the loud sobs that made Kowalski feel worse with guilt every second sounded much too real. And the way he held Kowalski, the emotion he had in such a simple gesture, was enough to prove to him he wasn't lying at all. The two slowly pulled away, Kowalski now rubbing his tears from his face.

"Rico, I shouldn't have acted in such a horrible manner, I over-reacted, I'm...I'm sorry." He whispered, moving his flippers to his shoulders. Rico looked up, breathing deep as he "Spoke",

"Me, horrible person. Didn't know, so sorry.." He felt tears arise again and covered his face with his flippers. Kowalski felt as horrible as ever. He just wanted to hold Rico in his arms and tell him everything was going to be okay, change everything and make it better.

And, somehow, he managed to do just that.

"Rico," He said, still in a low and soft voice. "Let's just forget everything that happened between us, Okay?. Start anew, you know? I'd love nothing more than to be your fre...best friend.." Kowalski blushed a little at his last statement. He half expected Rico to make a gagging noise at such a mushy response, but instead, he embraced Kowalski once more. After he let go, Rico looked up, a sudden smile on his face as he wiped the tears away.

"F..Forever?" He asked. Kowalski chuckled lightly, but soon noticed the look of pure seriousness and hope in Rico's blue-green eyes. He hugged Rico this time, now moving his face closer than ever to his.

"Forever.." He whispered into his ears as they held each other in the night.

Kowalski never felt the emptiness ever again...

Please let me know what you think! Sorry if this was really long, but it's the entire prologue and I felt like keeping it as only 1 chapter. But now the boring stuff is through and we can get to the cute and cuddly! Yay! :D (Also please don't flame if you think the characters are OOC, because that just means you didn't read my note, as I am trying to put part of mine and anothers' life in theirs, without taking too much out.)