AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yay...lotsa foreshadowing, some of it subtle, most of it not. This is actually one of the much, much longer chapters of this story. Chalk it up to an excess of ideas, since I haven't written for while. But here we are! The story behind Pirateland? Truthfully?
....I wanted to see Marco in a pirate hat. Yes, I know I'm weird. I've just realized something...Ax has been living on Earth for at least three months now and I have absolutely no idea how he gets his money. I need to invent a job for this poor bum! Anybody have any ideas? Oh, and I wrote a kind of romantic kiss in this chapter. I feel proud of myself.
Why ask, not like anyone reads this...**shakes head** I'm just kidding, folks. =)

The first thing Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthil did was sleep. He had demorphed, closed the door of his apartment, and then finally slept. He hadn't gotten but four hours of sleep these past two days.
And sleep was such a relief. After the last two days, everything that had happened, Ax really needed to sleep.
Not that he couldn't keep thinking about everything that happened, he thought with a slight smile. But why not save that for later, when his mind was fully alert?
Also, sleep could distract him from the one thing that bothered him about the past two days...a strange, large, rasping voice that seemed to be calling him.
Maybe sleep would even make it stop, that was the most likely cause...

Right?

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It was sometime later when Ax was woken up by the sound of a ringing phone. He'd gotten it installed a few weeks ago, something left behind by the previous tenants who had lived here. The phone had been viciously ripped from its cords, a reminder of "an angry husband", the landlady had mumbled. She hadn't offered any more information, though Ax could guess at her underlying meaning. Ax had been thinking he should have a phone, just in case of an emergency. So after a month of just plain being lazy about it, he finally got it installed...which had been a rather annoying experience, since the man who had come to install it was having trouble with what was a fairly simple task. I could have installed it myself, if not for the legal problems that would present... Ax thought to himself.
At the moment, the phone was ringing like a cruel siren screaming "Wake up!" By the time he had mostly finished his morph to human, the answering machine (an old one Marco had given him, ironically) had already caught the message.
"Hello? This is E.T. phoning home. Well, since you're obviously not home..." Ax snatched the black receiver of the phone and placed it next to his ear. "Hello." Ax mumbled unintelligibly into the phone.
"Wow. You're either drunk or I woke you up." Marco commented. "Uh...I did wake you up, right, Ax-man?"
"Yes, I'm awake...but not entirely. Eee..." Ax half-said, half-mumbled. Marco seemed to find that amusing.
"Look, I'm sorry about that. But, why I called was that...well...do you feel like going anywhere tonight?"
It took a while for Ax's brain to process those words. "Perhaps when I am fully awake, yes, I would like that."
Marco laughed. "Try some coffee. Well, I'll be there in about twenty minutes. Is that good for you?" He asked.
"Yes, twenty minutes should be enough for me to be fully awake." Ax replied, this time speaking coherently.
"Fully awake and dressed, I'd hope. Of course..." Ax threatened to hang up before Marco could finish. After saying a quick goodbye, Ax did hang up. He had to wonder how in the world his short companion could be so perky...he'd had even less sleep than Ax himself had. Wait..what had he suggested?

Coffee. It had to be coffee.

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After spending a few minutes searching for any slightly clean clothes, Ax finally salvaged a pair of jeans and a pale blue shirt from within the recesses of his home. Then he morphed into human, and reflected for a moment that he was hardly ever in his true Andalite body anymore, excepting when he slept. He would even find himself spending the majority of the day in morph, sometimes very dangerously nearing the two-hour morphing limit.
Though he told himself it was for reasons of both protection and privacy -- he didn't want to draw too much attention to himself, already quite aware of the unwanted publicity being a member of the Animorphs could bring. Not even mentioning both the suspicion and rampant curiosity he got for being, plain and simple, an Andalite.
Then Ax heard the voice, and felt his body freeze. Loud yet quiet, eloquent but rasping, it spoke to him.

YOU FOOL, EVERYDAY YOU SPEND YOU'RE MORE HUMANOID. YOU MAY WELL AS BECOME ONE.
ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS. NOTHING LASTS FOREVER...

With some violent shakes of his head and a shiver quite unrelated to the weather, Ax snapped back to reality. He forced the voice, and it's subtle threats, from his mind. He had something more important to think about, as it was. Ax set to finding his shoes.

In another fifteen minutes -- minutes Ax had used to clean out his pastry box -- he heard knocking at the door.
He went to open the wooden door, feeling more than slightly nervous of all a sudden...then he suddenly felt that feeling sink.
"Oh, were you excepting someone, sonny boy?" Teased Ax's gruff and old landlady. Then her face turned stony.
"Maybe if you spent less time on impressing the girlies you could pay your rent, you lazy bum." She scolded, and Ax caught her mumbling to herself, "Hell, he's probably a fruit..." Without realizing he wasn't supposed to have heard that, Ax prompted the landlady. "What do you mean by a fruit? I am not a type of food."
The landlady slowly turned and looked at Ax for a long time. "You really live a sheltered life, don't you?" Ax had no idea how to reply.
Luckily, the landlady explained for him. "You know, a fruit. A man who..." Ax's landlady paused for a moment, she didn't like discussing uncomfortable subjects. "Enjoys the company of other men, you see."

Ax saw what she meant, but could only nod in reply. The landlady, very eager to change the subject, bluntly said, "You owe me $300 bucks by Friday, mister. I don't care how you get it, but I'd hate to kick you out...you're one of the nice ones." Ax nodded and told the woman repeatedly that he would get her the money.
"Um, hello?" Both Ax and his grumpy landlady looked past the open door to see Marco standing there with a look of extreme confusion his face. "Who are you?" Demanded Ax's landlady, marching up to poor Marco.
"He's a friend." Ax quickly answered, and walked out the door. "Now, I'd like it if you left now, since I won't be home for a while." Ax told his landlady. After much resistance, she walked out of the apartment.
"Can we please go now?" Ax asked.

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Much to Ax's relief, Marco had agreed and they were now driving to...well, come to think of it...
"Where are we going?" Ax asked the short one, who was now driving the car. "You had not told me that piece of information."
Marco rolled his eyes. "That's because it's a surprise, Ax-man." Ax felt a deep sense of dread at that answer, but pressed no further. After all, he was a warrior. He could withstand whatever horror was going to present itself.
Moments later, the car ended up in front of what Ax saw was a very large plot of land covered in various strange looking contraptions that held screaming humans inside. Or in other words, an amusement park.
"Welcome to Pirateland." Marco announced. Without any further adieu, he forced Ax out of the car and dragged him to the rides.

After riding the log ride, the Tilt-a-Whirl, avoiding the roller coasters almost religiously, and getting many weird looks from people, and then riding the log ride again, both the boys decided they needed drinks. So they chose a place right next to Ye Olde Gift Shoppe, and then Marco went to get some sodas. Ax sighed and slouched down in his chair, replaying the memory of that strange and threatening voice. Was he losing his mind? After all the events of the war, had he finally lost his grip on sanity? Or was it something else? The Ellimist, perhaps?
With a heavy sigh, Ax finally sat up straight and looked behind him and saw Marco heading towards the table with drinks. Ax smiled...but then he grew stiff again.

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, AXIMILI-ESGARROUTH-ISTHIL. FOR NO ONE IS ANYTHING ETERNAL, ANDALITE, OR HUMAN, OR YEERK. AND I WILL MAKE CERTAIN THAT FOR YOU, THIS WILL STAY THE TRUTH. WATCH YOUR BACK.

Shaking more violently than ever, Ax started to hyperventilate as he finally slammed back to the present. He had to fight an urge to collapse onto the table. Gripping the table tightly, Ax's shaking stopped. He let out a soft, trembling breath. He heard the sound of footsteps, of somebody running.
"Hey, Ax-man! Ax! Are you all right?" Ax nodded slowly, still not completely in control of his body.
"It must be the heat. Perhaps I should demorph?" Marco nodded, distractedly. Then to Ax's surprise, he felt himself being lifted from the chair. Then his surprise turned to irritation as Marco more or less started leading him to the bathrooms. "I can still walk." Ax hissed, feeling quite undignified. Marco laughed. "You honestly expect me to believe that?

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Ax was feeling much better now, having demorphed and morphed once again. He was nearly fully dressed when he heard Marco asking if he needed help. "No, I do not." Ax answered, "I am not certain you would help me, per se."
Ax heard him laughing at that, nervous laughter, but laughter all the same. When Ax opened the door to the bathroom stall and walked out, the laughter had stopped.
"I guess this means no more amusement parks for us, huh?" Marco said, half-serious, half-joking. Ax had no reply to that, but then Marco kept on talking. "I'll drive you home." Ax felt disappointed. Aside from when he had nearly fainted, it had been a nice day. He hadn't wanted it to end yet...
"Could we go to the gift shop first?" Ax asked suddenly, causing Marco to look up at him. Ax sighed and leaned up against the stall before he spoke again.
"I would like a souvenir of some kind, since this is a somewhat special occasion..." Ax suddenly turned his attention to his shoes as he continued, "But I also do not wish for it to end yet." There was a moment of awkward silence then. Then Ax started making his way out, right before Marco spoke. "It doesn't have to end yet."
Everything seemed to slow down, but then it sped up again at an alarming rate as the two felt their lips connect. It had started soft, gentle, but then it started to change. So very different from the first time this happened, something accidental and nearly terrifying. But now, it had evolved beyond that. It was something that was fiery, something breathtaking, something that...snapping to their senses, they broke it off. Neither of them moved for a moment.

"Well..." Marco said, letting loose a shaky breath. "Let's go to the gift shop, and then I'll drive you home."
"Yes. It would be best if I came home soon. I may miss the Brady Brunch reruns." Ax said.

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Four minutes later, Marco and Ax got back into the car, wearing identical pirates hats that had a picture of a skull on the front, and the words 'Pirateland Amusement Park' on the back. Marco declared he was wearing it under much protest. They also had bought a pair of wooden swords, which were now in the backseat.
It wasn't a long ride from Pirateland to Ax's apartment and back, maybe 20 minutes, give or take a few. Halfway through, Ax decided to voice something he'd been wondering about, ever since that morning two days ago, but particularly now.
"I know you are busy driving, but I would like to ask you something." Ax said.
"What?" Marco asked, just barely missing a red light.
"I am wondering if we are going to tell the truth." Ax stated, looking away so he wouldn't see the expression on Marco's face. There was a pause in the conversation for just a moment. "I don't know. Should we?" Marco asked.
"If we keep going to places, like we did today, people will eventually notice." Ax said, now looking up at the sky -- Marco's car didn't have a top. Unnoticed by Ax, Marco nodded in silent agreement.
"That's true. But there are a lot of things to consider...I have my career, and if we came out, I'm not sure you'd be welcomed back into Andalite society with open arms." Marco said, mostly thinking aloud. Ax snorted at the mention of his homeworld, surprising both Marco and himself.
"I do not wish to stop having your company, despite that." Ax replied, surprised by the realization he was being completely sincere about that. But he was shocked again when he heard Marco softly whisper, "Neither do I."

Then suddenly, Marco stopped. Ax realized that they were back at his apartment. Ax got out of the car, reluctantly.
"I'll be seeing you sometime, Marco." Ax said.
"Yeah...later, Ax-man!" Marco said, waving goodbye as he drove off.
Ax stayed and watched until Marco drove off, a small speck in the distance. But to his horror, Ax almost swore he heard a loud and rasping laughing in the back of his mind...

To the Fans [insert upbeat music here]

Doctor Strangelove - Wow, another M/A fan! I'm glad you like the fic! And Tilopid will show up again, in the next chapter

Forlay - Wow, I do have fans! **eyes fill with tears** I'm so happy! Um, to the review...wow, I actually thought up Tilopid's hair color on a whim! And I'll try my best to keep the good lines. And I think the fic is going to start taking an unexpected turn...