A\N: Sunday, July 29 2012

Okay, can´t sleep…01:18 o´clock…two bugs were mating in my room…o.O…and totally in the mood for a pairings fanfic! ^^

Skipper sat up in his bunk, rubbing his blood-shot eyes. This insomnia problem was getting worse each night. The leader wasn´t even sure why he had it. Just a few days ago, sleep abandoned him. Which didn´t mean he wasn´t tired. He was exhausted. Everytime he would lie back down, the exhaustion would overwhelm him and his eyes would grow so heavy he couldn´t keep them open anymore.

But he´ll never fall asleep. Skipper thought about just lieing there the whole night, thinking maybe if he´d just lie in his bunk the whole night, it would still give him some rest. It wasn´t that easy. Since his brain was awake, it wanted something to do.

The penguin would get bored out of his mind, finally getting up and doing something.

It had been going on for days, but now Skipper was determined to do something against it. He climbed up the ladder to the bunks of his sleeping team mates. They were sleeping soundly, their deep, calm breaths the only sounds in the room.

"Kowalski!" Skipper nudged the penguin gently, trying to wake him up quietly.

"I don´t want to get up…" Kowalski mumbled, rolling over in his bunk.

Skipper nudged him again, this time harder.

"Soldier! Wake up! That´s an order."

This time Kowalski tried to push Skipper away. The leader almost fell off the ladder, but managed to catch himself in time.

Skipper was thinking about using force to get him to wake up, but then had a better idea. He leaned in close to Kowalski´s earhole.

"Kowalski, Doris is here and she wants to talk to you."

"Huh?" The scientist turned over and gazed sleepily at his commanding officer. "Did you say something, sir?"

"Yeah, I need your help." Skipper then explained him his problem.

"So this started couple of days before?" His soldier asked, jotting down notes. Skipper nodded.

"Like which day exactly?"

"I dunno, maybe…Thursday?"

The genius penguin nodded and wrote something down.

"Now, think back, did something unusual happen at that particular day?" Kowalski asked his leader. Skipper frowned, thinking hard.

"Uhm, no. All that happened were a couple attacks from Dr. Blowhole and his psycho bunny, your invention going wrong and almost blowing the entire coast away…Julian throwing a fit over a broken nail…nothing out of the ordinary."

"Hmm." Kowalski was flipping through the pages of his clipboard. "What about training?"

Skipper felt a little uneasy now. He remembered a minor incident that had happened back then…

"Ten more rounds! Come on team!" Skipper called over his shoulder as the penguins swam laps around their island. The others groaned behind him. They didn´t even seem motivated when he called them nancy-cats. The leader finished early and jumped back onto the concrete slab, shaking off the water droplets from his feathers. He took out a small notebook and began to observe his soldiers. Private needed to work on the speed. He wrote that down. And his strength. The Brit was already lagging behind. Rico was doing better, but he looked exhausted too, his tongue lolling out and his focus lost. Kowalski…

Skipper turned to his last teammate and felt a small shiver go down his spine. The scientist was swimming in a paced speed, going not too slow, but not in super speed either. His eyes were fixed in front of him, totally focused on the rest of his track. The water barely splashed as his body glided through it, his feathers that weren´t underwater shining in the morning sun. Skipper swallowed hard and tried to decide what to write down. ´Too distracting´? ´No flaws´? ´Perfect´?

"Skipper?" Kowalski´s voice ripped the leader out of his flashback.

"I´m sorry, what?"

"Nothing, just you were kinda spacing out." His soldier informed him. "Anyway, Skipper. I have concluded that the problem could be linked with your bunk."

Skipper blinked. "Kowalski, they´re all made of concrete, it´s not like I need a different mattress or something."

"True, but maybe some unpleasant memory is linked to your current sleeping place and that is hindering you from sleeping. Maybe a bad dream or something." When Skipper didn´t response, Kowalski gave him an understanding nod.

He put a flipper on his worn out friend´s shoulder, barely noticing the slight wince when he did. "Come on. Try sleeping in a different bunk for tonight. Maybe it´ll help."

The genius guided his hardly conscious leader over to another bunk and gently coaxed him into climbing in and lying down.

Skipper was asleep in seconds. Kowalski grabbed the blanket and covered the sleeping officer. He was a bit worried about Skipper´s condition. Kowalski stared awkwardly at the sleeping form of his commanding officer. He wanted to lean down and give Skipper a small peck on the cheek, but it somehow didn´t seem to be right. So he just patted his shoulder and went to Skipper´s bunk.

The next morning Skipper awoke, his body feeling better than ever with the sleep he had and a familiar smell surrounding him. The leader stood up and stretched. Whatever Kowalski had in mind, it worked. He turned, then his smile slowly faded from his face. He realized where he slept. It was in Kowalski´s bunk. One voice inside his head noted, So that´s why you slept so good. That explains much. The other however, Don´t be so sick! Kowalski´s your soldier! Not a toy for a homosexual pervert!

"Good morning, Skippah!" Private greeted his leader. Skipper silenced the two voices and returned the greeting. Kowalski and Rico were already up, eating breakfast. Rico was smearing peanut butter on a fish slice and Kowalski was sipping on some tea Private had prepared for them all. When he saw Skipper, he smiled. "Good morning, sir. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, soldier…thanks." Skipper muttered and sat down across from him.

Kowalski watched him carefully, a bit curious. He was excited to hear that Skipper finally found some sleep in his bunk. But he swallowed that down and kept his focus on his leader´s plan for today. He couldn´t let any fantasies be in the way of his duty.

After they had eaten, Skipper came up to him. "Kowalski?" The officer asked, a small pink on his cheeks. "I just wanted to ask if…I could sleep in the same bunk again?" He asked.

"Sure, sir." Kowalski told him, a bit surprised. Skipper nodded and the two penguins went up topside for morning training.

They were in their middle of their 60 pushups with one flipper, when suddenly Skipper collapsed. Kowalski turned his head to see what the problem was. But Skipper just looked angry and annoyed. "Ringtail…GET OFF ME!"

"Why? It is being fun riding a penguin!" Julian argued, wriggling around on the penguin´s back. "Now be doing something fun so your king can amuse himself!" he commanded, bouncing up and down.

"Uhm, your highness, I don´t think that´s a wise idea." Maurice warned, knowing if Julian got Skipper too mad, the leader might get violent.

"No, Maurice, it is wise! First, I thought of it, and second, I want to ride on the moving animals like the little kids in the big shopping centah did too! Now give me a coin!" Maurice rolled his eyes, but Mort rushed forward, holding up a penny.

"Here King Julian! I got you the penny!" the mouse lemur said excitedly, handing the taller lemur the small coin.

Julian leaned forward and tapped Skipper´s beak, which was closed tightly. The penguin glared up at him.

"Come on, silly penguin! Open your beak so I can have some fun!"

"Oh you want fun?" Skipper asked, holding up his flippers so Julian couldn´t stuff the penny in his beak.

"Yeah!"

"Alright, I give you something VERY fun." Skipper smirked and stood up.

Julian yelped and held on to him. As much as Skipper wanted to slap the offender away, he just started walking backwards.

Maurice saw where he was going and grabbed Mort. "Uhm, we´ll…head back to your kingdom so we can uhm…make you a smoothie."

"Yes! Be doing that, Maurice! But put in extra pineapple!" The king called, still holding on to Skipper´s head.

Kowalski was readying his invention. Skipper was backing up to it. The machine was designed to shoot undesired things away with a cannon-like muzzle and even better, the distance and height could be calculate on a touch screen.

Skipper continued to move backwards, then leaned back. Rico pried the now no-longer-having-fun lemur and shoved him into the hole.

"Ready to fire Skipper?" Kowalski asked.

"Not yet." Skipper smirked.

"This is an outrageousness! Be freeing the King and his royal booty this instance!" The lemur cried, squirming around, trying to free himself.

"On my mark…now!" The leader gave the signal. Rico quickly typed in the furthest location from the CPZ and hit a red button.

"I demand to be knowing what is going o-AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh…" Julian´s cry echoed throughout the zoo as he got flung across NYC.

"Well done team!" Skipper cheered, giving his team a high five. Kowalski grinned and raised his flipper. Skipper smiled back and slapped it. "Thanks Kowalski." He said. The genius nodded.

"Now team, back to training." Skipper ordered and the penguins picked up by their training as if nothing happened.

He hadn´t been so excited about going to sleep ever since he and Johnson hid the plastic tarantula in Manfredi´s bunk. As Skipper stretched out on the concrete cot, taking in Kowalski´s rich scent. It smelt like coals and chemicals, mixed with the usual penguin´s smell of sea and fish. When Skipper opened his eyes, he saw some equations and little doodles drawn on the bed ceiling. Doris, Jiggles, Math problems, inventions and Skipper…wait a minute. The penguin sat up and narrowed his eyes on the pencil penguin with a flathead and a smirk plastered on his features.

No, his eyes weren´t seeing things. Skipper didn´t know what to make out of this. One side he was flattered, on the other confused. A thought crossed his mind. Could it be that he has feelings for- Instantly, the other voice piped up. No way! Now you´re just being stupid. He would never have any romantic feelings for you. His heart belongs to Doris.

"I guess you´re right." Skipper sighed out loud, then realized it seconds later.

"Pardon?" Kowalski's blue curious eyes looked up at him from the beneath him.

The other shook his head quickly. "Nothing soldier." He lay back down and heard Kowalski do the same. For a whole while there was silence.

"You seem comfortable up there." Kowalski suddenly commented nervously. Skipper looked down at him to see the other give him an embarrassed smile.

"I do? I guess it is comfortable up here." Skipper replied. His eyes wandered back to the drawings and he wanted to ask his soldier about them, but held back.

"I…like your bunk too." Kowalski said, then mentally slapped himself. Hard. Really Kowalski? Do you realize just how wrong that sounded? The scientist chided himself.

But it didn´t seem like the other penguin heard him. He was staring at something above him. Kowalski´s heart almost stopped as he realized what Skipper was looking at. It was his drawings of his secret crush.

He sat up, wondering what must go through his leader´s mind. Maybe he thought he was just drawn up there as a role model. Maybe he thought the other was a sexual disturbed penguin. Maybe he was even pondering if he wanted to keep a gay soldier on his team.

All of that sounded really bad…except maybe the first option. Kowalski looked back up and saw Skipper still studying them. Finally he couldn´t stand it anymore.

"Those drawings…I just drew them…I-I mean-" Kowalski stammered.

Skipper climbed down from his bunk. He stopped at the rung closets to his…Kowalski´s bunk. "Why did you draw them?" It was a simple enough question, but the genius just gazed at his friend helplessly.

"…"

"Well? I just want a straight answer, soldier, nothing more, nothing less."

Kowalski let his head sink and exhaled deeply. "I...I might´ve, I mean, I do…what I´m trying to say is…uh…look, Skipper…" He took another, but that didn´t help. Skipper grew impatient till finally he grabbed Kowalski´s shoulders. "Get a hold of yourself, man! Just tell me in one sentence."

Kowalski slumped back, and lowered his gaze. "I…I´m in love with you Skipper." He turned his head away and braced himself for the slap or the gasp, whichever came first.

Then he heard something. It was faint, but loud enough to be titled as a ´sound´.

"I do too…"

"What?" Kowalski stared at the leader.

Skipper looked up. His expression was fierce and determined.

"I love you too, Kowalski. I-I always have."

The doubting voice tried to say something to poison Skipper´s decision, but when Kowalski tackled him, it died immediately.

"Really?" Kowalski squeaked and kissed him. Then he pulled away, the red shining brightly from under his feathers as he realized what he just did.

"Nice," Skipper commented with a satisfied grin. "A little out of character, but nice." He pulled his new boyfriend back into another passionate kiss.

"Awwwww!" Rico cooed, grinning madly behind the camera.

"That is so cute!" Private joined in.

Skipper smirked as he put his flipper around Kowalski´s waist and helped him up.

"What are you two doing up and spying on us?"

"We knew it along, Skippah!" Private confessed.

"Yah, yu too ar bad at ke´ping sec´ets." Rico teased, turning his camera off. Skipper shooed them back into their bunks and convinced them to go to sleep, even though Private still wanted to watch the couple.

"You´ll have plenty chances of that in the future, now go to sleep, that´s an order!"

"Yes sir." With that, the Brit reluctantly climbed back in bed and went to sleep.

Skipper turned back to his lover. "So, Kowalski, which bunk should we sleep in? Yours or mine?"

Kowalski looked shocked at first. "What? You mean that we sleep- I mean, you and I?"

"Sure!"

Kowalski thought for a moment, then pulled Skipper into his own bunk. "We´ll sleep in yours, it´s walls needs a little decoration." He joked, grabbing his pencil from behind him.

Skipper chuckled, then kissed Kowalski's forehead and cuddled into him, falling asleep slowly, with his now new mate.

A\N: And now it´s…14:51. No, I did not write through the entire night. Anyway… tell me what you think! Criticism welcomed! xDD