AUTHOR'S NOTE: I think this has made itself into a series. Whee. Anyway, here we go into what happened when Marco got to the apartment and afterwards. Marco POV again...it'll be switching between the two. Be warned, kiddies -- there are some colorful words in this chapter. Oh, and I'm thinking about maybe making this into a bit of a C/J story, too. It'll still be primarily M/A, but with a touch of C/J. What do you guys think?
Hope you enjoy this chapter!

What was he thinking? What the hell had he been thinking? He'd freaked out because, just a little, he hadn't minded kissing Ax. God, Marco thought, he was such a stupid bastard at times. What was the big deal, anyway? It was just a simple mistake...nothing else. Really.
So Marco set off running back to the apartment, heedless of the fact that Ax was already walking as far from it as he could, in the exact opposite direction.

Marco banged on the door of Ax's apartment as loudly as he could. There was no answer. Marco frowned and fiddled with the doorknob, and to his surprise the door swung open. Hesitantly, Marco walked in. Where the heck had Ax gone? Everything was still here, including that damned tabloid. Marco searched the living room. No sign of Ax. The kitchen contained no Ax. After a moment or two, Marco decided to check both the bedroom and bathroom. Nothing.
Marco threw himself on the couch, feeling both extremely pissed and worried. Mostly pissed off at himself for being such a jackass, ticked that Ax had apparently run off somewhere, and worried that Ax had run off somewhere and wasn't coming back.

Marco had to wrestle a serious urge to beat himself up at the moment. Why was he being such a stupid little idiot? All he'd done was kiss the guy, and probably just because he was feeling a bit down...maybe still a bit drunk. It wasn't like he'd done it because he liked Ax or anything. Even if it sent chills up his spine even now... Maybe he was bi and hadn't figured it out 'til now, Marco considered. It was possible, right?

Oh fuck.

Marco slammed his head into the back of the couch and groaned loudly. That beer must've affected him a lot more than he'd thought. He hoped.
Forcing himself to forget the situation for a while, Marco almost just walked out of the apartment. But just in case, he decided to leave a note for Ax. It simply read 'We need to talk. See ya later, Marco.' Then Marco walked out.

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After missing the towel about three times, Marco washed the water (and lingering shampoo) out of his burning eyes. After finally getting home and sobering up a bit, he still found himself way beyond confused -- no pun intended. So he had the brillant idea to talk to Cassie and see if she could help him form any sort of idea. However, he had a small suspicion that Cassie wouldn't exactly appreciate him showing up in the stinking and filthy clothes he'd been wearing since his minor beer binge. So he had to clean up.
So he did, more or less; then headed out to see Cassie.

It was sometime around two in the afternoon when Cassie heard the sound of a car pulling up to her house. She thought that maybe it was Ronnie, but the guy coming out of the car was way too short to be him...
"Marco!" Cassie called out, running out the door. Marco looked up, a bit surprised. Cassie ran over and hugged him tightly. "It's been forever! How've you been?" She brightly asked her friend.
Marco shrugged. "I've been having a weird day."
Cassie raised an eyebrow. "Weird? In what way?"
To Cassie's surprise, Marco turned a bit red. "Um...could we talk about that someplace else? Like, inside?"
Cassie laughed and dragged Marco inside her house. "Sure."
It wasn't exactly a glamourous place or anything...not like that was expected, this was Cassie after all. But it was comfy, more or less. And to Marco it was about a thousand times better than talking about this outside. There was no way Marco was going to let any of what happened last night become public. At the very least, not for a long time...the funny part was that if any media dorks had seen him outside, they'd be writing mountains of bull crap about him and Cassie. Oops, wrong Animorph.

"So," Cassie said, sitting down on a chair while Marco took a seat in the couch next to it. "What's up?"
"I feel like I'm talking to a therapist..." Marco commented, which caused Cassie to burst into giggles.
"Well, I can assure you that whatever you tell me won't leave this room." Cassie told Marco.
"Thanks." Marco said. He took a long, deep sigh. "I don't know what to think, Cassie..." he muttered.
"It started last night." Marco said, frowning. "Candice broke up with me, and I did something really stupid."
"Yeah?" Cassie said, glancing at Marco. "What did you do?" Marco laughed nervously, and looked away.
"Promise me you're not gonna fall out of your seat?" Marco asked. Cassie nodded. "Okay." Marco said.
"Last night, I..." Marco paused for a moment, not entirely sure he wanted to say this. "I...kissed Ax."
"You what?" Cassie asked, gaping at Marco in surprise. "I mean, I just never expected that you would..."
"Neither did I." Marco muttered as he glared daggers at Cassie, who had composed herself.
"Well, what do you think about it?" Cassie asked Marco, now sitting next to him. "What are you going to do?"
Marco sighed. "I don't think I really have much of a choice there, whatever I choose. I think Ax ran off on me."

Cassie had to fight a sudden urge to strangle Marco. Whatever he'd done to cause Ax to run off couldn't be good. Besides, Cassie also had a small sneaking suspicion that this whole thing had really scared her short friend for reasons he couldn't admit to himself yet. She had never said anything, but she always kind of thought that it was odd how Marco had such bad luck with girls. Of course, he was a big dork and that didn't entirely help matters if the girl had no sense of humor; but something about it had always irked her. Not that if Marco was attracted to guys...it wouldn't bother her any, but what about Marco himself? Cassie was worried -- what if she was right?
"Marco, why did he do that?" Cassie inquired, looking at her friend straight in the eye. Marco gulped, Cassie was starting to get a little bit scary...
"Well, I sort of ran away." Marco mumbled. Cassie couldn't understand what he'd said for her life. "Repeat that?"
"I. Ran. Away." Marco repeated, refusing to look at Cassie now. Cassie herself was looking at Marco with an extremely troubled expression. It wasn't like him to be this hard on himself...

"Why?" Cassie whispered in a voice that was barely audible. "Why did you run away, Marco?"
Now it was Marco's turn to look troubled. "I'm not totally sure. It's not like I meant for that to happen, and I wasn't expecting it, and I guess that I kind of got scared." He said.
"I don't know why I would be, though. That's stupid. So I accidentally kiss a good friend of mine, so what?" Marco was just rambling out loud. "That's no big deal. Really, I'm not into guys in that way or anything. I don't like him or anything like that..." Then he stopped talking. Cassie placed a hand on his shoulder. They sat in the silence for a few moments before there was a knocking on the door. "Ronnie." Cassie said, glancing at Marco.
"Go ahead, go see your boyfriend." Marco said as he got up off the couch. "Besides, I've got to go find somebody anyway. I have my own things to work out." He added, smiling to himself.
Cassie gave him one final hug. "Take care of yourself." She told Marco. The knocking got more persistent.
Cassie practically shoved Marco out the door. "Go on, you idiot! Go!" She scolded him, which got her a weird look from Ronnie. Marco almost fell flat on his face from the force of Cassie's push out the door.
"What was that all about?" Ronnie asked Cassie, looking totally dumbfounded.
"Oh, that..." Cassie said, winking at Marco as he ran off. "He just had someplace to go."
"Must've been really important." Ronnie commented.

Important. That was just the word to describe it, Marco thought as he headed off a search for somebody he really needed to talk to...
This wasn't something he could just try and forget. Cassie wouldn't ever let him. And he was thankful for it.