You Don't Say, a sky high fanfic

Could you imagine that?

Have some ice cream for your sweet tooth.

"Would you just leave me alone?"

"No! I mean, really."

"Really what, Williams." He growled, turning a corner and adjusting his bag on his back swiftly.

"Really...really - oh, just...Lash c'mon. Going to that school will ruin you."

"And how do you know that." He continued to saunter down the hall, the redhead on his tail before he took a sharp turn into a bank of lockers. "You don't even go past the fact that you're a true hero, not a measly little sidekick that you chose to be." He picked up pace. "Who are you to say anything?"

"You shouldn't talk that way." Layla whispered, leaning her head again the locker beside his when he reached it. She ignored his probable compliment. Lash's eyes were only for the locker combination spinning beneath his fingertips, but that was only stopped once she sighed, her large green eyes slowly closing. "You know that you're one as well."

"Clearly, Gwen had other ideals for me. That's why I'm leaving after the semester passes." It was a blank statement, but Layla bit her lip with anticipation.

"But..." Lash turned to her slowly, dumping all of the books in his bag into his locker, avoiding any of his green-penned drawings to be ruined from their fall to the bottom. "But you know that your place is here."

"S'not, Lay." He whispered, letting the locker gently click closed. His forehead touched the cool metal, and he breathed out calmly. "I don't belong in Sky High." Layla whimpered beside him. "Not anymore."

Once his feet took him away from the hall, he began to hear Layla's footsteps behind him. "Lash, Lash wait up."

"Would you quit it? Layla, we're not kids anymore. Leave me alone."

He went home that day, slamming all of the framed photos of him and his lost friend to the floor. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't have to think about it. Because his mind was already made up. He'd be going to Royal Pain's School for the Future Villains, and there was no one to stop him. Not even her. He made sure that this was what he wanted. It was. He'd be able to train as a villain - what his childhood dreams have always been.

It was always easy, to play the villain. Always getting your way, the evil laughs were most enjoyable to listen - almost music to his ears. Lash smirked at the thought, and rolled over on his bedspread to face the window, scratching patterns on his postered white wall. He didn't want to think about it. About her. She was a tick. A bother. Nowadays their past was less important - less fragile to his mind now.

"I hate you." He muttered to nothing, shaking his head slowly. Lash's eyes closed and all he could see was their past. Their friendship. They were so...young. Not that any of it mattered any longer. She was just the girl around the corner - the one who always made sense.

Lash sat up, and snarled at the thought. He hated how Layla was always the wise one. Why couldn't he have been the one to make the right choices in life for them? Oh, well, he did. He chuckled, stuffing his face into his pillow. He made his choice earlier on in the year, and he'd soon move around from the sky to the underground. Under a graveyard, could you imagine? A school beneath the dead? It only slightly made sense - a school above the clouds, the birds, and a school beneath the ground, about many levels of people...

He shook his head. This was worth it. He knew it would be.

At school, all he could see in the halls were of Layla. Her begging eyes, large and green. He wanted to staple them shut on some occasions in passing, because his usual smirk, his usual sneer - were always disrupted. Their eyes meeting, hurt his insides, filling with what he thought were stones. Stones? Lash doesn't eat stones, what the hell?

Guilt, was the one word floating through his mind. But did he know the meaning of it? Has he had this feeling before?

"You're changing your mind." He heard her whisper behind him, and he ripped his face to turn to her in the lunch line.

"Goddamn, Hippie." He growled. He hasn't used that name for her in so many years. It was only used when he was annoyed. Only whenever he was in the mood to make her shed a few tears. "Would you quit it?"

"No. I can see it, Lash. You're deciding not -" She was interrupted by her ex-boyfriend, Stronghold - still the overprotective friend, Lash thought sourly, pushing his tray down the metal counter, accepting a slice of pizza and a small soda can.

"Lay - Lay, could you get me a chicken sandwich?" Thrusting the money into her hands, Stronghold smiled widely, kissing her cheek and running off before she could even answer. Lash saw the hurt in her eyes. How distant she had just become. Did Stronghold have no idea how badly he hurt her whenever he was so close like that?

"How nice of him to remember the smallest details, isn't he?" Lash muttered sourly before he paid for his meal, taking full steps to his shared table with Speed.

"Lash. Please." It was all he heard during his free period. In the library, it's usually calm, and quiet. "Talk to me?"

"Lahlah, you're pissing me off." Her exasperated sigh beside him was slowly disappearing as her fingers touched his arm. "Don't."

"Lash, really. You can't go. It wouldn't be right."

"I don't belong here. How many times do I have to tell you this?" It was almost an uproar - Lash stood up, and pushed the chair away, looking away from the green eyes that would look deeper into him than he would have hoped. She was always doing that. "I don't belong in Sky High. I never did."

"Auuhn, you don't know what you're talking about!" She cried, covering her mouth quickly and ducking behind a bookcase before the librarian could catch her. "You just, don't, Livingston! You don't know what you'll be getting yourself into." She added with a whisper.

"Oh, but I do."

He left the area quickly. Lash couldn't speak much further.

And then that faithful day came, where he caught her staring at him while he walked by her and the gang. He went completely psychotic. Reaching beyond the little black boy and the Glow Worm, as well as the short Stronghold, his eyes were menacing and desperate. Lash grabbed at her hair, trying to pull her away from them all and their little laughter and jokes.

He tugged at her shirt, pulling her back and into him. "Lash, wha...?" She exclaimed, tripping backwards into his chest.

"Let's go." Lash dragged her away and turned a corner, quickly avoiding any of her gang's cries to stop, any of their petty calls to come back. Their footsteps were thumping on the floor, but Lash managed to get to his own locker, shoving her in first and flattening himself out for more room. The only echo in the hall now was of the slam of Lash's locker, and of their shouts.

"Why are we in here." Layla muttered, her green eyes in the dark. Her shoulders were scrunched against the sides of the locker, and he heard her squirm and grunt for a comfortable-as-possible position.

"You...gotta tell me why."

"I'm asking you!" She cried, lifting her arms slightly to hug herself, almost having enough room to breathe. Lash leveled out, squishing his body against hers. "And would you mind?" Her hands fell upon his chest, and his eyes closed, seeing that there was no difference in the lighting. Her hands were warm on his shirt, the heat sinking past the cotton and into his skin.

"No - I meant, you gotta tell me why you don't want me to leave."

She fell silent. Their ears could pick up the voices of her friends, some banging on the lockers for a response, some racing past to see if they had gone down another hall. Her breath was on his neck, powerful and hot. "I just don't think you're the type to become so...evil."

"You don't believe I can do it." He said incredibly. Unbelievable! Of all those years, she hadn't thought that he, Lash Livingston, was worthy of being evil. All those times when he scared the minutes out of her life, the times he pulled the pranks on her. Never once?

"Lash," she began, sighing slowly, making his skin crawl. It made him twitch. Such a sigh on his flesh made him want to shiver uncontrollably. "You may have always thought that you could become something powerful like Royal Pain, but you can't. Sarah never brought you up that way. You were just a bully." She shook her head, and Lash tried to shove her fingers away from reach - but she had stiffened. "You'd be a better hero, than a measly little muscle."

"Little muscle?" He questioned, his eyebrows rising a bit into his hair.

"Yes." It was simple, and quiet, as they both heard her friends' shouting coming back. "You aren't a villain." Layla's arms snuck around his waist, and her head ducked low into his collar as he thought. "You never were, and I know for a fact that you could never be."

Lash was angry. "How the hell, Lay. Never a fact. You can't prove that."

"Yes I can." It was gritted, and unlike her. The redhead had pulled away her arms from him, and almost growled when Lash reached for her chin, keeping her still. "I can, I can."

"Prove it. I dare you." His voice was rusty, maddening.

"If you were a villain, Lash, you wouldn't be asking me why you are to stay." He released her, but she continued. "You would have left it alone. You wouldn't feel unsure. You would have been gone by now."

"I am, I am gone, don't you see?"

"And if you were a villain, Lash," her voice was getting louder. "You wouldn't have stayed to notice me any longer!" He froze. "You wouldn't be around to notice that I STILL LOVE YOU." Her head hit the back of his locker, and he mashed his lips on hers.

"I am gone. I am." She pulled him towards her, and he shook his head. "I just needed to say goodbye."

Loud banging on his locker broke their conversation for only a moment, and they heard the shouts of Will and everyone else. "Layla, Layla are you in there? We can't get the door open!"

"Of course you can't. Only I can." Lash snarled, kicking it so that they would be quiet. Layla's fingers slowly traced his cheek, and he sighed. "I just needed to say goodbye." He repeated.

Layla smiled a little smile, and Lash held her tightly. "Villains don't say goodbye, Lash."

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