A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter! I'm really excited about where this story is heading :)
Only 10 minutes into the chemistry lesson, Lewis realises that he can't do this. The experiment involves too much water. It's way too risky. Lewis was dumb to have thought it could have worked out fine. At the current moment, Lewis is sitting as far away from his group's experiment area on the lab bench as possible, whilst his lab partner Chloe works on their experiment all on her own. The Bunsen burner is turned on with a beaker of bubbling water on top of it, and Chloe is about to add the next ingredient into the beaker, preparing for the next stage of the experiment. Chloe looks up at Lewis with annoyance.
"Seriously, Lewis? You're not going to help me at all? Are you at least writing notes?!" Chloe scolds her lab partner, extremely unimpressed. Lewis shrugs his shoulders apologetically, not taking his eyes off the water in the beaker, scared that it will jump out at him at any moment. Lewis has to be prepared to make a run for it. Lewis can feel Chloe's eyes trained on him as she waits for a response.
"I-I... I just can't, Chloe... I'm sorry..." Lewis stammers, finally risking looking up at his lab partner. She looks enraged, and almost drops the vial of liquid in her hand as her attention focuses on Lewis instead of the experiment.
"What do you mean you can't?! This isn't an individual experiment, Lewis! You're the best at chemistry out of every student in this room! Why are you really not wanting to do this experiment?!" Chloe demands to know. Lewis cringes internally, knowing that their argument has caught the attention of other students, and no doubt it's starting to catch Ms Taylor's attention as well.
"Just drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about it." Lewis pleads tiredly.
"You're not even writing notes of the experiment and our observations so far for us. You do know that we have to write a report on this, right?" Chloe scowls in anger and exasperation.
"Of course I know that, Chloe. It'll be fine, I promise. We will work it out." Lewis sighs, rubbing a hand over his face in exhaustion. He's sick of this. He can't keep doing this. How is he supposed to live his life as normal if he springs a tail (which he definitely doesn't want by the way) any time he touches water? How can he become a proper scientist if he can't get some water spilled on him? Lewis wouldn't even be able to last one week at University, both in class and outside of class! Lewis' life is over!
In the exact same moment as Lewis' anger, fear, despair and sadness all come to a boil and Lewis wants to scream, the water in all of the beakers in the chemistry suddenly explode upwards, causing water to spray everywhere and over everyone. The sound of glass shattering can't be heard over the sound of students screaming in shock and fear. Confused as to what the hell is happening, Lewis tries to leap backwards from the exploding water, but he's too late; a huge splash of water from another classmate's beaker lands directly on Lewis' flailing hands. Thankfully, the water from that beaker hadn't warmed up too much yet so it doesn't burn, but unfortunately that is not Lewis' biggest concern at the moment. He feels his heart sink into his stomach, fear and panic taking a hold of him, eyes going wide in horror, knowing exactly what is going to happen next.
With everyone being distracted by the spontaneous explosion of water, Lewis runs out of the lab as quickly as he possibly can, with his heart pounding rapidly in his chest. Time feels like it is going in slow motion, as Lewis shoves past people in the walkway, even pushing a few people to the ground. Usually, Lewis would apologise endlessly for something like that, but right now, it's either one or two people getting some light scratches, or Lewis ending up in a display tank or some sort of science lab. He swears that one of the people he runs into is Zane, but Lewis doesn't have time to stop and notice. Lewis races to the storage room just a few doors down from the chemistry lab and locks himself inside just in time before his body becomes water once more, his legs beginning to fuse together. In the next second, Lewis has his blue fish tail back once again, and is falling forwards, painfully and loudly crashing into brooms and supply boxes. This is soon followed by a knock on the door, causing Lewis to freeze in terror.
Zane is walking down the walkway, heading back to his car, as he has just finished his final class for the day. He technically has two free lesson time slots still to go, but why bother spending them in this hell? Might as well go and relax at home.
However, Zane is pulled out of his relief of being done with school for the day when a body slams into his, sending Zane tumbling to the ground, feeling shocked.
"Hey! What the hell?! Watch where you're going, lunatic!" Zane yells angrily as he gets back on his feet and stares in the direction the shover is running. It only takes a moment for Zane to recognise that mop blond blond hair and ugly plaid t-shirt sprinting for dear life.
"...Lewis?" Zane frowns in confusion as he watches Lewis push past several more people before running into a storage room and closing the door behind him. Having nothing better to do, Zane follows after Lewis. The two might not be super close friends or anything, but Zane at least wants to know what the hell happened, why Lewis was in such a hurry and seemed so... so panicked.
Once again, Zane is pulled out of his thoughts as he hears a loud crashing sound and a cry of surprise and pain coming from the storage room.
"What the?" Zane mutters to himself as he quickens his pace, hurrying over to the storage room. Zane tries to open the door, but finds it locked. Out of the corner of his eye, Zane can see dozens of people staring at him, wondering what all the noise and confusion is about. Zane knocks on the door quickly.
"Lewis, what the hell are you doing in there? What was that crashing noise? Don't you have chemistry right now?" Zane begins in an interrogative tone, not wanting to leave this door until he can get some damn answers for the weird shit that Lewis just pulled.
"Go away, Zane! You're the last person I want to talk to right now!" Lewis yells back in response.
"What happened?" Zane tries again, even more determined to get to the truth purely to annoy Lewis. It is definitely not because Zane actually somewhat cares for the nerd. That'd be ridiculous. Only reason that Zane hangs around Lewis in the first place is because he's friends with Rikki, Emma and Cleo. Of course they're going to be hanging around each other some of the time, especially since Rikki and Cleo are their girlfriends. The two of them barely tolerate each other even when they are working together to try and protect the girls. There's no way that Zane would actually care about Lewis himself, it's just the consequences that would follow with Rikki if Zane just let this go. Yeah, that's what it is.
"I'm fine! Just go away!" Lewis shouts defensively through the door.
"Oh god, you're not crying are you?" Zane asks with a groan.
"No! I just want to be left alone!" Lewis replies, a hint of anger and frustration underlying his tone.
"Did something happen with you and Cleo?" Zane asks in a slightly softer tone. As much as he hates to admit it, Zane would actually be upset if Lewis and Cleo broke up... again. Ever since primary school, although not officially together, it has always been Lewis and Cleo. The pair were inseparable. Back when he was seven, he even made a bet with Nate that Lewis and Cleo would be married one day. Zane still stands by that bet, and is expecting Nate to pay up good. It'd be great to see Nate super pissed off about them being together too, since he's always had a bit of a crush on Cleo. Unrequited, of course. Even though Nate is Zane's friend, Nate is still a major asshole.
Anyhow, Zane truly believes that Cleo and Lewis are clearly meant for each other, for so many reasons. Lewis and Cleo's relationship does effect the whole group as well, so if one is off, then the other one is too. And besides, even if Lewis is a dweeb, Zane understands how bad heartbreak and regret hurts. He doesn't wish anyone to go through it. Somehow, Zane got lucky when Rikki gave him a second chance. Cleo gave Lewis a second chance as well. Did he blow it somehow?
"No, it's not that, Zane, but can you please just... go. I'll be fine. I'll be out in a minute. I just needed to be by myself and get out of that classroom." Zane hears Lewis sigh sadly through the door. Zane frowns in concern.
"Look, Lewis, I know we haven't really exactly gotten off on the right foot in the past, but... it's just too weird seeing you like this. Stop being so mopey." Zane replies, feeling a bit awkward as he brings feelings up in the conversation. Ugh, the worst. Especially when half of the school is watching:
"Look. Zane. If you really want to help me, you would just turn around and walk away." Lewis states curtly, leaving no room for argument.
Zane wants to retaliate and argue back to Lewis, never wanting to back down so easily. However in this particular instance, Zane doesn't think he will be able to get any sort of answers out of Lewis. Whatever happened must have really spooked him, and Zane definitely wouldn't have been one of Lewis' top choices of who to confide in anyway. Maybe it's just best for Zane to drop it.
"Ugh. Whatever, just don't say I didn't try to help you," Zane scoffs before walking away, trying play the whole thing off as cool as possible. With that, Zane turns around and walks away, not caring that people stare at him as he does so. He knew he wasn't going to get any answers out of Lewis any time soon. Perhaps Cleo knows what's going on with the geek? Zane decides that he will have to ask her at some point. Not that he actually cares about Lewis, he just doesn't want his problems interfering with Zane and Rikki's relationship. Nothing more.
"Come on, everyone. Show's over." Zane says as he glances around at the gawking teenagers, suggesting that they all go back to class. Eventually, they seem to all disperse in different directions, seemingly not interested in Lewis' weird behaviour and the fact that he still hasn't come out of the storage room.
Zane however, is still filled with suspicion. He strongly suspects that Lewis is hiding something, Zane just doesn't know what. Zane sighs as he continues to make his way back to his car, trying to push the strange incident to the back of his mind. Right now, Zane doesn't want to worry about Lewis. He wants to actually enjoy his early freedom from the tortures of school.