Bad Language

Disclaimer: Animorphs belong to the lovely K.A. Applegate and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I am part of an Animorphs discussion forum called Project AM Forums. One time I bemoaned the lack of swearing in the book series, as Animorphs was realistic in every other way . . . except for the language, where the Animorphs just say "hell" or "crap". Then it soon came into agreement that it would be neat to see the Ax-man drop the F-bomb. I posted a rather stupid skit, which for some reason everybody found that terribly funny (much to my surprise).

So I wrote it again, this time in fanfic form. Enjoy, and don't forget to review! I love feedback.

Keep in mind this has some strong language, of course.

Jake has finally decided: Rachel is a worse influence than Marco as Ax explained his new studies on humans. Oh sure, she never really intended for the Ax-man to copy her moves, she likes it when no one tries to be her thank you.

Marco, on the other hand, feels like it should be everyone's duty to be like him. God knows that Marco's ego is so large it would put even the worse of Visser Three's morphs into shame.

He knew it was Rachel's doing because it certainly not Cassie or Tobias. Marco is on a three day vacation with his Dad, visiting some relatives, so he was not around when Ax started his bad habit. And it was definitely not Jake. He would never encourage such taboo behavior.

So it is Rachel who is to blame. Which is the entire reason why they left the mall to visit Rachel's house.

So what just did happened? Well . . .

Jake could never like the mall. Sure, it had cool stuff like the arcade or the video game store, but that's the only reason why he bother going before Elfangor. Now it became one of the few places where the Animorphs can have their meetings without looking suspicious. Ax once called it "a fantastic location to study the movement patters of humans and their consumption of products", so he often tried to go there often. Whatever that means.

"Thee. Theeess. This is an ex-EGGS-cellent food, Prince Jake," Ax commented one day, fingering the remains of his paper plate. They both ignored the stares of the other costumers. The workers moved along slowly, both recognizing Jake and Ax as regulars and not caring a whit.

"It is called an éclair, Ax-man," Jake said, yanking out dozens of the tissues out of the container. "Here, you got chocolate all over your face. Use these to wipe it."

Ax did, and when he finally finished he look down and saw the brown stains at the napkins. He let out a small moan and shoved the napkins down his mouth. Jake sighed and tried to tear off many napkins as they could before they disappear into Ax's throat.

"Ax, you are going to choke yourself. Knock it off."

"Buthf thefh are soth edibleth." Ax said, his voiced by paper-made tissues. A couple stared at him a table away and scooted their chairs away.

"The human mouth is not meant to eat tissues. Spit them out before I have to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on you." Jake had a sudden vision of squeezing Ax's chest while he spits out napkin after napkin.

Ax spat them out. Jake sighed again. The couple left.

As he gathered the napkins to toss them to the garbage, Ax spoke again, napkin-free.

"Prince Jake—"

"Don't call me Prince."

"Yes, Prince Jake."

Another sigh escaped from Jake.

"Prince Jake, what are we doing since now Marco is visiting his extended family?" He folded his fingers together with little difficulty.

"Nothing, really. Give ourselves a little break. Besides, we need Marco before we do anything." Jake sat down and gave his Sprite a sip.

"Yes, I can see we do rely on Marco as the master strageist of the group." Ax twiddled the straw of his water. "However, there is the possibility of the Chee giving the information we were waiting for the past two months."

Jake frowned. Again? "Until we can figure out what to do with the Morphing Ray, we have little choice but to wait it out. With something that big of an issue requires lots of planning and evaluating, Ax, and Marco is the man for the job. While we can think of a plan without him, we just don't cover every option like Marco does." Just talking about the war made Jake tired almost immediately.

"Yes, I understand. This Ray is such a fu-fu-fuCHING-fucking problem."

Jake's brain clicked. A mother walking past the table with her son covered her child's ears and glared at Ax. The remaining napkin on Ax's plate fluttered. The workers trudged on.

"…"

"Is there something wrong, Prince Jake?"

"Ax, don't say that word."

"What word? Wo—ORD?"

"The, uh, f-word."

Ax looked confused. "Fuh—fuh—fucking?"

Jake squirmed. He's not too sure why he should be uncomfortable with Ax's swearing. Normally he didn't had a problem with swearing itself, often times his mother would whack at his head with whatever manuscript she had whenever he swears.

"Erm, yes, that."

Now Ax looked even more confused, as if that was even possible. "Is this word taboo?"

"Uh, sort of."

"But Rachel does it all the time."

Well, that explains a lot, Jake thought. "Yeah, but that's Rachel. From you it just sounds creepy." And it was true. Jake did Ax hear saying some Andalite-esque words, but he thought those were just terms for Andalite . . . stuff. Maybe that was Ax swearing himself.

Ax now looked thoughtful. "I see."

Jake got up. He and Rachel are going to have a long talk. "Cinnabon?"

"What do mean tone it down? He said he wanted to know about humans, what does one word had to change his goddamn cirruculm?"

"See! Anyway, you weren't there. It just sounded creepy, and now he's spurting human swear words this and that. You are a terrible influence, Rachel."

"Sucks to be him. Anyway, it is not like he sprouted the word fuck every other five seconds."

At that moment, Ax decided to enter Rachel's room.

"Raaachel? Your younger-ger-nger sister slipped on the stairs and feeelll—fell on her assssss—ARssss—ass. She is sprouting biologically-made water from her eyes, I think you might need to go fu-FUCH-fucking see to her."

Rachel's supermodel face froze. She rolled her eyes left and right woodenly, like a broken doll being shaken slightly.

"See?" Jake pressed, failing to squash the humor out of his voice.

Rachel recovered and glared at Jake. "Shut the fuck up."